5 min read

Published 04. November 2025

By Vibeke

Share

The National Museum in Oslo: 6 iconic pieces you can’t miss

Oslo may be compact, but it thinks big – especially when it comes to art. The National Museum is proof: a monumental space that now anchors the city’s new skyline and offers a quintessential Norwegian cultural experience.

For travellers seeking the best cultural experiences in Oslo, this museum is a must-visit, offering a comprehensive view of the art of Norway, from 19th-century romantic landscapes to modern masterpieces. With over 6,500 works on display, it can feel overwhelming, but the key is to slow down and let a few carefully chosen masterpieces tell Norway’s story for you.

To help you navigate this treasure trove, Hanne Marie Willoch, Senior Communications Advisor at the museum, shares six artworks that capture the essence of Norway: its landscapes, its light, and its soul seeking intensity.

And here’s a little secret for travellers in the know: The National Museum is included in the Oslo Pass, which is included with Fjord Travel’s curated art experiences in Oslo.

6 curated artworks that capture the essence of Norway

1. “Albertine to See the Police Surgeon” by Christian Krohg (1887)

Krohg’s Albertine is a cornerstone of Norwegian realism and a fearless depiction of social injustice and moral hypocrisy. Just months before painting it, Krohg had published the novel Albertine, the story of a poor girl who is called before a police surgeon after being raped by a police official. Shamed and powerless, she is eventually forced into prostitution.

The novel was immediately confiscated by the Ministry of Justice for its frank portrayal of sexual violence and the invasive medical examination – sparking public debate about morality, class, and women’s rights.

2. “Summer Night” by Kitty Kielland (1886)

Soft twilight, still water, and endless northern light. Kielland’s landscape captures the poetic calm of a Scandinavian summer night when darkness never quite falls. It was painted during the famous Fleskum Summer – a legendary gathering of artists in Bærum near Oslo.

This has since become a milestone in Norwegian art history, marking the transition to Neo-Romanticism. The focus shifted from daylight to dusk, from clarity to atmosphere, and with it came a new palette of deep blues and silvery tones that forever changed Norwegian painting.

3. “The Dance of Life” by Edvard Munch (1899–1900)

Part of Munch’s monumental series Livsfrisen (The Frieze of Life), this painting explores the artist’s lifelong struggle with love, anxiety, and mortality. Three female figures – the innocent to the left, the passionate in red, and the resigned to the right – move through the stages of life beneath a glowing moon over the fjord.

It’s a meditation on human existence, haunting yet profoundly beautiful. 

4. “Winter Night in the Mountains” by Harald Sohlberg (1914)

A vision of silence and light, Sohlberg’s Winter Night is often described as Norway’s national painting. For fifteen years, he immersed himself in the mountains of Rondane, which would become his defining motif. After his first visit, he returned time and again, determined to paint the landscape from life. In most of his depictions, the mountains rise like snow-covered castles, utterly untouched by human activity.

The crisp serenity and luminous blues evoke the spiritual power of the Norwegian mountains – an image so still, it feels as if time itself has paused.

5. “Blue Interior” by Harriet Backer (1883)

Backer, one of the first Norwegian artists of her generation to settle in Paris in 1878, drew inspiration from French plein-air painting and Impressionism. This exposure transformed her style, leading her to focus on more realistic and everyday subjects. In Blue Interior, she elevates a quiet domestic scene into a study of shifting light and colour.

Backer was drawn to the l’art pour l’art aesthetic, and less concerned with narrative or moralizing content, focusing instead on formal artistic qualities.

6. “Bridal Procession on the Hardangerfjord” by Hans Gude and Adolph Tidemand (1848)

Few paintings capture Norwegian identity as vividly as this artistic collaboration. The bridal boat glides across the Hardangerfjord, framed by towering mountains and the distant Folgefonna Glacier, celebrating both human joy and the majesty of nature. Gude was the master of sky and clouds, while his colleague Tidemand brought the human figures to life.

The combination of fjord and mountain is a hallmark of National Romanticism, reflecting 19th-century national ideals. Artists like Tidemand and Gude played a key role in shaping a sense of national identity after Norway’s constitution of 1814. In terms of national symbolism, it holds a place in Norway akin to John Constable’s depictions of the English countryside – works that celebrate a nation’s landscape as central to its identity.

Before You Leave

Pause on the museum’s rooftop terrace for sweeping views of the harbour, and then find your way to the café for a cinnamon bun (because great art deserves a sweet ending).