The National Library of Norway’s digitisation efforts are giving researchers increasing access to searchable material every day.
This was how Nick Walkley came across a forgotten piece of Norwegian art and stave church history.
He has presented his findings in an article in the scientific journal Kunst og Kultur.
Walkley is a researcher at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO). Among other things, he has investigated how art, photographs, and other images of the Urnes Stave Church have influenced our perception of the building.
In 1826, Urnes was a relatively unknown local church, says AHO researcher Nick Walkley.(Photo: AHO)
Described the stave churches as 'Mongolian-Gothic'
Annonse
Johan Christian Dahl and Thomas Fearnley were among the most important painters of Norwegian romantic nationalism.
The stave churches – now regarded as some of the finest national romantic symbols – had not yet achieved that status when Dahl and Fearnley were active in the first half of the 19th century.
Dahl's early descriptions of the stave churches tell us that.
"Dahl describes some of the churches as 'Mongolian-Gothic.' Art history at the time was very different from how we understand it today," says Walkley.
He explains that the stave churches were not yet seen as national monuments.
"It seems that Fearnley and Dahl were most interested in painting the churches within the landscape," says Walkley.
Most landscape paintings by artists in the first half of the 19th century did not include churches, Nick Walkley explains.(Photo: Nick Walkley)
"Interesting to dig into this story"
Dahl referred to the Urnes Stave Church in the illustrated work with the evocative title Denkmale einer sehr ausgebildeten Holzbaukunst aus den frühesten Jahrhunderten in den innern Landschaften Norwegens, published in 1837.
This is often described as the starting point of the Urnes Stave Church's status as an international icon, Walkley explains. Dahl also played a key role in the founding of the National Trust of Norway in 1844. He protested against the demolition of stave churches.
"But it's interesting to dig a little into this story. There are some art-historical myths here that have been established over time," he says.
First of all, Dahl himself did not draw Urnes for this publication. There is no clear evidence the professor from Dresden had even visited the site before the work was published, Walkley explains.
For that reason, Walkley argues that attention should instead turn to Thomas Fearnley. The National Library's collections reveal that Fearnley was at Urnes before Dahl ever arrived at the Lusterfjord.
11 years before Dahl
Fearnley was among the artists who travelled around Norway in the decades after the Constitution was adopted in 1814. Norwegians were to find their own culture, and artists played a central role.
Annonse
In 1826, he was 23 years old and travelling in Western Norway. He returned to Christiania, the name of the capital in Norway at the time, with sketchbooks from the districts.
Even so, the Urnes Stave Church was probably not Fearnley's primary focus.
"In 1826, the Munthe House was the main attraction. Today, it's hard to imagine travelling to Luster without seeing a World Heritage site. But at that time, Urnes was a relatively unknown local church," says Walkley.
This is how the Urnes Stave Church was depicted in Dahl's illustrated work from 1837. For a long time it was believed that he was the first to showcase the church, which at the time was a fairly ordinary parish church.(Photo: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons)
A perfect place for rest, fishing, cherries, and a stave church visit
Like many of his contemporaries, Fearnley was a guest of the officer and cartographer Gerhard Munthe. He owned the farm at Ytre Kroken – described by the amateur artist Mathias Wilhelm Eckhoff as a lovely place.
It was a perfect place to rest, fish, and eat cherries after the long journey on horseback over the mountains.
"We don't know what was said around the Munthe family dinner table, but it's certain that these artists discussed each other's work," says Walkley.
"The Munthe family and their ties to the Military Academy in Christiania may have been even more important for cultural heritage preservation in Norway than the art academy in Dresden to which Dahl belonged," he adds.
During his stay, Fearnley visited the Urnes Stave Church and painted both the building and its surrounding landscape. He took his sketchbooks with him, and they remained in the family. As a result, the book with the Urnes sketches was not easily accessible to art historians until much later.
The amateur artist Mathias Wilhelm Eckhoff drew Ytre Kroken.(Photo: Nick Walkley)
Distinctly Norwegian from 1860
Much of this has now been digitised and made easily searchable through the National Library's online library. Walkley found the drawings reproduced in a book from 1952, in which art historians Henning Alsvik and Sigurd Willoch analyse Fearnley's drawings. Until now, this has flown under the radar for stave church historians, says Walkley.
From around 1860 onwards, antiquarians began to present Urnes as a distinctly Norwegian phenomenon. In this process, both artists and early conservationists played a crucial role, Walkley explains.
Still, Fearnley may deserve greater recognition for his role in preserving this particular church.
"Based on what has been preserved, it seems that Fearnley's sketch of Urnes was the first to draw attention to what has since become a World Heritage site," he says.
In the summer of 2026, his sketches will be 200 years old.
