Northern Lights; Study from North Norway 

Anna Katarina Boberg made this oil painting, "Northern Lights; Study from North Norway," sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. Look at the painting's surface. Do you see those vertical strokes? They clearly show the movement of the artist's hand. The paint is applied with an almost impatient energy, reflecting the fleeting, ethereal quality of the aurora borealis itself. Boberg clearly relished the materiality of her medium. She explored its capacity to capture light, movement, and atmosphere, building up layers of pigment to create a luminous effect. Although Boberg herself was from a wealthy family, she would have been familiar with the industrial production of pigments, and the commercial distribution of artists’ materials. In that sense, the painting is an artifact of its time, a product of both individual creativity and industrialized production. Paintings like this, though often seen as belonging to the realm of fine art, are in fact deeply connected to broader social and economic histories. They offer insights into the labor of artistic creation, the circulation of materials, and the cultural values attached to both.