Bruin asleep in the Blueberry Bushes 1900

Editor: This is Theodor Kittelsen’s 1900 charcoal drawing, "Bruin asleep in the Blueberry Bushes". The lighting makes it seem both eerie and peaceful. The sleeping bear gives it an odd, vulnerable feeling. How do you read it? Curator: Kittelsen is steeped in Norse folklore. Bears are a powerful symbol – nature, instinct, brute strength. But here, slumbering, surrounded by the blueberry bushes, Bruin becomes vulnerable, almost childlike. Do you see the potential for it to be a coded message of humanity and the wild? Editor: I hadn’t considered that, no! So, are the blueberries significant too? Is that the vulnerability you mention? Curator: Consider how often berries are symbolic of abundance, nourishment, and even a wild innocence. Placed alongside this dreaming bear, they create an almost primordial scene. He isn't hunting; he’s at rest, a part of the landscape itself. What feeling does it invoke? Editor: That he’s one with the landscape and completely harmless now, makes me feel secure. But the fact that a wild animal, which is so feared and admired, is actually this passive—it is rather shocking. Almost unreal. Curator: It disrupts our assumptions, doesn't it? Kittelsen is playing with archetypes. He subverts the expected ferocity of the bear, inviting us to reconsider our relationship with nature and our fears surrounding the unknown. I believe that even the fact that is from around 1900 adds more strength to the symbolic view of the painting. Editor: So, by humanising this powerful creature, Kittelsen is really reflecting our own anxieties about control and nature. Curator: Precisely. The sleeping bear becomes a mirror, reflecting our internal landscapes. Editor: That is a completely different perspective. Now it’s given me a new perspective that incorporates humanity, nature, fear and symbolism all wrapped into one picture.