Sami with Raindeer under the Midnight Sun 1850

Curator: The vast emptiness dominates immediately. Such a raw and formidable landscape. Editor: It’s true; Peder Balke certainly captures the sublime. This painting, “Sami with Raindeer under the Midnight Sun,” created around 1850, speaks to a specific time and place in Northern Norway. Curator: The title tells its story clearly. The Sami people, their reindeer, the stark Norwegian terrain... It's more than just documentation. Note how the light emanates. It doesn’t just illuminate; it evokes something otherworldly, maybe something spiritual or ancient. Editor: The impasto is quite thick for the sky and clouds. But in contrast, notice how he thins out the pigment for the lower landscape, almost like a charcoal drawing to suggest mist or fog in that cold, clear air. How very avant-garde of Balke. Curator: I wonder if the figures, tiny in this overwhelming geography, see themselves as stewards or inhabitants… This feels like a deliberate commentary on mankind’s relationship with nature. A visual treatise of coexistence. The image isn’t just of this place; it’s a vision _of_ it through a symbolic, Sami-infused understanding. Editor: What also strikes me is how stark Balke renders the scene. He prioritizes a vertical emphasis via those sharply pitched mountain peaks under the midnight sun. We’re presented with a masterful play between the earthy browns and ochres of the terrain, contrasting with the silvery luminescence that is echoed by reindeer antlers. Curator: Reindeer often symbolize travel and endurance in indigenous Nordic cosmology. Here, against this light, I can almost hear the ancestors' songs rippling across that vast, frozen expanse. It invites us to remember where we came from, and what we must not forget. Editor: A wonderful reflection; indeed the enduring starkness of it has altered my perspective, providing the idea of art’s function, an awareness of Balke’s function, and also our own. Curator: Indeed, that primal whisper, so prevalent across Balke’s work, has always been the very essence of nature speaking to humankind.