Style combination · Contrasts

Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration × Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics

The same decades and some of the same artists (Werenskiold led the illustrators of the 1899 Kongesagaer), but flat, frontal and ornamental where this is deep, tonal and atmospheric; frame one deep troll forest with a Munthe-style flat border to show the two branches side by side.

From the research on Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer)

Mix them and make something Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration, their arrangement from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration, the finish from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer) Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)

Type from Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics: Hand-lettering
Blackletter
Colour from Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics: Flat fields
Earth & mineral

Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration avoids flat fields: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Form from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration: Naturalistic depiction
Distortion & exaggeration
Composition from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration: Illusion of depth
Extreme scale contrast

Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics avoids illusion of depth: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Surface from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration: Painterly brushwork
Carved line

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics

Reverie

UnifrakturMaguntia, standing in for The hand-lettered text of Draumkvæde (1904): a pen hand of blackletter character with long swashed ascenders and descenders, modelled on Norse saga manuscripts of the 13th and early 14th centuries, above all Codex Frisianus (c. 1300–1325), with ornamented capitals in red, some roman and some blackletter; drawn by Aug. Sørensen after Munthe's models

Text · Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration

Norwegian and Swedish folk-tale illustration in which trolls, nøkken and huldra live in a real, observed northern landscape of forest, mountain, bog and farm. Werenskiold invented the forest troll type for Asbjørnsen and Moe in 1879, Kittelsen made it grow out of rock, root and water in hatched pen and wash, and Bauer, in muted watercolour plates for Bland tomtar och troll, set small, still princesses among towering firs and lumbering trolls.

EB Garamond; Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration used Fraktur text and caption type in the Copenhagen Eventyrbog for Børn (1883–87), e.g. the caption '„Hutetu!" sagde Troldet. Tegning af E. Werenskiold.' under a full-page drawing in vol. 2 (1884) and Ornamented fantasy display lettering in red on a gilt panel, with nisser (gnomes), a cat and a porridge pot above it, on the publisher's binding of Eventyrbog for Børn vol. 1 (1883), drawn by Gotfred Albert Hartvig and engraved by J. C. S. Danielsen

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics, with a counter-accent from Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer) Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)

#e8dcc2 ground · 36%
#2a1f17 ink · 14%
#c9932e accent · 18%
#a3342b accent · 14%
#6b5238 accent · 10%
#2e4a7d accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #e8dcc2;
  --ink: #2a1f17;
  --accent-1: #c9932e;
  --accent-2: #a3342b;
  --accent-3: #6b5238;
  --accent-4: #2e4a7d;
  --font-display: "UnifrakturMaguntia", serif;
  --font-text: "EB Garamond", serif;
}

Use it with care

Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer): Bauer took bent knives, shoes, spears, pots and belts from his 1904 sketches of Sámi life and made them part of his trolls' clothes and ornament: do not dress trolls or other monsters in Sámi gáktis, duodji or tools, or cast the Sámi, a living Indigenous people, as fairy-tale creatures of the northern wilderness. Kittelsen's pictures have also been reused by Norwegian black metal, including on Filosofem by Varg Vikernes, a neo-Nazi, so keep this imagery away from ethnic-nationalist and 'pure North' framings.

Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism): In Norway the fascist Nasjonal Samling (1933–45) took a golden sun cross on red, which it claimed as St Olav's shield, for its emblem, leaned heavily on Viking art and symbolism and built on romantic nationalism, so keep saga warriors, dragon ships and the Olav cross away from ethnic-nationalist framing. Old signs near this material, the othala rune, the sun cross (also called Odin's cross) and Odin's valknut, are used by neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, though non-racist pagans also use the othala rune and the valknut: check how such a sign reads in context before borrowing it. Gallen-Kallela's 1918 insignia for the White Army's Order of the Cross of Liberty set a golden swastika into the cross: do not borrow it. Karelianism cast Karelia as a refuge of authentic Finnishness, and some of its ideas later fed the irredentist Greater Finland project, so do not present Karelian or Orthodox folk culture as merely Finland's past: Karelians are a living people with their own language and crafts. In these decades Norway's Norwegianisation policy pressed the Sámi to assimilate: do not fold Sámi duodji motifs into this Norse ornament.

The two styles

An enormous, moss-covered troll merges with a rocky, forested mountainside and looks down toward a small girl standing on a ledge. A waterfall rushes through the gorge beside a distant wooden cabin beneath a full moon, with “Skogvokteren” lettered across the upper sky.

1879–1918 · Northern Europe Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration (Werenskiold, Kittelsen, Bauer) Norwegian and Swedish folk-tale illustration in which trolls, nøkken and huldra live in a real, observed northern landscape of forest, mountain, bog and farm. Werenskiold invented the forest troll type for Asbjørnsen and Moe in 1879, Kittelsen made it grow out of rock, root and water in hatched pen and wash, and Bauer, in muted watercolour plates for Bland tomtar och troll, set small, still princesses among towering firs and lumbering trolls. 1880–1922 · Northern Europe Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism) The flat, decorative branch of Norway's and Finland's national romanticism, which turned Viking carving, the sagas, the Kalevala and old peasant weaving into modern ornament. Gerhard Munthe set the woodcut-like pen style and blackletter type of the 1899 saga edition, had Draumkvæde (1904) hand-lettered after Norse saga manuscripts, and designed tapestries of stiff myth figures in flat folk colour; Akseli Gallen-Kallela gave the Kalevala bold outlines and flat colour in woodcuts, frescoes, ryijy rugs and book vignettes; Dragestil timber buildings carried dragon heads.

More combinations

With Nordic Fairy-Tale and Troll Illustration

With Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics

Every style combination