Craft & organic · 1880–1922 · Northern Europe

Norwegian and Finnish National Romantic Graphics (Munthe & Karelianism)

Also known as Karelianism, Dragestil (dragon style, in architecture and ornament), Nordic National Romanticism (its flat decorative branch)

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.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices, until its AI image is made.

Use it with care

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.

How it works

Draw the myth, not the street: take figures from the sagas, the Kalevala and folk ballads, and stand them stiff and frontal in flat, frieze-like rows, as on a woven tapestry, or, with Gallen-Kallela, lock their action into heavy outlines and large flat fields of colour.
Imitate the carver with the pen: draw in firm black outline and cut-like hatching that recalls the woodcut, and keep volume and perspective shallow.
Keep two kinds of letter apart: set running text in a blackletter type, as Munthe did for the sagas, or hand-letter it after medieval Norse saga manuscripts, as in Draumkvæde, with long swashed ascenders and descenders and ornamented capitals in red; draw titles by hand, in red and black above a frieze of animals, or in heavy rustic capitals as on Gallen-Kallela's posters.
Lay colour in large flat fields of folk dyes, madder red, ochre, deep blue and green, on a linen-toned ground, taken from old tapestries, åkle coverlets and ryijy rugs.
Take ornament from Viking carving and peasant craft, dragon and serpent heads, interlaced bands and woven geometric borders, and use it for vignettes, bindings, headpieces and gables instead of Art Nouveau whiplash and flowers.

Kristiania (Oslo) and Lysaker in Norway, Helsinki and Ruovesi in Finland: Norwegian Dragestil timber architecture (c. 1880–1910), drawn from the stave churches and the Tune (1867) and Gokstad (1880) ship finds, joined after 1904 by Oseberg (Holm Munthe, Balthazar Lange); Gerhard Munthe's decorative art from the early 1890s, from tapestry cartoons (1893) to the saga edition Snorre Sturlason: Norges Kongesagaer (1899) and Draumkvæde (1904); and Akseli Gallen-Kallela's Karelianism, from his 1890 journey to East Karelia to gather Kalevala material to the Koru-Kalevala (WSOY, 1922). The entry covers the flat, decorative branch of Nordic national romanticism; it leaves out the folk-tale and troll illustration of the same decades, Erik Werenskiold's and Theodor Kittelsen's for Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norwegian folk tales and John Bauer's for Sweden's Bland tomtar och troll (from 1907), and Denmark's skønvirke (Thorvald Bindesbøll)

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition: Framed panels characteristic
Central symmetry characteristic
Classical text block characteristic
All-over field occasional
Space & hierarchy: Measured density characteristic
Repetition & rhythm characteristic
Sequential narrative characteristic
Horror vacui occasional
Typography: Hand-lettering defining
Blackletter characteristic
Ornamented display occasional
All caps occasional
Colour: Flat fields defining
Earth & mineral characteristic
Limited spot colours characteristic
Monochrome characteristic
Light ground characteristic
Jewel & metallic occasional
Form & shape: Stylised figuration defining
Angular & zigzag characteristic
Biomorphic curves occasional
Surface & texture: Flat defining
Carved line characteristic
Paper & letterpress bite occasional
Ornament: Folk & sacred symbols defining
Abundant decoration characteristic
Borders & frames characteristic
Geometric tessellation occasional
Imagery: Line illustration defining
Painterly illustration characteristic
Pattern & repeat occasional
Medium & production: Textile & craft defining
Letterpress characteristic
Architecture & signage characteristic
Pen, brush & ink characteristic
Hand-painted occasional
Woodblock & linocut occasional
Lithography occasional
Tone & intent: Nostalgic & retro defining
Romantic & sensual characteristic
Authoritative & institutional characteristic
Spiritual & sacred occasional
Avoids: Whiplash line, Grotesque & neo-grotesque, Geometric sans, Straight photography, Ornament-free, Gradients, Pastel, Modular grid, Illusion of depth, Ironic & self-aware

Palette

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Typefaces

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
The blackletter text type Munthe chose for Snorre Sturlason
Norges Kongesagaer (1899), not named in the sources; the National Library of Norway's scan shows it in a justified block, with long s and emphasis by letterspacing, beneath his hand-drawn red-and-black saga titles and initials
Muntheschrift, Gebr. Klingspor's type after the Draumkvæde hand
proofed in 12 and 16 pt in 1910 but never completed or released, its material destroyed in 1944; Fabritius-skriften (1962) and Torbjørn Eng's digital Frisianus (1994, FrisianusOT 2011) were later drawn in its spirit
Gallen-Kallela's hand-drawn poster capitals
the heavy block letters of Bil-Bol (1907) and the rustic capitals, with a round uncial E and V for U, of his lithograph poster for the exhibition of German art at the Ateneum, Helsinki (1922)

Known for

Snorre Sturlason, Norges Kongesagaer
(Kristiania: J. M. Stenersen, 1899; Gustav Storm's translation; a state-subsidised national edition of 1900 in 70,000 riksmål and 30,000 landsmål copies): Gerhard Munthe designed the binding, title page, endpapers and all the vignettes, chose the blackletter text type and set the pen-drawn, woodcut-like illustration style for all its artists, while Erik Werenskiold led the team of illustrators: of some 220 pictures Werenskiold drew 57, Krohg 47, Wetlesen 43, Egedius 37, Munthe 27 and Peterssen 8, and Werenskiold's, such as the sacrifice of King Dómaldr, set the figures in landscape before a horizon (Munthe's pen drawing Bord, Eirikssønenes saga, 1899, Nasjonalmuseet NG.K&H.B.07191)
Draumkvæde – Et digt fra Middelalderen
(Foreningen for Norsk Bogkunst, publication no. 1, 1904; about 300 copies, most for the society's members), edited by Moltke Moe: Munthe's binding, watercolour illustrations reproduced in up to six colours with gold, and text hand-lettered by Aug. Sørensen after Munthe's models and Norse manuscripts, with red ornamented capitals
Gerhard Munthe, Nordlysdøtre (Daughters of the Northern Lights), tapestry after his watercolour Friere (Nordlysdøtrene) of 1892, woven in 1903 at the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum's tapestry atelier, Trondheim (Nasjonalmuseet OK-1996-0006)
Gerhard Munthe, Indtoget i Myklagaard, tapestry woven by Det norske Billedvæveri, 1900–1906
Nasjonalmuseet NMK.2017.0244
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, woodcuts Sammon taonta (The Forging of the Sampo) and Kalman kukka (The Flower of Death), 1895
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Kalevala frescoes for the cupola of the Finnish Pavilion, Exposition Universelle, Paris 1900
(The Forging of the Sampo, The Defence of the Sampo, Ilmarinen Ploughing the Field of Vipers, The Departure of Väinämöinen), with his Liekki ryijy and the Iris Room for the Friends of Finnish Handicraft
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Koru-Kalevala (WSOY, 1922), the Kalevala with his vignettes
Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Bil-Bol poster for an automobile retailer
1907

Make something in this style

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