The Vigeland Sculpture Park is considered the world’s largest sculpture park by a single artist, Gustav Vigeland. This, of course, raises the question which is the world’s largest sculpture park. According to my Google research, it is the Changchun Sculpture Park in north-eastern China.
The Vigeland Park was designed and created during a ten year period starting 1939, and has more than 200 sculptures made out of bronze, granite and wrought iron, and are arranged in a thematic fashion.
The Vigeland Park
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I generally avoid popular tourist traps, but because this was so talked about and, in addition to this, a friend of mine was talking about it in such captivating terms, I thought I will make a casual visit.
But the Vigeland Park has every reason to be a popular tourist spot, because this is no ordinary place.
The overall theme is humanity from cradle to grave and every sculpture is painstakingly created to show the various human emotions, evoked by life situations, in their truest sense.
Humanity & Emotions Key Themes at Vigeland Park
When you take a look at the various sculptures, from the angry child to the caring and dependent elderly, just look at them and think about your life and what you have gone through. You will see a mirror image of yourself. Or you will identify that your kid, your partner or your parents have shown those emotions at some point.
The ‘Angry Child’
In certain ways, though, the sculptures are also spiritual, showing that all human beings go through the same path, from being born to becoming agile, independent persons and then to old, dependant and scared, but also content people.
The final piece is also the park’s highest point, and that is the monolith, named as it has been created from one stone. According to the official website description, the skyward-looking column with humans under different circumstances carved out is, again, about the collective human tendency to look towards the divine as a positive ending to life.
Some, though, have another view; that this is a description of Darwin’s winner takes all philosophy.
Friendshiip
Whatever it is, it is the crown of the Park, and certainly was no easy task carving out such detailed figures out of a single granite stone, though I prefer the individual or smaller group sculpture because they tend to be very emotional and, therefore, lively.
My casual tour turned out be that of a few hours, and would have preferred to spend more.
I could not go to the museum because of time constraints.
Entrance is free for the park, but not for the Vigeland Museum. This is a project worth sponsoring.
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