Jógvan Waagstein

Jógvan Waagstein, 1900

Jógvan Waagstein [ ˈjɛgvan vɔːgstain ] (born September 4, 1879 in Klaksvík , Faroe Islands ; † December 15, 1949 in Tórshavn ; also Joen Waagstein ) was a Faroese music teacher, composer and painter .

Jógvan Waagstein was a pioneer of Faroese visual art who began to make a name for himself immediately after the turn of the century in 1900. He was born in Klaksvík on the North Islands , trained as a school teacher and was employed in the school system all his life, mainly at the elementary school in Tórshavn .

The musician

Waagstein was musically gifted, and it was music that developed primarily into the interest and challenge of his life. He was a singing and music teacher as well as a choir director, published books and other material for singing lessons and worked as an organist at the Tórshavner Cathedral . Waagstein was an excellent song composer and composed a long series of melodies for Faroese fatherland songs and other newer poetry, e.g. B. by the poets Janus Djurhuus , Hans A. Djurhuus and Christian Matras . These melodies, 32 of which can be found in the hymn book of the Faroese people, Songbók Føroya Fólks , reflect a special Faroese melody and have become folk good . His work with the collection of old Faroese church melodies and their adaptation for church purposes was of great importance.

The painter

Syðradalur (Kalsoy) , 1918, 57X75 cm, Listasavn Føroya

Jógvan Waagstein also showed great interest in painting. As a musician he was professional, painting came second, but in this field too he was extremely active and productive. He was an autodidact - "The little bit of knowledge I have about painting I acquired from Mrs. Heilmann and Miss Taylor," he said on one occasion. Flora Heilmann (1872–1944), a Danish pastor's wife in Viðareiði , and her friend, the American travel writer Elizabeth Taylor (1856–1932), both painted and Waagstein must have met them, probably in Viðareiði, in the north of the North Islands, and there have received an introductory knowledge of the technique of painting. However, he was later taught at the state drawing teacher course in Copenhagen , and in 1919 he went on an educational trip to Copenhagen and Germany.

In Jógvan Waagstein's youth, the national movement awakens in the Faroe Islands , and with it a will to reawaken and create a new lyric , but also an urge to create new art in a broader sense, and the doors opened for the possibility of not only to express in words, as tradition dictated, but also in sound and image. Interest in folk culture also sparked an interest in the landscape - the environment that surrounds the peculiar culture. The Nordic romantic landscape painting, u. a. the Danish gold age painting, was Jógvan Waagstein's inspiration, and sometimes a hint of French impressionism shimmers through. The painter goes out into nature with an easel and painter's case, looks for beautiful views of mountains and valleys and paints dramatic panoramas with rushing streams and roaring surf. With landscape paintings by Waagstein and his new creative contemporaries Niels Kruse and Kristin í Geil , a Faroese public experienced the description of their own landscape for the first time. For the greater part of the 20th century, landscape painting was the main theme of Faroese painting.

In a long series of paintings, Jógvan Waagstein describes the Faroese landscape like no one before him. He exhibited his pictures in Tórshavn, most recently at Ólavsøka in 1948. He also exhibited in Copenhagen (1920), Oslo (1924), Aarhus (1939) and Glasgow (1941). His watercolors hang in many Faroese households and one of his paintings, Syðradalur (Kalsoy) from 1918, is in the permanent exhibition of Listasavn Føroya (National Art Museum).

On September 19, 2005 he was honored by Postverk Føroya with a memorial pad on which nine of his paintings appear on postage stamps.

plant

Compositions

(under construction)

• Tíðin rennur (text by Fríðrikur Petersen ) 1891

Hymn books

• 1931 - Gomul føroysk sálmaløg (Old Faroese Hymns )

painting

(Selection)

• 1917 - Yviri við Strond
• 1917 - Hoyvíkstjørn
• 1918 - Syðradalur
• 1941 - Heygsgarður
• 1947 - Á Varmakeldu (Føroya Banki)
• 1949 - Kirkjubøur

Decorations

• 1922 - Sigmundur Brestisson on fram kristindómin í Føroyum (KFUK, Tórshavn)
• 1949 - Kristus gongur á sjónum (altarpiece of the church of Mikladalur )
• 1949 - Jesus gongur á sjónum (altarpiece of the church of Hov )

literature

• Days of wind: Joen Waagstein: Liv og Virke . Copenhagen: Gyldendal , 1952 - 75 pp.
• William Heinesen : Waagstein, Joen . In: Dansk Biografisk Leksikon 3. udgave, Vol. 16. 1984, p. 106

Web links

Commons : Jógvan Waagstein  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Stamps.fo - Art based on Jógvan Waagstein (source, public domain)
• Art.fo - Jógvan Waagstein

Footnotes

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