The little defiant head

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The bronze sculpture The Little Defiant Head . The color of the left hand clearly stands out from the rest of the part, which is due to frequent contact with tourists.

The little defiant head (also defiant head , Norwegian Sinnataggen ) is a bronze sculpture of an angry little boy, which was created by the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland and is in the sculpture complex Vigelandsanlegget of the Oslo Frognerpark . It is one of the most famous sculptures in Vigeland and is considered a landmark of Oslo.

Description and location

The 83 centimeter high and 45 kilogram heavy sculpture shows a small, naked boy with a bald head. As the name suggests, the boy is angry. His face is contorted with anger, his hands are clenched into fists and he is stamping angrily with his right foot.

The sculpture belongs to 58 individual figures and groups of figures that stand on the railing of the bridge over the Frognerdammene, a pond in Oslo's Frogner Park. They show naked people of different ages, with the predominant motif being the relationship between man and woman and between parents and children. Coming from the main entrance of the park, the little defiant head is located in a small bulge on the left side of the bridge.

history

The sculptures on the bridge in Frogner Park were made between 1926 and 1933, but the first sculptures were not installed in the park until 1939. The little defiant head is dated to 1928. Before that, Vigeland had already created several miniatures of the figure.

On New Year's Eve in 1992, The Little Defiant Head was stolen by unknown perpetrators. They had sawed it off above the left ankle. The theft led to numerous press reports and outrage among the population. The sculpture was found on January 12th, then brought back to Frognerpark and bandaged again with the left foot. The perpetrators could not be identified. Since then, there have been several other attacks on the statue with paint or tools. It was also used several times for protests, including against the World Bank and for a youth center.

The little defiant head is a favorite of both Oslo residents and tourists and is counted among the city's landmarks. Its popularity, together with a legend that touching the sculpture brings luck, means that tourists in particular often touch it, which mainly affects his left hand. This means that there is no patina at this point and the hand stands out clearly from the rest of the body thanks to its metallic sheen. As Dagsavisen reported in 2013 , the employees of the Vigeland Museum tried to prevent possible damage to the sculpture by these contacts with various measures.

Since Gustav Vigeland died in 1943, his works are now in the public domain and can therefore also be reproduced for commercial purposes. The attempt by the city of Oslo to secure rights to the sculptures and thus prevent their reproduction failed in 2017 before the EFTA Court .

Miniatures of the little defiant head created by Vigeland have been auctioned several times for larger sums. For example, in 2017 an anonymous buyer offered 1.6 million Norwegian kroner (around 163,000 euros) for a figure from 1911 that, in contrast to the version in Frognerpark, has hair and is more coarsely designed. Fifteen years earlier, a similar sculpture had been auctioned for 1.1 million crowns. The sculpture from 1911 appeared on a postage stamp from the Norwegian Post in 2019 for the 150th birthday of Vigeland .

literature

Web links

Commons : Sinnataggen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sinnataggen. In: Oslo Byleksikon. Retrieved April 9, 2020 (Norwegian).
  2. ^ Tone Wikborg: The Vigeland Park in Oslo. P. 9.
  3. ^ Tone Wikborg: The Vigeland Park in Oslo. Pp. 8-9.
  4. ↑ a b Miniature of Norway's Sinnataggen sells for 1.6 million kroner. In: thelocal.no. December 5, 2017, accessed April 8, 2020 .
  5. ^ Anne Helene Bubenzer, Gabriele Haefs : Reading trip Oslo. Looking for Ibsen's bathtub . Picus-Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-7117-5048-8 , p. 46–47 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ↑ Nina Berglund: Too many hands on 'Sinnataggen'. In: newsinenglish.no. August 6, 2013, accessed April 8, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Norway's Sinnataggen and Monolitten fair game for copycats: ruling. In: thelocal.no. November 15, 2017, accessed April 8, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Helga Matush: Norway postmarks Gustav Vigeland's 150th anniversary with two stamps. In: findyourstampsvalue.com. April 17, 2019, accessed April 8, 2020 . Victoria Garza: New stamps with Vigeland motifs. In: norwaytoday.info. April 25, 2019, accessed April 8, 2020 .

Coordinates: 59 ° 55 ′ 33.7 "  N , 10 ° 42 ′ 12.8"  E