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Sigurd Winge - Biographical Introduction
by Øivind Storm Bjerke
The cosmopolitan background of Sigurd Winge. Sigurd Winge was born in Hamburg on March 14, 1909, and died in Trondheim on January 22, 1970. Winge grew up in a family of good economic means and rich in cultural influences. His mother, Julie Auguste Schmidt, was German, his father, Johan Ernst Welhaven Winge, was born in Christiania (now Oslo) and trained as an architect in Germany, where he worked as a city architect in Hamburg. In 1917, the family took an extended trip along the Norwegian coast and moved to Oslo the same year.
Sigurd Winge studied at the Art Academy in Oslo from 1929-1932. With his continental background, Winge was better equipped than most to incorporate features from the most artistically radical endeavours of the time into his art. He became a leading figure for a new generation of young artists alongside his fellow student Gert Jynge. This generation emerged in 1933 in the Kunstnerforbundet with the exhibition "11 Young Painters."
Many of these artists gathered impulses from German Expressionism around 1932-1933 and later from the international Surrealist movement. Winge debuted at the Autumn Exhibition in 1933.
Winge addressed themes related to the intellectual struggles of the time, where human freedom was central. However, he did not anchor his motifs in daily events, class struggle, political or economic oppression, but in a humanism where the basic conditions of human existence tied to existence, history, and faith were thematised. The pictures often have a dramatic content.
Winge was politically radical, like most young Norwegian artists during the interwar period, but he did not let this come to any significant expression in his paintings and his graphics. The radicalism was evident through experiments with form and materials. Winge's historical role was to stand out as the one who most prominently and radically broke with a heroic style and representation of working life that characterised the generation before him.
During World War II, Winge created material works and graphics that were based on the experience of anxiety triggered by the war.
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Sigurd Winge – Biographical Introduction
by Øivind Storm Bjerke
New times demand a new form. A modernistic view of art demanded that new times and experiences should be formulated in a new form. He set high demands for his work and was uncompromising when it came to quality. This led to a small, but meticulously crafted production.
Winge was early recognized for his great talent. He received several scholarships throughout the 1930s and his professor at the academy, Axel Revold, lent him his studio. Gradually, he seldom exhibited, but participated in several collective exhibitions, also outside Norway. Most of his time was spent on the decoration assignments he received. He got his first assignment as early as 1938 in connection with the exhibition "Vi kan" (We Can), where Oslo, profiled itself as a modern city.
Sigurd Winge's connection to the theatre. Winge married actress Eva Evang in 1935. Eva had been a model at the Art Academy and we find her again as the model for the female figure in many of Winge's works. Sigurd worked with stage design for several productions at the Studio Theater after the war. Winge's art is strongly marked by his sharp eye for the relationships between actors in the picture plane. He conveys the physical and psychological tensions between people through gestures, body language, physical characteristics, details in costume and hairstyles, and placement on the picture plane are formulated in a form that can remind us of how the same elements are used in a stage setting. The relationship between the figures and the design of the space around them has a strong element of stage design. When a motif unfolds in a landscape, the impression is often that this landscape has been transformed into a stage space and simplified to a theatre set.
Sigurd and Eva had a son, Stein, an actor and director. Stein Winge is internationally known as an innovative director in theater and opera. His large stage images draw inspiration from his father's art.
Modern time in classical attire. Sigurd Winge himself developed stage designs, the most famous being the set design for Stein Winge's staging of Antigone, at Trøndelag Theater, 1970. Winge died while working on the production. The poster for the performance is an example of how Sigurd Winge effortlessly and naturally merges impulses from ancient vase painting and features from Picasso. Winge's symbols are often taken from classical art, while the motifs can be highly topical, but without references to specific events. The dramatic conflicts and existential questions that characterized the 20th century are interpreted primarily in the light of mythological and biblical stories and symbols. Winge's modernism is characteristic of the time, but also timeless.
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The 1930s Modernists
by Øivind Storm Bjerke
In the autumn of 1935, Winge exhibited with Bjarne Engebret, Erling Enger, Gert Jynge, and Olav Strømme at Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo. The exhibition was subsequently shown in Trondheim, Bergen, and Stavanger. The aforementioned artists were rekindled with interest through an exhibition at the Henie Onstad Art Center in 1972. Art historian Steinar Gjessing highlighted Bjarne Engebret, Erling Enger, Gert Jynge, Rolf Nesch, Olav Strømme, and Sigurd Winge in a dissertation that garnered attention in 1977, and Gjessing curated an exhibition about Winge at the National Gallery in 1978. Winge's close friend Jynge increasingly devoted himself to teaching. Especially Nesch, Strømme, and Winge have retained a position as representatives of a Norwegian avant-garde in the 1930s.
From German to French connections. Sigurd Winge, Gert Jynge, and Erling Enger embarked on a study trip to Germany in May-June 1933. They visited public and private collections and sought out central German Expressionists, among them Emil Nolde and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.
Inspired by the meeting with contemporary German art at an exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus in 1932 and the study trip in 1933, Winge now painted with powerful and shrill colors and coarse shapes. When the painting was exhibited in 1933, they were perceived as a regression to primitive, raw, and brutal art. It met resistance among established critics and older artists, among them influential people in the art life like the National Gallery's director Jens Thiis and the painter Henrik Sørensen. The political situation in Germany after 1933 led to skepticism throughout the 1930s about having artistic connections with German artists.
As stricter travel restrictions were imposed to several countries throughout the 1930s, Norwegian artists' connections in Europe were limited. A stronger concentration on local motifs is a pervasive trend among Norwegian artists during this period. For a cosmopolitan like Winge, this was not an option. He made a new study trip in 1937 to Germany and France, where he visited the World's Fair in Paris. He himself was represented at the World's Fair in the Norwegian pavilion.
The journey from Paris may have contributed to Winge developing a style less characterized by German Expressionism. Winge now draws inspiration from the art of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. The two exhibited in a French exhibition at Kunstnerenes Hus in 1938, where Picasso's painting Guernica was shown. Influences from Picasso were particularly noticeable in Winge's graphic art.
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Graphic Art in Dialogue with Contemporary and Historical Contexts
by Øivind Storm Bjerke
Winge is one of the leading graphic artists in Norwegian art. His graphics stand out due to their rich technical repertoire. As a young man, he drew caricatures and also contributed satirical pieces to the radical press.
Winge's early graphic work is characterised by his interest in German expressionism. Towards the end of the 1930s, Winge developed a personal visual language, where modernist impulses begin a dialogue with historical art such as Sumerian, Greek, and Byzantine art. Winge's art becomes more and more characterized by a distinctive balance of expressive and harmonious, subdued visual effects. This reflects his openness to impulses from different artistic directions of his time, both the German expressionism and the more subdued and classically oriented art with historical references, and a formalistic oriented modernism with Paris as its center.
Winge was a skilled draftsman from an early age. Numerous childhood drawings are preserved, including from his first journey in Norway in 1917. Over time, he drew vibrant caricatures and satirical drawings, showing his familiarity with German satire magazines like the famous Simplicissimus, where Norwegians Olaf Guldbrandsen and Ragnvald Blix were contributors.
Winge's stroke is characterized by precise line work where motifs alternately take on a near-naturalistic form, alternating with more abstracted and ornamental lines. His first graphic works are three linocuts and one woodcut, all from 1933. It's only from 1942 that he begins to work with etchings. Winge often used the drypoint technique where the motif is scratched directly into the plate, often in combination with etching or aquatint. Many of his motifs are based on material works. The unique attributes he introduces through the graphic processing make the graphics appear as an independent group of works in relation to the material works.
Comparing the simple and angular form in an early self-portrait cut in linoleum, and the nuanced interplay of greyscales, shapes, and lines in the etchings tells us about the transition that characterised Winge's art from a one-sided German influence in an early phase, to drawing impulses from a rich range of historical and contemporary artistic expressions. Winge also executed a few lithographs and serigraphs in the 1960s.
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The Fishing Trip of a Lifetime
by Magne Bruteig
Three landlubbers go to sea. In the New Year of 1938, the artist Olav Strømme asked skipper Hans Farstad on the herring seiner "Bratt" if he and two colleagues could accompany him out to the fishing grounds. Farstad was Strømme's father-in-law and, reluctantly, he let the landlubbers join, provided they assist the crew to the best of their abilities. The two colleagues were Sigurd Winge and Rolf Nesch, and over four weeks, the three artists got to experience modern herring fishing up close (fig. 1).
City at sea. It remains unclear how much practical help the three artists provided, but being part of this special community for such an extended period made a strong impression on them. The camaraderie, the toil, the capricious grandeur of the sea, the herring gleaming in the sunlight during the day and under the floodlights at night (fig. 2): it was a society of its own out there, and the impressions from this society - this floating city - were repeatedly processed by the three artists in the years that followed.
An alien bird. Why was it specifically Winge and Nesch that the Sunnmøre-native Strømme wanted to take with him to the field? The German Rolf Nesch had fled to Norway after Hitler's seizure of power in 1933. Many viewed his distinctive, expressive art with skepticism, but some younger artists were fascinated by this alien bird in the Norwegian art scene. In particular, Sigurd Winge and Olav Strømme sought close contact with Nesch, and by the end of the 1930s, the three formed an active working partnership. And in February 1938,
they also formed an experiential fellowship on the Møre coast (fig. 3).
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The Fishing Trip of a Lifetime
by Magne Bruteig
An Artistic Impulse. The experiences on the fishing grounds off Ålesund had a decisive impact on the art created by the three artists for many years to come. This was apparent in their choice of motifs, of course, but it also inspired them to further explore the use of unconventional materials in their art - as is exemplified by Sigurd Winge's boat frieze.
Olav Strømme (1909–1978) was born in Ørsta and was strongly connected to the nature and folk life of Sunnmøre throughout his life, both as an artist and as a person. He belonged to the group of young artists who paved new ways for Norwegian art in the 1930s and is today considered a central artist of his generation. Herring fishing became perhaps Strømme's most popular motif, and it accompanied him through a significant portion of his artistic career.
Rolf Nesch (1893–1975) was an artist characterized by immense creativity and a vibrant imagination. He was a pioneer when it came to material pictures – he could use rope, netting, nails, wood, glass, etc., in his images. He also developed a unique graphic technique - metal print - in which he soldered metal wires onto the print plate, and as a printmaker, he currently holds a strong international position. Gradually, he also gained increasing recognition in Norway. His masterpiece is the 11 × 3 meter large material picture in the House of Industry and Export in Oslo, titled "Herring Fishing" – naturally.
Sigurd Winge (1909–1970) was the monumental artist of his generation, with a long list of public and private decoration assignments, a career that began with the 30-meter-long Boat Frieze for the World's Fair in New York 1939. Winge is also one of the great Norwegian printmakers of the post-war era, who - unlike Rolf Nesch - chose to delve into traditional printmaking techniques, particularly drypoint and etching. In 1938, Winge created a series of images with motifs from herring fishing in various techniques, which pointed towards the Boat Frieze.
Even much later, we find echoes from the "Fishing Trip of a Lifetime".
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The Story of the Boat Frieze
by Magne Bruteig
The Town Hall Competition 1938. Rich with impressions from their experiences on the fishing fields off Ålesund in February 1938, Sigurd Winge and Olav Strømme submitted their contributions to the competition for the decoration of the Oslo Town Hall. Winge participated with a frieze of fishing boats
(fig. 1), planned to be executed in wood, metal, and glass. Such "material experiments" did not sit well with the jury, and neither Winge nor Strømme succeeded in the competition. However, the officials responsible for Norway's pavilion at the upcoming World's Fair in New York must have seen the qualities in Winge's boat frieze and assigned him the task of decorating the over thirty-meter-long facade of the pavilion's representation hall.
The World's Fair in New York 1939. There was only one problem: the ship to America was leaving in less than a month! Winge accepted the challenge, and together with Olav Strømme, they worked literally around the clock to finish the frieze in time (fig. 2). Incredibly enough, when the ship to America set off from the port of Oslo, it carried 15 fishing boats in the cargo hold and a tired artist in the cabin, who could sleep across the Atlantic.
Sigurd Winge completed two wall decorations for the pavilion's representation hall: the Boat Frieze and a panel with a motif from Norwegian hydropower (fig. 3).
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The Story of the Boat Frieze
by Magne Bruteig
After the World's Fair, Winge's hydropower decoration was destroyed - and the Boat Frieze was in danger of suffering the same fate; there were no budget funds available for transport back to Norway. The rescue came from an unexpected source: Oslo Kinematografer (Cinemas) thought the frieze would be suitable for one of the city's new cinemas, and paid for the shipping. However, when it turned out that they only wanted to use parts of the frieze and were not willing to pay the artist for it, Winge refused to sign the agreement.
"The Artists' House"(Kunstnernes Hus) 1949 (Oslo). Therefore, the frieze was stored away in a warehouse at the Colosseum cinema, until it was shown in its entirety at the Artists' House in 1949 (Fig. 4). This aroused interest from several cities on the West Coast and in Northern Norway, which would have liked to have Winge's boats adorn their town halls. However, no binding agreements were made, and the fishing fleet had to again seek refuge in a warehouse.
Purchased by the National Gallery. We do not know exactly where the frieze was stored, but a photo shows that at least one of the boats was located in Winge's studio in the Oslo Town Hall in 1968 (fig. 5). In 1969, the National Gallery recognized that it was a public responsibility to preserve this central work in Norwegian art history, and incorporated it into its collections. Parts of the frieze were also included in the museum's major exhibition of Winge's art in 1978. However, a permanent installation was still uncertain.
A former assistant takes action. In 1998, the renowned artist Ørnulf Opdahl took the initiative to have parts of the Boat Frieze exhibited in Ålesund. As a former assistant to Sigurd Winge, he saw the importance of making the frieze accessible to the public, and as a resident of Sunnmøre, he saw the significance for the fishing city of Ålesund to have the frieze "returned" to the Møre coast, where it was conceived. And now, half of the frieze has hung here in the Parken Culture House for 25 years.
The Boat Frieze becomes complete. In 2022, the National Museum approved a request for a long-term loan of the remaining parts of the Boat Frieze, which were still at the museum (fig. 6). And from July 1, 2023, all the boats are finally gathered, 85 years after the "fishing trip of a lifetime". And in the city where they rightly belong: Ålesund.
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The World's Fair in New York 1939
by Magne Bruteig
"The World of Tomorrow". After having organized its first world's fair as early as 1853, New York made a mark 83 years later with the grand exhibition "The World of Tomorrow" (fig. 1). It was a manifestation of the newfound optimism and economic progress after the depression earlier in the decade. Above all, the USA wanted to demonstrate its leading role in the world, technologically and politically.
Democracy and Dictatorship. The symbol of the exhibition was a 213-meter high triangular obelisk and a large sphere, which contained a model of the future city "Democracity". The name emphasized the exhibition's underlying theme: the superiority of democracy as a form of government. Some totalitarian states - such as the Soviet Union, Japan, and Italy - chose to participate, while countries like China, Spain, and Germany boycotted the exhibition. However, with 52 nations and 11 colonies from all continents, "The World of Tomorrow" still had solid worldwide representation.
Business First. Best represented, however, were the large American companies. Ford, Kodak, AT&T, General Motors, and others were allocated the central area around the sphere and the obelisk (fig. 2). Some critical voices claimed that the exhibition was "a grand monument of and for American business" (fig. 3 and 4). But the US population had roots from most countries in the world, which contributed to a high interest in the international pavilions as well.
High Attendance. Many complained that the entrance fee of 75 cents (equivalent to 160 NOK today) was too high, especially since many of the attractions cost extra. Nevertheless, the exhibition was a great public success: In 355 days, it drew a total of 57 million visitors.
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The World's Fair in New York 1939
by Magne Bruteig
Norway's Pavilion. Norway was early to secure a good location, right at the front of the first of the large "Hall of Nations". Thus, Sigurd Winge's two decorations adorned the entire end wall of the large international hall (fig. 1).
Norway wanted to make a substantial mark in the world's largest display window. They were not satisfied with their part of the joint buildings. As the only nation, they had a footbridge built from the "representation hall" to a specially built pavilion. Originally conceived as a replica of the Stiftsgården in Trondheim, it eventually got a more modern appearance (fig. 2).
Opening. Norway's pavilion was ceremoniously opened on May 1, 1939, by Crown Prince Olav and Crown Princess Märtha. They were met with a salute of honor, students' singing, and 7000 enthusiastic spectators (fig. 3). And the whole event was broadcast on the radio to Norway! The World of Tomorrow was already here!
Artists. Inside the pavilion, there was a presentation of industry and business, traditional costumes and farmhouses, stave churches and smokehouses, polar explorers and poets. Many visual artists had received decoration commissions, including Axel Revold, Nic. Schiøll, Harald Dal, and Jean Heiberg. But the large outer wall was reserved for Sigurd Winge's two decorations (fig. 4). About the Boat Frieze, the critic Pola Gauguin from Dagbladet wrote: "The long frieze gives the image of the Norwegian fishing fleet as it lies at sea during its work... the movement tells about the seriousness, the skills, and the toil which is the history of our fishers' life and struggle with, and mastery of, the elements."
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Material Works
by Øivind Storm Bjerke
Sigurd Winge and Rolf Nesch. Sigurd Winge began early to experiment with new materials for artistic use. In 1934-35, he stopped using traditional tools such as brushes and palette knives and oil paint. Winge's encounter with Rolf Nesch was crucial for this break with traditional techniques. Rolf Nesch (1893-1975) moved to Norway in 1933. From Nesch, Winge learned to use dry color pigment that is sprinkled on an adhesive base, and the motifs are partially etched into the base. The pictures appear as if they are painted on a wall. From Nesch also came the impulse to use different materials like wood, metal, glass, and stone, and a further emphasis on relief effects. Winge often applies color to the back of clear glass. Winge systematically experimented with relief effects in his material works.
In contrast to Nesch, Winge did not carry his material experiments into his graphics. Regarding style, we can find strong similarities between the two artists in Winge's early phase, but as he increasingly oriented himself towards a more classic language of form and artists active in Paris, Winge's art took on a stronger distinctiveness from the 1940s.
Sigurd Winge's material works as decoration. Winge's most famous public work is the decoration of the Oslo Commercial Gymnasium, which he began in 1948. Winge's art can be interpreted as a deeply humanistic art that highlights universal human values. With this, he also breaks with the tradition that had been established in Norway for the decoration of public buildings to take on motifs drawn from work and daily life in a heroic style.
A modernist in two and three dimensions. Winge often prefers the form of the frieze with respect to the composition's structure. It's a form that simultaneously relates to two and three dimensions. Against the white wall surface, the frieze in the Oslo Commercial Gymnasium stands out as if it were part of the room it decorates. Winge's exploration of the frieze as an independent art form at the interface between the wall and the room occurs at a time when most painters insist that a picture should remain within the two dimensions of the image plane, and most room decorations were painted directly on the wall. Winge's undogmatic approach to artistic issues had a significant impact on certain artists, such as Else Hagen, Arne E. Holm, Finn Christensen, and Jan Baker. Among his assistants were also Per Kleiva and Ørnulf Opdahl.
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Winge's Decorations and their Relationship to Space
by Øivind Storm Bjerke
Winge not only experimented with materials in his public decorations. He pays great attention to the importance of placing the work in relation to both the architectural space and the design and use of materials on the wall. Here he took a radical approach and was innovative in the Norwegian context. When his decoration of Aftenposten's new building in Akersgata was unveiled in 1964, it was placed relatively high up on a brick wall. Winge frees the floating form from the background through a dynamic play of edged forms that shoot out from a center core and point like arrows in all directions. Formally, he breaks with the conventional use of a defined rectangle or square as a limit. The artwork appears as an object that has no resemblance to what we associate with a painted picture that respects the strong tradition that a picture has a defined and simple geometric shape to which the elements of a motif relate. Ørnulf Opdahl was an assistant when the relief was made.
The title "The Message" alludes to the newspaper bringing its message as a flying form. The work was created at a time when Winge was involved in church decorations, and if the work had been placed in a church, we would probably associate the title with an annunciation scene where an angel brings the message. It is an example of how Winge takes a well-known motif where a flying figure, be it an angel, the mythical Icarus or a fighter jet, appears as a harbinger. He uses the dynamic, floating form to create a striking symbol for the newspaper's role as a messenger in a modern society. The work, like several of Winge's decorations, was later removed from its original location.
Winge was also an innovative church artist. He continued his material experiments in church decorations in the 1950s and 60s. For King Haakon's Church in Copenhagen, he made a terracotta frieze in 1958. His mosaic in glass and gold leaf on iron with the motif "Veronica's Veil" from 1961 melds abstract forms and a clear figurative depiction of Christ with the crown of thorns. The stained glass in Manglerud Church from 1963 has an abstracted form and color splendor that we see Winge drew impulses from how French abstract painters designed several stained glass in the same period. The Resurrection in the East Crematorium in Oslo 1957-68 combines slate, marble, and brass on a freestanding screen of concrete. The work is considered one of the masterpieces in newer Norwegian church art.
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Dream of the Big Haul
by Ivar Gunnar Braaten
Herring fishing has long traditions in Sunnmøre, Norway. While it was previously done with nets from land, the introduction of drift nets at the end of the 1890s made it possible to catch large and spring herring in the open sea. Later, the purse seine was introduced. The purse seine made fishing far more efficient, but at the same time required large investments in boat and gear.
For Ålesund, herring fishing was an economic pillar in the interwar period and in the first post-war years. In late winter, when the herring visited the coast of Sunnmøre, the town experienced a real Klondike atmosphere: people flocked to Ålesund from far and near to take part in the adventure. Those who did not find space on a herring seiner or a drift net boat, usually found work on land. Herring oil factories, net repair facilities, and other equipment industries had a great need for labor, and could attract with good wages.
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Dream of the Big Haul
by Ivar Gunnar Braaten
This was also the case in 1938: In January of this year, Olav Strømme, Rolf Nesch, and Sigurd Winge traveled to Ålesund. They were to join the herring seiner "Bratt" as "working passengers" on herring fishing. "Bratt" was a 114-foot steel boat built in England in 1896, but raised, rebuilt, and extended after a collision at Lepsøyrevet in 1913. In 1938, "Bratt" was owned by Elias Nørve in Ålesund, and Strømme's father-in-law, Hans Farstad, was the skipper on board.
In a later interview, Rolf Nesch described the experience of the herring field: "...and when we left land - Ålesund - and came out to the actual fishing fleet, it was a city that lay extended and waved a little because the water raised and lowered the boats - and the lights shone in the water."
The four weeks these three artists took part in herring fishing were marked by a change between bad weather and staying ashore, and good catches: On Tuesday, February 15th, for example, a total of 16,000 hl of herring was landed from the seiners to the receiving stations in Ålesund, and about 13,000 hl to the receiving stations in Sandshamn and Fosnavåg. The same day, a full 40 drift net boats came into the city, loaded with large herring. And two days later, on Thursday, February 17th, a full 50,000 hl were picked up from the fields north of Stad.
Most of the herring was delivered to the herring oil factories; some went for bait and home use, and some for export. In the middle of February, for example, the steamship "Kongshaug" was docked in Ålesund, loading 6,500 boxes of ice herring that was destined for Germany.
The seiner "Bratt" also fished well regularly. The herring was mostly caught north of Stad, but the boat also made the trip south to Utsira and made good catches there, which were delivered to the receiving station in Haugesund.
Back on land, on February 18, Rolf Nesch sent a postcard from Ålesund. Here he writes that "I am still alive and on a herring fishing trip. Strømme and Winge are my guests on the journey. Crazy? Yes, not a little, but it is wonderful. Lofoten has long since been surpassed, it is fantastic, new graphics to follow."