Arts and Crafts

Time Period 1600-2000

The Reformation led to change. The church was now Icelandic, but subject to secular authorities in Denmark. Likenesses of saints disappeared from their plinths and altars, to be replaced by the instruments of Lutheran worship. In the 16th century Icelandic craftsmen are first identified by name. The chair of Þórunn from Grund, from the first half of the century, is the oldest artefact bearing the name of its maker: Benedikt Narfason. After the Reformation many more artists are known by name: Brynjólfur of Skarð who made whalebone carvings around 1600, and the Rev. Gísli Guðbrandsson and Jón Greipsson, who were making interesting carvings in the early 17th century.

Prolific artists of the 17th and 18th centuries included Guðmundur Guðmundsson, who brought the Baroque to Iceland, the Rev. Hjalti Þorsteinsson, one of Iceland’s most versatile artists in his time, carpenter Ámundi Jónsson in the 18th century, and farmer-craftsman Hallgrímur Jónsson and his son Jón the painter, to name but a few.

The museum has a large collection of individual components of women’s formal dress: embroidered skirts, bodices embroidered in metal thread, jackets, collars, and the appropriate silver fittings. Many of these are splendid items which provide evidence of the skills of craftsmen.

The oldest extant portraits are of Magnús Jónsson the Gentle and his family, from the late 16th century, and several portraits of Bishop Guðbrandur Þorláksson of the early 17th century. All are believed to have been painted abroad.

In early times Icelanders went to England and northern Europe to train as artists, but after the Reformation they went mainly to Denmark. In the late 18th century some Icelanders attended the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen. The first was Sæmundur Magnússon Hólm, who made portraits of many of his contemporaries. In the mid-18th century Sigurður Guðmundsson the Painter studied in Denmark; he was Iceland’s first professional artist in the modern sense. He returned to Iceland when society was evolving from the old rural society into a modern nation. He settled in Reykjavík, and became a pioneer of arts and cultural conservation. He died before his time in 1874. He and his allies sowed the seed of the modern arts in Iceland.



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