Ingálvur av Reyni

Ingálvur av Reyni [ ɪngɔlvʊɹ ɛau ɹɛinɪ ] ( born December 18, 1920 in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands, † November 26, 2005 ) was a Faroese painter and printmaker there so-called "second generation". He is considered one of the leading representatives of Nordic modernism in the 20th century.

See also: Faroese Art

Youth

Ingálvur was born in 1920 as the third and youngest son of the merchant Jens av Reyni ( 1886-1948 ) and Christine Jacobsen ( 1881-1991 ) in Torshavn. The family name av Reyni goes back to Høgareyn, a part of the Tinganes Peninsula. Originally welcomed his paternal ancestors Jensen, but in 1910 they took the name from this district to - one in the Faroe Islands is not unusual procedure, in order to emphasize their own local roots. Nevertheless, the parents had moved before he was born of Høgrareyn in the Niels Finsensgøta Kongagøta corner, where his father ran a bookshop.

In this bookstore Ingálvur av Reyni came early in contact with the fine arts and began, how to, draw his older brothers Jens Pauli and Sigrid at. Some of these children's drawings are still preserved. In 1933, he saw in a bookstore for the first time three images of the Faroese image art pioneer Sámal Joensen - Mikines in the Christmas issue Jól í Føroyum. After his people leaving school in 1935 he went to sea as a cabin boy, so he came, inter alia, to Hamburg, Hull and the Netherlands. At home in Tórshavn, he began a bookbinder.

His father, however, was the bookstore on, was director of the first Faroese Steamship Company, and later Chairman of the General Insurance Company of the Faroe Islands, and finally he ran a private business overseas trade on a larger scale.

At the age of 16, the young Ingálvur was clear that he wanted to become a painter. From that time his first oil painting comes Ingutrøð (1937, 14 × 26 cm, collection of the artist ), which shows the estate of his grandmother Inga in Tórshavn. In 1938 he went to Copenhagen to Bizzie Høyers Drawing School, from 1942, to the art academy and from 1944 in addition to the Graphical school. Both he graduated in 1945. After the British occupation of the Faroe Islands in World War II returned to his home islands. Very many of the Faroese intellectuals at that time were forced to spend the war years in German-occupied Denmark.

On January 12, 1946 Reyni married in Tórshavn, the brunette nurse Elsa Petrine Thomsen from Porkeri. In 1947 he had his first exhibition in the Faroe Islands together with the artist Elinborg Lützen.

The painter

Ingálvur av Reyni chose to stand up in a row with his Expressionism against the epic content of the art of his predecessors and made ​​the painting on new paths. A clear coloristic French sound makes itself felt in his art. The artistic roots go out of Cézanne and Matisse.

Sometimes Reyni is referred to as " the least provincial Faroese painter" who could assert itself as a cosmopolitan with his work as well in each x - any art capital of the world. Superficially, this may be due to the fact that the direct reference to the Faroese naturalism in the typical landscape painting and the influence of the " father figure " Sámal Joensen - Mikines is only slightly visible.

The formidable nature, which acts directly on the sense of sight of every painter in the Faroe Islands, but is very probably the overarching theme of Reynis art. The difference in him: Nature is perceived from within, contains as structures, sounds, fragments of the cosmos, the possibilities for a scenic working with forms and movements, bright colors and rhythm. The expression of nature is on the approach to an increasingly abstract formal language. In light-filled landscapes, interiors and figurative paintings from the 1940s and 1950s Cubist simplification of the motif is characteristic. The lines and shapes of nature are part of, or basis of the Cubist -inspired, strict composition of the picture, which is freed from all extraneous elements. The work of art becomes an image of the internal and external reality simultaneously. More and more contrasting colors are compared to the end of the 1950s, a high point in the daring counter-play of complementary colors is achieved.

In 1958 he traveled together with compatriot and fellow artist Hans í Mikladali to a first study trip to Paris, which he visited in 1973 and again in 1979. The three Paris stays are generally regarded as his most important foreign trips.

A special exhibition in Tórshavn in 1961 was groundbreaking - this was the first time a direct- abstract conception of nature shown. The paintings had names like Kurpali ( disorder ) and Sjón í fuglaeyga ( view from bird eye). This exhibition not announced at once the turnaround to non-figurative art at - Ingálvur av Reyni like never before employed in the 1960s and early 1970s with the landscape motif, although very abstract, especially with the central theme village by the sea. The color changes from attitude flames of strong vivid colors bright, not dry grays through to deep black registers.

A series of works from the 1970s consists of abstractions over groups of figures and carries titles such as girls and people on the beach - as a trilogy in the possession of Faroese art museum. In recent years, Ingálvur av Reyni predominantly abstract painters have been if this expression can be used for non-figurative art, which is based on the sounds and structures of nature. In his broadly painted, usually large and resolute compositions the artwork breaks from the inside track. Warm earth tones glow from the lower layers, boil on contact with cold gray color surfaces and infect others on fire. The drama is the struggle of the colors and the dynamic movements of the brush strokes. The rhythm is sometimes marked by scraping the brush handle in the thick, glossy varnish of paint. This is concrete painting.

On September 21, 2004 reported that the image Vildbrænding, hærgende storm is included in the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. The Faroese newspaper Sosialurin calls it a great honor and recognition not only for Ingálvur, but for the Faroese art as a whole.

The graphic

Ingálvur av Reyni is also an excellent draftsman. The city with the houses around the harbor, ships and boats as well as the people on the street - especially the old inhabitants of the city - are his favorite subjects. His ability to hold physiognomies in a single closed line is impressive. But his many trips to European centers of art have also led him to drawings of figures and groups in crowds, interiors and street scenes. The drawings show a pronounced artistic sense of a precise characteristics. However, although the drawings in these cases mentioned figurative and narrative than the paintings, the subject is subjected to the necessities of the stroke and the strict closed form. In many cases, he has also performed non-figurative drawings.