This text includes a creative exercise to explore why visual art is so powerful in certain situations and contexts. To aid such exploration, I will discuss three possible ways or lessons to zoom in on the aesthetic experience and its possible role in self-development. This text also aims to contribute to the richness and complexity of the formal study and appreciation of art.

Imagine you are in front of a cave right now. The cave feels dark and damp as soon as you step inside. You will need some illumination to get into the place. You may sometimes need to lower your body to move forward into the cave. Your heartbeat and your footsteps are the only things you can hear and identify. Suddenly, the cave’s walls and ceiling reveal a pattern of spots, lines, and figures. A few of them are instantly recognizable, while others are less so. You need to get close to the images before you can tell what they are.1

This short creative exercise will highlight the practice of making images and items with no practical purpose that dates back thousands of years. The exercise’s goal was to transport you to Vallon-Pont-d’Arc, France, to explore the paintings in the Chauvet Cave, which date from 34,000 to 32,000 BCE and are among the oldest known.2 When the experts began to analyze the pictures, it became necessary to rethink previous knowledge about Stone Age paintings and style evolution. These images hold enough secrets to keep specialists and the general public curious about the meaning and use of such work, which makes them wonder why they are made like this? What was their purpose? I suggest in this text to explore these questions from a self-developmental perspective, which helps us to connect with our senses, memory, and capacity for cognitive growth through art appreciation. 

### A sensory yet cognitive experience

Visual artists use many different elements to get their point across, such as certain styles, shapes, compositions, and even the materials they have on hand at the time. Painters also have the option of using color and line to convey meaning. It’s possible to gain insight by considering also the textures and words contained in the artwork. Pictorial conventions often say more about the cultural background of the creator than words. 

All the resources mentioned, assembled to a greater or lesser degree, trigger a response in the viewer, an aesthetic response3 that goes from awe and surprise to anger and despair. That’s how some pieces tie invisible threads between our thoughts, emotions, and bodily reactions with the sensorial possibilities contained in artwork.4 The purpose of art here can be understood as a way to identify how to use “our minds and emotions, but [that we] have trouble with.”5 Art then acts as a tool for perceiving the world and integrating internal and external experiences. In an ideal scenario, it might lead to improved awareness and comprehension of proper feelings repertoire that serves as a solid foundation for emotional regulation.6

In summary, experiencing art can teach us to recognize what happens inside us when we get an emotional response or become triggered. Here, we are talking about a higher process that can lead to self-awareness,7 one of the first steps toward dealing with these emotions and feelings. After becoming aware, it is possible to freely explore the emotions without acting on them, becoming curious about them, and viewing them as something outside ourselves, almost as if we were looking at the emotions as a work of art.

### Bringing historical episodes together

Pliny the Elder, a Roman historian, recounts the story of a young couple who were deeply in love but had to split up. In response, the woman chose to sketch the outline of her lover’s shadow. Out of fear of loss, she drew a line outside a tomb with the tip of a burning stick. She wanted something to remember him by when he was gone. She wanted to capture his essence.8

Following this idea, artists, photographers, and sculptors, among others, are exceptional at identifying what is worth and what we must preserve. When we come into contact with a work of art and recall our aesthetic experience, we begin to remember. It could be a motive, a color, or a monument, or maybe an entire building that gives us a sense of identity and belonging.9 Art contemplation can be a meditative exercise that makes us stop and stimulates introspection on others and our human condition.10

As experts in the field of visual art, art historians today work with images and objects that cross the time dimension. Images can help us to be aware of the evolution of ideas depicted in the devices. Nowadays, experts in history and other disciplines are also attempting to address other questions about why these tangible images and pieces were created and why they appear the way they do. In a poetic sense, they are, in a way, making a memory exercise, attempting to represent the past, make it available in the present11, and generate meaningful knowledge for the future.

To summarize, as ideas, we are neither immutable nor absolute.12 On the contrary, we are in temporary experiments of evolving and becoming. Self-reflection about our lives allows us to be more in tune with ourselves while also connecting with others.13 We, like artists, can use art to make sense of the living experience of being human.

### Resembling ideas and states from a different domain

A piece of art can depict a wide range of possibilities and withstand various readings and interpretations. Sometimes the artist’s intentions do not necessarily align with the viewers’ expectations. Art can address something abstract and concrete14, universal and personal simultaneously. In this “sophisticated accumulation of experiences”15, we can stretch out our preconceptions about ourselves and the world we live in. Artwork not only encourages us to enjoy ourselves but also to examine our own guarded and uneasy emotions. Some masterpieces also encourage us to embrace the uncertainty of trying to connect with them. Here we are talking about when we didn’t get the picture16 yet. Recognizing where we are in our understanding process can give us a guide that can assist us in diving into the unknown. And one becomes more present.

In this article, I discussed three lessons from art that we can learn and use as a development tool for self-awareness, self-reflection, and presence under certain conditions. Being aware of the ability of images to mediate our process for identifying, reflecting, and transforming information from our aesthetic experience can help us navigate the complexities of human life and develop a more sophisticated approach to ourselves and others. When we perform the processes described above, such as when viewing art, we zoom in and out on things hoping that a closer look will reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary.

#### Noter

1.  It is possible to see a reproduction of the cave in 3D here: https://g.co/kgs/6eaVew

2. Helen Gardner and Fred S. Kleiner, Gardner’s Art through the Ages. A global history (Massachusset: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2020), 23.

3. Gardner and Kleiner, Gardner’s Art through the Ages,1.

4. Caroline A. Jones, ed., Sensorium: Embodied Experience,Technology, and Contemporary Art (Massachussets: First MIT Press edition, 2006), 19.

5. Alain De Botton and John Armstrong, Art as Therapy (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2013), 5.

6.  Anne Torhild Klomstén and Camilla Fikse, Relasjoner, tanker og følelser i skolen. Samskapt læring knyttet til fagfornyelsen (Oslo: Cappele Damm AS, 2021), 79-80.

7. Thomas Jordan, “Self-awareness, meta-awareness and the witness self,” accessed October 30, 2022, http://www.perspectus.se/tjordan/

8.  De Botton and Armstrong, Art as Therapy, 10.

9.  Susie Hodge, How Art can Change your Life (London: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2022), 128.

10.  Hodge, How Art, 114.

11.  W.J.T., Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005), xiv -xv.

12.  Umberto Eco, Historia de la belleza (Barcelona: Random House Mondadori, S.A., 2010), 14.

13.  Hodge, How Art, 97.

14.  Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want?, xvii.

15.  De Botton and Armstrong, Art as Therapy, 65.

16.  Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want?, xiv.

Art, as a form of language, can connect us to concepts that may enable us to see the world in new and exciting ways and boost our understanding of that. This article explores the ability of art to create impactful experiences through the power of images.

illustrasjon-til-31.10.22.png

Three powerful lessons from visual art

![Photo 1 Hannah Ryggen_Vi lever på en stjerne.jpg](https://storage.googleapis.com/nisje-strapi-bucket/Photo_1_Hannah_Ryggen_Vi_lever_pa_en_stjerne_096321984c/Photo_1_Hannah_Ryggen_Vi_lever_pa_en_stjerne_096321984c.jpg)

Ingrid Lunnan Nødseth and Solveig Lønmo from the National Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (NKIM for its abbreviation in Norwegian) in Trondheim efforts to professionalize textile research and expand knowledge on Hannah Ryggen’s legacy in visual and contemporary art. Ryggen lived and worked in Ørlandet, Trøndelag1, and was a prominent figure in Trondheim’s art and social scenes.

I first saw Ryggen’s work in 2017 and revisited it a year later at NKIM’s 125th-anniversary exhibition, which included four artists’ tapestries and an article about Ryggen’s collection.2 As a result, I gained more understanding of her legacy and the significance of her work. Due to the continued interest in her work and the lens of feminism in art history, this article aims to shed light on Hannah Ryggen’s contributions to contemporary art outside the Nordic region. For that, I will briefly introduce Ryggen’s life and work to share later some insights and reflections from a feministic perspective. 

THE ARTIST: A SHORT INTRODUCTION

Born in Malmö, Sweden, in 1894 as Hanna Josefina Maria Jönson, Ryggen grew up in a working-class family. Her first studio was in her grandmother’s cottage, where she learned to spin and dye yarns.3 Initially pursuing a career as a teacher, she found it unsatisfying and decided to follow her artistic interests instead. In 1922, she studied privately in Lund, Sweden, and classical art immersion afterward in Dresden, Germany. After marrying the Norwegian artist Hans Ryggen in 1923, they moved to Ørlandet, Norway. Hannah continued weaving4 which eventually became her primary artistic medium. Her technique involved simultaneously using her arms and legs on a loom adapted and built by her husband. 5

Norwegian weaving and domestic industry traditions had professionalized at that time, giving women training and economic independence outside the home.6 However, due to the couple’s limited resources, Hannah had to learn how to spin and dye wool yarn from scratch, which fit with their communist self-sufficiency and her desire to stay close to nature.7

![Photo 2.jpg](https://storage.googleapis.com/nisje-strapi-bucket/Photo_2_f22407afe6/Photo_2_f22407afe6.jpg)

Her first large tapestry, “The Adulteress,” was completed in 1926, based on a biblical text about a woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus by scribes and Pharisees. Each person depicted had distinct characteristics that demonstrated the artist’s compassion and empathy for the underdog and her criticism of those in positions of authority.8

Hannah Ryggen struggled to gain recognition while her husband was already a well-known painter because independent female artists were not typical by then.9 Her first exhibition was at the Nidaros (Trondheim) Jubilee Exhibition in 1930, where she participated in five tapestries using different techniques. During this period, she received criticism, but the encouragement came from those who perceived artistic value in her work. As a result of her experiences, she began to use her weaving as a medium to express herself and depict her life using colors and physical expressions to convey a wide range of emotions.

![Photo 3. Hannah_Ryggen_Etiopia_1935_Foto Anders S Solberg.jpg](https://storage.googleapis.com/nisje-strapi-bucket/Photo_3_Hannah_Ryggen_Etiopia_1935_Foto_Anders_S_Solberg_69dc965645/Photo_3_Hannah_Ryggen_Etiopia_1935_Foto_Anders_S_Solberg_69dc965645.jpg)

Her first political tapestry depicted the 1935 Italian occupation of Ethiopia. Ryggen continued as one of the few artists to use her motives to respond to local and international events despite her family’s WWII struggles.10 She also depicted people’s reactions to these events, sometimes as a form of criticism. Similarly, she portrayed themes like Nazism in Germany and Norway, the Spanish Civil War, social and political activism, the Vietnam War, and other topics, demonstrating her interest and commitment to social and political issues.

![Photo 4. Hannah_Ryggen_6_oktober_1942.jpg](https://storage.googleapis.com/nisje-strapi-bucket/Photo_4_Hannah_Ryggen_6_oktober_1942_f0ba152bdb/Photo_4_Hannah_Ryggen_6_oktober_1942_f0ba152bdb.jpg)

However, Ryggen’s works are more than just records of her time. Instead, the scenes express her feelings and spontaneous reactions, like in “Ethiopia,” in which she tries to convey a sense of justice, whether positive or negative.11 In addition, the artist knew about Norwegian and Swedish women’s social conditions, and her tapestries reflect women’s lives and experiences through the eyes of an immigrant woman.

She was gaining more space in the art scene of that time. One of the breaking points of her career was when her tapestry “Use of Hands” (1949) was purchased by the Norwegian Gallery of Art in Oslo in 1953, dissolving an institutional barrier between craft and art.12 In 1955-1956, approximately twenty-two tapestries were loaned to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for a traveling exhibition in North America, where her work got enthusiastic approval.13 Years later, Ryggen received the Cross of Knighthood of the Royal St. Olav’s Order from Norway in 1965. Her tapestries have recently received renewed national and international attention, with exhibitions in Oxford, Kassel, Madrid, Oslo, Malmö, Frankfurt, and dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel and Trondheim.14

Her weaving technique without sketching, relying solely on her memory and creativity, helped her create a unique figurative expressionist style influenced by medieval icons, Norwegian textiles, and contemporary Norwegian artists such as Arne Ekeland.15 Before her death, she donated over 100 pieces to Trondheim’s two leading museums, including NKIM. One of the current research goals is to get an overview of her production, observed Lønmo.16

Ryggen’s artistic processes were inextricably linked to her life and political beliefs and influenced by Norwegian rural development and communist ideals.17 Moreover, it can be possible to know more details and perspectives about her work, commented Lønmo.

FEMINISM AND ART HISTORY

Feminism is an approach with diverse interests and commitments that share common values and beliefs. Gender, race, class, and social and political contexts have all been addressed by feminists in art history. In the 1960s and the 1970s, second-wave feminists demanded equality in all areas, including the arts, emphasizing how the patriarchal system and sexist beliefs shaped female artists. Additionally, women’s art challenged norms by incorporating feminine art forms, such as textiles and embroidery,18 thereby criticizing Art History’s structural sexism.19

According to Lunnan Nødseth and Lønmo, textiles have traditionally been associated with women and are less researched than architecture, painting, and sculpture.20 However, studying textile art, which includes art made with textiles and art made about textiles,21 can also draw attention to the little-known hierarchy of different art forms and the hidden role of textiles in global visual culture, among other insights. Linda Nochlin, a seminal feminist art historian, proposed that to obtain a more accurate historical perspective, we must critically examine intellectual distortions about what is natural or not in disciplines or academic research.22

The feminist perspective can assist researchers in better understanding the social and ideological factors that shaped the work of female artists. Ryggen’s work as a feminist project can help to increase textile research competence in museums, following Lunna Nødseth. Thus, it is critical to highlight the ideologies that shaped women’s access to educational and occupational opportunities in Sweden in the early nineteenth century and the social expectations that governed women’s behavior in Norway and Sweden. Her motives are an opportunity to reflect on previous ideas about the fertility-beauty-power dynamic, sexuality, motherhood, and the emotional world. One feminist interpretation of her tapestries can help to discuss traditional female body representations and the social construction of masculinity. Situating these elements in their social and cultural contexts can help to understand them as conventions, eluding essentialistic explanations for her work. 23 24

![Photo 5. NK1952-181_foto_Freia_Beer.JPG](https://storage.googleapis.com/nisje-strapi-bucket/Photo_5_NK_1952_181_foto_Freia_Beer_b97bb3cbdb/Photo_5_NK_1952_181_foto_Freia_Beer_b97bb3cbdb.jpg)

Furthermore, some accounts have mentioned Hannah Ryggen’s challenging relationship with institutionalized art agents, primarily men. The rejection of female artists can be interpreted as how sexism and patriarchy denied access to the Norwegian and European institutional artistic scenes at the time. Ryggen’s lack of agency and participation in institutionalized art must be addressed in academic research not as an anecdote but as a form of exclusion.25

Hannah Ryggen’s art depicts women socially marginalized due to their sexuality, such as adulterers and single mothers. Her life and work show how society confided in women by imposing gender roles on them. Ryggen’s discourse and values, on the other hand, attempt to redeem them and make these marginalized groups visible. In this sense, acknowledging Ryggen’s social class and status at that time can highlight how artists’ struggles and lives have evolved.26 As a result, art became a field where ideologies and discourses could be seen and interacted with one another, which added dynamism to researching and comprehending her work. 

Lønmo has emphasized previous efforts to move Ryggen’s work away from art and textile history to understand it in the context of visual and contemporary art. In this regard, discussing Ryggen’s legacy solely as a form of art risks undervaluing the diverse identities that her work can contain. It is critical reclaiming her pieces’ uniqueness in the face of mass production, a quality that the craft emphasizes. Furthermore, homogenizing and labeling her work as only art can jeopardize the ability of craft to empower individuals and groups in situations that would otherwise threaten and violate their quality of life.27

![Photo 6. Hannah Ryggen_Fiske ved gjeldens hav_Foto Dag-Arve Forbergskog.jpg](https://storage.googleapis.com/nisje-strapi-bucket/Photo_6_Hannah_Ryggen_Fiske_ved_gjeldens_hav_Foto_Dag_Arve_Forbergskog_69fb49f20c/Photo_6_Hannah_Ryggen_Fiske_ved_gjeldens_hav_Foto_Dag_Arve_Forbergskog_69fb49f20c.jpg)

The craft’s strength lies in its smallness, attributed powerlessness, and harmless in the face of social and identity problems. Research can address the politics of the so-called “small things” as another way to understand power and ideology. By contrast, academic research can stimulate inquiry and help answer big questions that societies face today. However, the desire to answer these questions can erode and distort craft identity in the name of Grand narratives,29 privileging a more controlled discourse dominated by other values and standards proposed mainly by men. 30 31

To end, folk art and weaving were foundational for mediating nationalistic discourses through establishing decorative arts and design museums in Christiania (today, Oslo), Bergen, and Trondheim at the end of the nineteenth century.32 Nevertheless, this kind of museum’s nature can positively affect how textiles are mediated to the public today. In addition, rather than attempting to convey the pieces as another form of visual art, it is possible to give a more significant account of her work by focusing on the material, techniques, and craftiness. As a result, Ryggen’s work can be mediated as an example of how art and craft can intersect and reflect society’s values and discourses while also acknowledging the broader social and political contexts in which they were created.

CONCLUSION

This article wanted to give some insights from the feminist approach to Hannah Ryggen’s work and the social and cultural context in which she evolved as an artist. The intersectionality of gender, social status, and institutions shaped her career, and it is critical to recognize these factors when researching her legacy. Furthermore, we can prevent the distortion of her identity and the discourse surrounding her work by embracing the complexity of her narrative and discourse.

![Photo 7. NK2018-028_foto_Freia_Beer.jpg](https://storage.googleapis.com/nisje-strapi-bucket/Photo_7_NK_2018_028_foto_Freia_Beer_8cc9f0dabd/Photo_7_NK_2018_028_foto_Freia_Beer_8cc9f0dabd.jpg)

P.S.
We thank NKIM and Siri Frøseth for their assistance with photos and information about Ryggen’s collection. All the credits are given. 

It is worth noting that some of Ryggen’s works can now be seen at The Hannah Ryggen Center in Brekstad, Trøndelag. In addition, the “Hannah Ryggen Triennale” takes place every three years, creating a dialogue between Ryggen’s work and contemporary artists. 

Furthermore, thanks to the National Council of Research funding, the Museums and Textiles in Trondheim project, MUTE, is underway. Lunnan Løndseth and Lønmo will work with Museums in South-Trøndelag (MIST in Norwegian), NTNU, and Bergen University to further our understanding of textiles’ role in visual culture.

**Noter**
1 Annemona Grand, “Trønderens Kunst Stilles ut Over Hele Verden. Nå Skal Den Forskes på,” Adressavisen, March 13, 2023. 
https://www.adressa.no/kultur/i/Ll9ejJ/troenderens-kunst-stilles-ut-over-hele-verden-naa-skal-den-forskes-paa

2 Solveig Lønmo ed., 125 Gjestander, Valg, Fortellinger / 125 Objects, Choices, Stories (Trondheim: Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, 2018), 5, 90-91, 104-111, 272-273.

3 Tore Gjelsvik, and Magni Moksnes Gjelsvik, The Tapestries of Hannah Ryggen (Trondheim: Lyngs bokhandel, 1999), 10.
https://www.nb.no/items/e19567aed413f52b7cbc25348150cbe1?page=5&searchText=gjelsvik,%20tore

4  Weaving had a revival in Denmark and Sweden in 1900. For more context see: Randi Nygaard Lium, Tekstilkunst i Norge (Trondheim: Museumsforlaget, 2016), 109.

5  Gjelsvik and Gjelsvik, The Tapestries, 15, 17.

6 Nygaard, Tekstilkunst, 83-84.

7  Grand, “Trønderens.”

8 Gjelsvik and Gjelsvik, The Tapestries, 22.

9 Nygaard, Tekstilkunst, 83.

10 Danbolt, Gunnar; Flottorp,Vigdis; Brudevoll, Kari; Homlong, Beate and Thorbjørnsen, Kari. Norsk Kunsthistorie: Bilde Og Skulptur Frå Vikingtida til i Dag (Oslo: Samlaget, 2009), 309-312.

11  Gjelsvik and Gjelsvik, The Tapestries, 36.

12  Ibid., The Tapestries, 69.

13  Ibid., 77.

14  Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum. “Hannah Ryggen-senteret.” Accessed 27 April 2023. https://nkim.no/hannah-ryggen-senteret

15 Ibid., 20, 33, 44.

16  Grand, “Trønderens.”

17 Hemmings, Jessica “Hannah Ryggen: Woven Histories.” Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture 17, no. 1 (2019): 46,48, https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2018.1453737.

18  Hatt, Michael and Klonk, Charlotte. “Feminism,” in Art history. A Critical Introduction to its Methods (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006), 145- 148.

19  Parker, Rozsika and Pollock, Griselda. Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology. (London: Routledge & Paul Kegan, 1981), xvii.

20  Grand, “Trønderes.”

21  Hemmings, Jessica “Material Meaning.” Wasafiri 25, no. 3 (2010): 38. https://doi.org/10.1080/02690055.2010.486251.

22 Nochlin, Linda “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”, in Art and Sexual Politics, ed. Thomas B. Hess and Elizabeth C. Baker (New York: Macmillan, 1973), 1.

23  Hatt and Klonk, Art History, 151.

24  Pollock, Griselda «Feminist Interventions in the History of Art” in Art History and its Methods, ed. Eric Fernie (London: Phaidon Press, 2001), 296.

25  Hatt and Klonk, Art History, 151.

26  Ibid., 155.

27  Hemmings,Jessica “Rereading and Revising: Acknowledging the Smallness (Sometimes) of Craft.” Craft research 9, no. 2 (2018): 273. https://doi.org/10.1386/CRRE.9.2.273_1.

28  Hemmings, Rereading, 274.

29  French literary theorist Jean-François Lyotard had this term to understand the “totalizing narratives or metadiscourses of modernity which have provided ideologies with a legitimating philosophy of history”. See: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095903493;jsessionid=E66BCC2BD541FF1035C50C54B74DE9A8

30  Hatt and Klonk, Art History, 153.

31  Pollock, Art History and, 296.

32  Nygaard, Tekstilkunst, 86.

Hannah Ryggen is a well-known figure in the Trondheim and Norway art scenes, and this article seeks to provide some insights into her work from a feminist art perspective.

Judith Longoria Gomez

Artikler

Three powerful lessons from visual art

HANNAH RYGGEN: SOME NOTES FROM A FEMINISTIC PERSPECTIVE