Vestlandet – A Place of Cultural Encounter

Abstract

This article focuses on Norwegian–German cultural contacts in Western Norway in the first half of the 20th century. Although rural Western Norway has always been difficult to access, numerous cultural interrelations between German- and Norwegian-speaking artists, writers, and philosophers can be observed. These encounters can be characterised as real exchanges from person to person, but also as exchanges between persons and texts, or between persons and landscape. The article provides an overview of the Vestlandet region as a place of cultural encounter, focusing on the aesthetic, political and historical context of the early to mid-20th century.