Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2002, Síða 25

EIN DANI OG BYRJANIN TIL FØROYSKA FORNFRØÐI
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Fig. 13. Oil painting by Emilie Demant Hattfmm 1948. The painting was based on lier memory ofthe visit to the
Faroe Islands in 1932, atul is now in the private ownership ofSigne Hatt Áberg in Sweden. Another painting with
almost tlie same motif is called ‘Faroese landscape. Mountain and Seanow stored in the Skive Art Museum in
Denmark. Tlte gloomy atmosphere of the painting is no doubt a reflection ofher mental state after her husband
Gudmund in 1947 was sackedfrom his professorship at University of Copenhagen on grounds of “unpatríotic
conduct’’ during tlie German occupation of Denmark.
had the opportunity to study landscapes
(Fig. 13), settlements and farming in parts
of Streymoy and Eysturoy and in Koltur
and Hestoy. The old Faroese house too has
a close relationship with the Iron Age
house of Northern .lutland. I conducted an
excavation of an ancient house ruin, one of
the so-called “Fransatoftir”, jointly with
the librarian M. A. Jacobsen of Tórshavn’
(author’s translation from Danish).
The visit to the Faroe Islands offered a
good opportunity for Hatt to get a better in-
sight in landscapes and farming in this part
of the North Atlantic. His experience frorn
the Faroe Islands, as well as Greenland and
Iceland, probably formed the background
for his impressive article Early Intrusion of
Agriculture in the Nortli Atlantic Subarctic
Region, published in Alaska in 1953 (Hatt,
1953).