Pictorial Florilegium

Between 1825 and 1915 over 800,000 emigrants left Norway to settle in America. With them they brought a wide variety of skills and crafts as well as many items of furniture, jewelry, metalwork, and other functional artifacts. The present volume attempts to survey some of the more outstanding examples of this material through a sequence of excellent photographs and an all-too-brief introductory essay. What emerges is a' pictorial florilegium of decorated objects that will astound even the most persistent and knowledgeable lovers of "folk art," as well as close readers of Ole Rølvaag's Giants in the Earth. By virtue of their location in private homes, most of these objects - some dating from the 17th century, while others were produced in this country as recently as the first decade of the 20th century - have effectively managed to evade "discovery" and "appreciation" until now.

Anyone desiring to delve further into the history, origins, provenance, and aesthetic significance of these works, however, will be required to await further publications. The current vogue for "folk art" has, for the most part, still to engender the requisite critical and analytical skills for dealing with it. In the meantime, the present authors are to be praised for having brought to light from many obscure locations this rich and unanticipated heritage from the Norwegian emigrants to the New World.

A TREASURY OF NORWEGIANFOLK ART IN AMERICA. ByJames F. Richardson Jr. '61 andDonald Gilbertson. Tin ChickenAntiques, Osseo, Wisconsin. 96 pp.140 illustrations (34 in color). $6.95.

Mr. McGrath, a medieval and renaissance arthistorian, is chairman of Dartmouth's artdepartment. He is also an expert on primitiveVermont wall paintings.