Modernist Sculpture Parks and Their Ideological Contexts— On the Basis of the Oeuvres by Gustav Vigeland, Bernhard Hoetger and Einar Jónsson

The purpose of this article is to explore the ideological contexts of sculptural works by Northern modernists: Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943) from Norway, Bernhard Hoetger (1874–1949) from Germany, and the Icelander Einar Jónsson (1874–1954). The original iconographies of the Vigelandsanlegget in Oslo, Hoetger’s Platanenhein in Darmstadt, as well as Jónsson’s oeuvres collected in Reykjavik, will be interpreted in relation to wider discourses—i.e. Nietzschean influence, a particular taste for the esoteric (theosophy) and, last but not least, a noticeable aversion to classical form.