Per Kirkeby’s painting Fram appears to be completely abstract but actually has a story behind it. Kirkeby has said that when he is working on a painting, he often goes to his art library, looks at an art history book and takes it to his studio. “I borrow something, something starts to move. That’s the way I use my art history.” In this case, Fram, which means “forward,” was a ship built by Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansens and used for his 1893 voyage to the North Pole. The ship was considered to be the strongest wooden ship ever built. Kirkeby, who initially studied arctic geology at the University of Copenhagen, has said that he has always been fascinated by polar expeditions.
Some of Fram‘s composition is based on Sea of Ice by Caspar David Friedrich, which features a wrecked ship amidst a forbidding display of shards of ice in the polar sea. As Kirkeby stated, “The story fascinated me. It is both an ice floe and a tabletop. It’s very audacious to reach the North Pole by subjecting a ship to these audacious forces.” In Kirkeby’s painting, the energetic brushstrokes on the left pay homage to Friedrich’s composition, while the fallen tumbler on the right refers to a 17th-century Dutch still life by Willem Claeszoon Heda. Kirkeby combined landscape and still life, genres that seemed outdated in 1983 when he painted Fram, into a new, hybrid composition, perhaps reflecting the drive for knowledge that inspired Fram’s journey.
Mchoro wa Per Kirkeby Fram unaonekana kuwa wa kijuujuu kabisa lakini kwa kweli una hadithi nyuma yake. Kirkby alisema kwamba wakati anafanya kazi kwenye mchoro, mara nyingi huenda kwenye maktaba yake ya sanaa, hutazama kitabu cha historia ya sanaa na kuichukua kwenye studio yake. <unk>Ninachukua kitu, kitu huanza kuhama. "Fram, jina la Kiingereza linalomaanisha ""kwenda mbele,"" ni meli iliyotengenezwa na Fridtjof Nansen, mvumbuzi wa bara la Norway, na kutumika katika safari yake ya mwaka 1893 kwenda Nchi ya Kaskazini." Meli hiyo ilionwa kuwa meli ya mbao yenye nguvu zaidi iliyowahi kutengenezwa. Kirkeby, ambaye mwanzoni alisoma jiolojia ya Aktiki katika Chuo Kikuu cha Copenhagen, amesema kwamba sikuzote amevutiwa na safari za kwenda kwenye ncha za kaskazini. "Kama ilivyoelezwa hapo juu, ""Bahari ya Barafu"" ya Caspar David Friedrich ni hadithi ya hadithi ya baharini ya barafu ya bahari ya barafu." Kama Kirkeby alivyosema, "Hadithi hiyo ilinivutia sana. Ni barafu na meza kwa wakati mmoja. "Kupiga picha kwa kutumia brashi ya Kirby, ""Mchoro wa Friedrich"" wa upande wa kushoto, na ""Tumbler"" ya upande wa kulia, ni mfano wa sanamu ya karne ya 17 ya Uholanzi iliyochorwa na Willem-Claude Hede." Kirkby aliunganisha mandhari na hali halisi, aina ambazo zilionekana kuwa zimepitwa na wakati mnamo 1983 alipochora Fram, katika mchanganyiko mpya, wa mchanganyiko, labda ikionyesha mwelekeo wa maarifa ambayo iliongoza safari ya Fram.