På andras axlar – Lars von Trier och bildkonsten

“My idea is to indulge myself with a collage of images which, together, represent my youthful –naive, if you like – love for primarily Nordic artists and their followers. A kind of interwoven tapestry of images which can be viewed both as a whole and in detail.”

This is how the Danish film director Lars von Trier presents the artistic heroes from which he is descended. ‘Descendant’ is published in connection with the exhibition of the same name at Willumsen’s Museum in Frederikssund, Denmark, which Lars von Trier has curated. Among the exhibited artists are Vilhelm Hammershøi (DK), Paul Gauguin (FR), Caspar David Friedrich (DE), Carl Fredrik Hill (SE), Per Kirkeby (DK), Edvard Munch (NO), Ejnar Nielsen (DK), August Strindberg (SE), Rudolph Tegner (DK), Gustav Vigeland (NO), J.F. Willumsen (DK) and von Trier himself.

While the selection of artworks and the accompanying texts written by Lars von Trier are the result of his personal relationship with a selection of artists and works, the book’s articles represent an external perspective on von Trier’s oeuvre and thus elaborates on the connection between his films and visual art.

With contributions from, among others, the internationally renowned Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård, the Danish author and scholar Lilian Munk Rösing, the Danish artist Erik Steffensen and Lars von Trier himself, a wide range of works by some of the greatest Nordic artists who have inspired Trier in his work are unfolded. The book offers a unique insight into the visual ‘image bank’ from which one of our time’s greatest now-living filmmakers has drawn inspiration.