Apple Trees in Bloom

Nikolai Astrup was a Norwegian painter. His father Christian wanted Nikolai, his oldest son, to become a priest as well, but Nikolai was more interested in drawing and painting. He studied these subjects in Oslo where he was a student at Backer popular school of painting. He later lived for a while in Paris and in Germany before returning to Jølster. He got married there and had 8 children. The family was not well off and he struggled with poor health. Astrup died of pneumonia in 1928 at the age of 47 in Jølster's neighbouring municipality Førde.

Astrup preferred clear, strong colors and usually painted landscape art depicting his surroundings in Jølster. His paintings were an intimate interaction with nature and the built environment in distinctive rich color. Regarded as a neo-romantic painter, he also worked with woodcuts. Nikolai Astrup is looked upon as one of the greatest Norwegian artists from the early 1900s. Here the artist presented Astruptunet (originally called Sandalstrand) which lies on a steep slope on the south side of the lake Jølstravatnet.

Astrup bought this rudimentary cotter's farm in 1912. Over the next decade, he dug, landscaped, planted and made it into a liveable home. It is interesting to note that he did not use Sandalstrand as a motif until after he had finished transforming it into a home, that is, in the mid-1920s.