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The art in the University Aula

Image may contain: Interior design, Hall, Architecture, Art, Flooring.

Experience Edvard Munch's unique Aula decorations in text and images.

The world-famous paintings in the University Aula tell stories of the university and the sciences – and of the sun as a symbol of life and creative forces.  

They offer an intimate and monumental experience of Edvard Munch's characteristic imagery and use of colours, and hang in the very spot where Munch organised and painted them over a hundred years ago.

Edvard Munchs maleri solen: En brennende sol med sterke stråler i gult, rødt og blått


The Sun

The university's fundamental task – enlightenment – expressed as a majestic sunrise.

The History

A people's approach to the field of history

Alma Mater

An image of the nourishing university

Chemistry

The workplace of fire and warmth

New Rays

An allegory of physics as a discipline

Harvesting Women

A tale about botany and the tree of knowledge

The Source

Nature's abundance of resources

Awakening Men in the Lightstream

The Aula's most experimental painting

Geniuses in the Lightstream

Roman patron spirits in baroque style

Women Turned Towards the Sun

Female figures in bold brushstrokes

Men Turned Towards the Sun

The women's counterpart – and an echo from antiquity

Picture of Munch's drawing pad with a sketch of Alma Mater
Ownership/collection: MUNCH

«I wanted the decorations to form a complete and independent world of ideas, and I wanted their visual expression to be both distinctively Norwegian and universally human.»

– Edvard Munch

Explore the story behind the Aula paintings

The Aula's marble busts

Portraits of six important figures in UiO's history

More about the University Aula

Open Aula

Selected Saturday's all through the year and all weekday's through the summer

Concert programme

Hear some of Norway leading performers in beautiful surroundings

The Munch Aula paintings project

Research to preserve the Aula's 11 paintings