Nr. 10: Mann og gutt, Statue in Ullern, Oslo, Norway
Nr. 10: Mann og gutt is a stone statue in Ullern, Oslo, showing a larger naked male figure sitting with his right arm around a smaller kneeling figure, both placed on a rectangular pedestal. To the right, a separate pedestal supports two more intertwined stone figures, while the setting includes a light paved square, green trees, a low balustrade, distant hills, and often a partly cloudy sky.
The work was made in 1919 by Gustav Vigeland, a sculptor who produced many public figures in Norway. Its numbering and style place it within a period when stone groups of human figures were being placed in open urban spaces around Oslo.
The grouping of a man and a boy is a theme that appears in several outdoor works in the area, and here it is rendered in gray stone without any added color. People tend to pause and look closely because the smaller figure's pose suggests dependence, which changes how the two figures are read when seen from the side.
The statue stands in an open paved area, so you can walk around it freely and view the figures from all sides. The ground is flat and easy to move across, but there is little shelter nearby, so a visit is more comfortable in dry weather.
The title is simply a number and a descriptive phrase, which makes this work feel more like an inventory entry than a named artwork. Visitors often notice the contrast between the large calm seated man and the smaller kneeling figure, a pairing that is not repeated in the same way in the neighboring pieces.
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