On his smallholding “Hagen” (the Garden), belonging to the main estate Årekol in Grimo Gunnar Anfinsen Årekol (1784-1856) kept himself busy with several occupations: fruit and tobacco cultivation, traditional baking, match production, book binding – and decorative painting. Gunnar had poor health and was probably suffering from bone tuberculosis. The minister Nils Hertzberg took care of him and managed to arrest the illness, but Gunnar became disabled and was limping as a result of it. From Hertzberg he learned book-binding, and this must have been a good source of knowledge. Inscriptions on bowls and chests show that Gunnar mastered both German and Latin.
Gunnar was primarily a decorative painter, using strong colours on a red or white base, characterised by the colours and powerful shapes of the baroque. He used many of the motifs on the inside of chest lids, where he also recorded the name of the owner in runes. We recognise the grand style from church décor in the 1600s, roses on vines with multiple leaves, bunches of grapes and a poppy-like cut-through flower. The four-leafed rose in particular is a recurring theme on the many scarf boxes. This motif probably contains a symbolic reference, to bring luck to weddings and marriages. Gunnar Årekol has been influenced by the “scarf box painters” in Kvam, especially Per Andersson Århus from Steinsdalen (1757/58-1831).
