FINE ARTS 
The fine arts of painting and sculpture in Iceland do not afford a 
fruitful field for their historian; for in a country with only 106 000 
inhabitants, mostly farmers, scattered over a large area, these arts can- 
not be expected to thrive; they can only develop where there is a 
large class of wealthy people able and willing to spend money on 
works of art. But various branches of art industry show that the ar- 
listic talent has not been lacking, though at times such activities have 
declined, owing to the poverty and misery of the people, especially 
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 
Wood-carving has been practised in Iceland from the earliest times, 
for the" purpose of decorating temples, churches, . articles of furniture, 
etc. Of special interest in this respect is the door from the church of 
Valthjéfsstadur, now in the National Museum, Copenhagen; but ne- 
gotiations have recently been opened for the restoration of this and 
other Icelandic articles of art to the National Museum, Reykjavik. 
Tapestry-weaving which was much in vogue in the olden time is 
now being revived; and the beautiful initials in many of our old MSS 
show that the art of drawing must have been known in Iceland at a 
:omparatively early date. The festival costumes, especially those worn by 
females, used to be richly embroidered and ornamented with gold and 
silver; hence arfistic needlework and skilled metal-workers were in 
great demand. — A tolerably representative collection of all these ar- 
ticles is to be found in the National Museum, Reykjavik. 
Painting. Almost down to the end of the nineteenth century the art 
of painting was very little cultivated in Iceland. There had, indeed, 
during the last three centuries appeared a few portrait-painters; but 
those of them who did not make their homes abroad were clergymen, 
who could only apply themselves to painting in their leisure hours, be-