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Þórarinn B. Þorláksson (1867–1924) has been credited with being the first Icelandic professional painter. His reception, both during his lifetime and posthumously, is therefore an interesting indication of the changes in the outlook and ideology surrounding the reception of Scandinavian fin­de­siécle art up to the present. He was honourably mentioned by his contemporaries and then was forgotten in the upheavals surrounding the adoption of modern styles, such as abstract art, in Ice­land around the Second World War. He re­gained attention in the sixties and has since then been revered as an important, though problematic, pioneer of Icelandic painting. This has in recent years been especially evident in the way he has been mentioned in the context of the revival of Nordic and Scandinavian late 19th and early 20th century art in Northern­Europe and America. The paper reviews and analyses the historical reception Þorláksson has received and the way his work has been inscribed into the narrative of Icelandic and Scandinavian Art History. This process is an attempt to understand and contextualise Þorláksson's work in aesthetic terms, while at the same time function as a critical mirror of the trends and ideolo­gies surrounding the Nordic revival in recent years.

The article initially addresses the novel Kata by Steinar Bragi in the context of genre and asks to what extent it aligns itself with the crime novel, in particular the more recent brand of the crime novel wherein social issues are placed at the forefront. The point is made that Kata diverges in some important respects from even the most radical of critiques found within the parameters of the crime genre, in that it suspends the very concepts that usually ground such narratives (justice, right, and crime) and comes to the conclusion that the widespread social acceptance of violence against women delegitimizes the entire edifice of Western thinking on social justice. It is here that the article looks towards Louis Althusser's theorization 149of ideological and oppressive state apparatuses, while shifting their object from the class struggle to gender relations. Althusser's concepts are employed to shed light on the ideology that supports and enables violence against women in contemporary societies, and how the reverse of the oppressive function of the state, that is, state leniency and disinterest in prosecuting sex crimes, or creating the environment in which they are unlikely to be reported, are taken up in the novel, thematized, and in turn, fuel the rage of the protagonist. Finally, a question is raised as to the signific-ance of the fact that a novel about female rage and disempowerment is written by a male author.