I've pondered this myself. I think your point about them being actively involving is a good one. As is the one with the sketchy drawing style. The details are only hinted at, but never truly revealed. That's slightly unnerving.
Also I think the lack of people to identify with is important. In most of the pictures there is no depicted character to work as an internal viewer of the scene the image presents. I mean there is no character in the foreground to work as a focal point in the image.
Instead the image is presented as we, the external viewer, would see it if we were present at the scene. That makes us participate more in the scene shown - it becomes our view, our eyes that see - than if there had been a character in the foreground. Then we would have viewed him viewing, and he would have worked as a buffer so to speak, shielding us and distancing us from the creepy landscape of the image.
( I would not count Old Woman Plague as such a character - simply because when she is in the foreground of the image she is looking out of it, and her direct glare does more to draw the viewer in than to work as said buffer. A point could also be made that when Plague is looking directly at us she is breaking the fourth wall, and that makes the images even creepier.)
In part the composition of some of the images make me think of old photos. When Kittelsen cuts trees and rocks with his composition he is in a way mimicking the snap shot effect that a camera has. His compositions only show you a little glimpse of the scene, and that makes you wonder what is outside the frame. What else is going on that we are not seeing? And considering the creepy motif of the paintings, then not having the full view and scope of the scene is slightly disconcerting.
There is also something with the images that make me think of eerie silence - but alas I cannot quite put my finger on what it is.
no subject
I've pondered this myself. I think your point about them being actively involving is a good one. As is the one with the sketchy drawing style. The details are only hinted at, but never truly revealed. That's slightly unnerving.
Also I think the lack of people to identify with is important. In most of the pictures there is no depicted character to work as an internal viewer of the scene the image presents. I mean there is no character in the foreground to work as a focal point in the image.
Instead the image is presented as we, the external viewer, would see it if we were present at the scene. That makes us participate more in the scene shown - it becomes our view, our eyes that see - than if there had been a character in the foreground. Then we would have viewed him viewing, and he would have worked as a buffer so to speak, shielding us and distancing us from the creepy landscape of the image.
( I would not count Old Woman Plague as such a character - simply because when she is in the foreground of the image she is looking out of it, and her direct glare does more to draw the viewer in than to work as said buffer. A point could also be made that when Plague is looking directly at us she is breaking the fourth wall, and that makes the images even creepier.)
In part the composition of some of the images make me think of old photos. When Kittelsen cuts trees and rocks with his composition he is in a way mimicking the snap shot effect that a camera has. His compositions only show you a little glimpse of the scene, and that makes you wonder what is outside the frame. What else is going on that we are not seeing? And considering the creepy motif of the paintings, then not having the full view and scope of the scene is slightly disconcerting.
There is also something with the images that make me think of eerie silence - but alas I cannot quite put my finger on what it is.