MODERN SWEDEN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4187, 22 May 1939, Page 6

MODERN SWEDEN

ART AND NATIONAL LIFE. FOUR FAMOUS INTERPRETERS. Life in Sweden to-day, while vital and contemporary in detail, follows the general trend of life during all of Sweden’s yesterdays. The creators of modern Sweden have consciously allowed its traditions to determine the manner of its development, attaining each goal through evolution rather than revolution. Thus firmly founded on precedents, tested and proven effective, the success of Sweden’s twentieth century political, economic and cultural programme is assured. The history of the Swedish people includes periods of foreign domination, both royal and religious, but national and spiritual integrity and independence have always been nurtured and restored by the courage and vitality of the people. Talented and industrious, the Swedes are known throughout the world for their understanding accomplishments in science, literature, arts and crafts, sports and athletics. Rune-stones, with their inscriptions and ornaments, may be regarded. as among the earliest examples of Swedish literature and art still in existence, just as the folk tales and rhythms, repeated even now, were the initial forms of song and music. Lyrical and epic, compacted of myth, legend and history, these statements of pre-Christian and early-Christian thought are treasured in Sweden. Later Swedish artistry was encouraged by the court and nobility, by governments and ecclesiastical authorities, and experienced gains and losses co-incident with the fluctuating fortunes of Sweden. SINCERE SPECIALISTS. Influenced by successive European and English schools of creative work, the arts in Sweden only reached fruition in a distinctly Swedish style of expression in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The major part of the literature, art and music of Sweden to-day mirrors the national spirit. Whatever the medium used the theme is identical, it is the everunfolding story of an unique land and an equally unique people. A genius for sincere and unselfconscious revelation enables Swedish interpreters to immortalise their country and their fellow countrymen.

In these purely Swedish themes there is no monotony. Sweden —from Lapland to Skane—from the Skagerrak, the Kattegat, the rugged westnation. Old and new architecture, methods of manufacture, customs, costumes and modest of thought are harmoniously neighbored in this country .

NATIONALLY INSPIRED ART.

The artists responsible for the 1880 “coming home” to Sweden of her art for inspiration included Ernst Josephsson, Karl Larsson, the beloved painter of Swedish home life; Prince Eugene, the King’s brother and a noted landscape painter; Bruno Liljefors, the painter of birds and animals; Anders Zorn, nationally inspired painter and etcher; Karl Norstrom, Nils Kreuger, Eugene Jansson, Karl Wilhelmson and other contemporary artists. Of the abovenamed only Prince Eugene and Liljefors ape living to-day.

Anders Zorn, who died in 1920 was the most internationally acclaimed and distinguished technician among this group of nationally-minded artists. Born at Mora, at the northern end of Lake Siljan, in Dalarna, Zorn became not only Sweden’s greatest etcher and painter of peasants and their lives and surroundings, but the leader of movements to further the preservation of the historical crafts, customs and costumes of Sweden. Zorp’s art has introduced Sweden and the Swedish people to artists and art lovers in every country in the world. To Zorn’s Swedish contemporaries and successors, his art is a magnificent orchestration of the exquisite nature harmonies of color and from with which they are familiar. As an etcher Zorn proved 'himself a virtuoso, rendering portraits and ■landscapes with skill and vigor. Water colors and oils were also used in a masterly manner by this artist, and —a typically Swedish accomplishment—he carved figures from the wood of Sweden’s vast forests. Bruno Liljefors, also world famous, was born at Uppsala, in 1860, and paints his knowledge and love of birds and animals into inimitable pictures of outdoor Sweden. Tho Stockholm Archipelago, with its thousands of islands and skerries, often appears in his art as a background for the migratory flights of birds. Opalescent skies, rushing waves, sands, cliffs, lakes and forests, each with their complement of wild life, are chosen subjects, and dawn his favorite hour. Each hour of the day and each season of the year challenges him to record its individual witchery and its effect upon his feathered and furried themes.

A Swedish-born artist whom England has come to regard as almost her own is Axel Herman Hagg (Haig). He was born at Katthamra, in Gotland, in 1835, and died in 1921. It is fitting that an artist whose birthplace was that Swedish island of

glorious architectural ruins should have become an ecclesiastic architect and, later, an artist-interpreter of architecture. Though widely travelled and resident abroad, Hagg often visited Sweden and etched the churches of his own land. A FAMOUS SCULPTOR.

There is scarcely any noted town in Sweden which has not a sculptural group or memorial the work of Swedish sculptors. One of these sculptors, Karl Milles, whose work is to be seen in many countries, was bom near Uppsala in 1875. He received his training at Stockholm, Paris and Munich, and then returned to Sweden to give plastic form to the cultural ideals of his country. He has sculptured Swedish, kings, patriots, scientists, leaders of thought and the arts, and imaginary figures, and has adpted his technique to his themes and his materials with a versatility which is amazing. Not only does he compose the forms he creates into an harmonious relationship one with another, he shapes his vision against its setting of land, sea or sky. Space is as .real to this sculptor as is the material he moulds or hews.

The example set by this quartet of internationally famed artists, and many other late nineteenth, and early twentieth century nationally inspired Swedish artists, is being followed by present day artists in Sweden. Some few have become experimentalists in artistic technique and subject matter, but those engaged in the task of expressing the spirit of Sweden and the Swedish nation permit themselves no triviality artificiality. They realise that only a truthful statement of the visual fatets of the land and its people can assure to Sweden the continuance of a characteristically Swedish art.