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DOI Artikel:Behr, Shulamith: Differencing modernism: Swedish women artists in early twentieth-century avant-garde culture
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49349#0466
452
Shulamith Behr
1. Sigrid Hjerten 's collection of 168 works in Expressionistutstallningen, Liljevalchs Konstall
Between 1890 and 1920, the period in which women artists became increasingly visi-
ble in the public sphere, conservative critical reception viewed the modern art world as an
attack on the social body. The ideas propounded by the Hungarian-born physician and art
historian Max Nordau were well circulated in Sweden through frequent reissues of his
book Entartung ('Degeneracy'), published in two volumes between 1892 and 1893.4 In
this text, he employed terminology evolved within the legal and medical disciplines, equ-
ating modern stylistic tendencies with criminality and hysteria. Indeed, in dedicating his
book to the Turin-based anthropologist and psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso, Nordau decla-
red that 'degenerates are not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists and pronounced lu-
natics; they are often authors and artists'.5 Such terminology entered the language and
became common to the rhetoric of both the detractors and supporters of modernism. In an
article in 1915, the Swedish psychiatrist Bror Gadelius disparagingly associated Expres-
sionism with insanity and schizophrenia.6
Interestingly, however, the well-known psychiatrist and pacifist Dr. Poul Bjerre, who
was responsible for introducing Freud's theories into Sweden, patronised the Russian ar-
tist Wassily Kandinsky during his visit to Stockholm in 1916.7 Bjerre was intrigued by
parapsychology and hypnosis and also sought the possibility of interpreting the relation-
ship between representation and abstraction from a psychoanalytical viewpoint. The pre-
sence of Hjerten and Grunewald at a gathering for Kandinsky at the home of Dr. Bjerre on
12 February 1916 points to the importance of this modern discipline within their social
milieu. The couples' interest in the work of outsiders, such as those of the insane artist
Ernst Josephson,8 possibly encouraged Hjerten to transpose a more routine preparatory
study, The Red Interior of 1916, into the departure for the radical painting The Red Blind
4 M. NORDAU, Degeneration, transl. from 2nd edn. of the German version, New York 1895.
5 Ibid., dedication. Lombroso's Genio e Folio ('Genius and Insanity', 1863) was one of the principle sources of inspira-
tion for Nordau's Entartung. G.L. MOSSE provides an illuminating account of Nordau's life and writings in his intro-
duction to the translation (Lincoln, London 1993), pp. xiii - xxxiii.
6 B. GADELIUS, Om sinnesjukdom, diktning och skapande konst, 'Ord och Bild', vol. XXIV, no. 7, 12 July 1915, pp.
337-58. For further commentary on accusations of 'dysmorphism', see: M. WERENSKIOLD, The Concept of Expres-
sionism: Origins and Metamorphoses, Oslo 1984, pp. 160-62.
7 See: V. ENDICOTT BARNETT, Kandinsky and Sweden, Malmó Konsthall and Moderna Museet, Malmó, Stockholm
1989, p. 41, quoting from Poul Bjerre's papers in the Handskriftssektionen of the Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm.
8 Grunewald had at least seven drawings and one watercolour by Ernst Josephson (1888-1906) in his collection and, in
his manifesto Den nya rendssansen inom konsten (1918), Grunewald described Josephson as 'the first, even if uncon-
scious, expressionist of modern times' (p. 35).
Shulamith Behr
1. Sigrid Hjerten 's collection of 168 works in Expressionistutstallningen, Liljevalchs Konstall
Between 1890 and 1920, the period in which women artists became increasingly visi-
ble in the public sphere, conservative critical reception viewed the modern art world as an
attack on the social body. The ideas propounded by the Hungarian-born physician and art
historian Max Nordau were well circulated in Sweden through frequent reissues of his
book Entartung ('Degeneracy'), published in two volumes between 1892 and 1893.4 In
this text, he employed terminology evolved within the legal and medical disciplines, equ-
ating modern stylistic tendencies with criminality and hysteria. Indeed, in dedicating his
book to the Turin-based anthropologist and psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso, Nordau decla-
red that 'degenerates are not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists and pronounced lu-
natics; they are often authors and artists'.5 Such terminology entered the language and
became common to the rhetoric of both the detractors and supporters of modernism. In an
article in 1915, the Swedish psychiatrist Bror Gadelius disparagingly associated Expres-
sionism with insanity and schizophrenia.6
Interestingly, however, the well-known psychiatrist and pacifist Dr. Poul Bjerre, who
was responsible for introducing Freud's theories into Sweden, patronised the Russian ar-
tist Wassily Kandinsky during his visit to Stockholm in 1916.7 Bjerre was intrigued by
parapsychology and hypnosis and also sought the possibility of interpreting the relation-
ship between representation and abstraction from a psychoanalytical viewpoint. The pre-
sence of Hjerten and Grunewald at a gathering for Kandinsky at the home of Dr. Bjerre on
12 February 1916 points to the importance of this modern discipline within their social
milieu. The couples' interest in the work of outsiders, such as those of the insane artist
Ernst Josephson,8 possibly encouraged Hjerten to transpose a more routine preparatory
study, The Red Interior of 1916, into the departure for the radical painting The Red Blind
4 M. NORDAU, Degeneration, transl. from 2nd edn. of the German version, New York 1895.
5 Ibid., dedication. Lombroso's Genio e Folio ('Genius and Insanity', 1863) was one of the principle sources of inspira-
tion for Nordau's Entartung. G.L. MOSSE provides an illuminating account of Nordau's life and writings in his intro-
duction to the translation (Lincoln, London 1993), pp. xiii - xxxiii.
6 B. GADELIUS, Om sinnesjukdom, diktning och skapande konst, 'Ord och Bild', vol. XXIV, no. 7, 12 July 1915, pp.
337-58. For further commentary on accusations of 'dysmorphism', see: M. WERENSKIOLD, The Concept of Expres-
sionism: Origins and Metamorphoses, Oslo 1984, pp. 160-62.
7 See: V. ENDICOTT BARNETT, Kandinsky and Sweden, Malmó Konsthall and Moderna Museet, Malmó, Stockholm
1989, p. 41, quoting from Poul Bjerre's papers in the Handskriftssektionen of the Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm.
8 Grunewald had at least seven drawings and one watercolour by Ernst Josephson (1888-1906) in his collection and, in
his manifesto Den nya rendssansen inom konsten (1918), Grunewald described Josephson as 'the first, even if uncon-
scious, expressionist of modern times' (p. 35).