DOI issue:
Nr. 3-4
DOI article:Behr, Shulamith: Differencing modernism: Swedish women artists in early twentieth-century avant-garde culture
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49349#0471
DlFFERENCING MoDERNISM: SwEDISH WoMEN ARTISTS IN AVANT-GARDE CULTURE
457
5. S. Hjerten, Harvesting Machines ("Skórdermaskiner") 1915, oil on canvas, Per
Ekstrom-museet, Óland
at the turn of the century. Having as few impediments as possible to the processes of
natural selection were regarded as a way of preserving a culturally progressive people
from downfall and race degeneration.
Key's more controversial views on sexual ethics and her defence of women's property
rights compensated for the questionable reduction of fernale virtues to that of 'spiritual
motherhood', which she regarded as women's principal career. In her 1903 book Livslin-
jer l: Kdrleken och dktenskapet ('Lifelines l'), she attacked conventional expectations of
marriage and sexual roles, stressing that love was the only moral criterion. It is understan-
dable that Key's patronage of women artists would not extend to modernists, Hanna Hirsch
Pauli's fine realistic pastel rendering of Ellen Key in the Stockholm 's Workers' Institute,
being more sympathetic to the conservative reformist aims of the patron.25 Yet, as Hjórdis
Levin suggests, the debates outlined above reveal elear signs of the development of new
patterns of reproduction, sexual and family relationships.26 Traditional marriage, with
reproduction and inheritance as its focus, was replaced by a new pattern of sexuality that
stressed the importance of health, pleasure, sexual attraction, birth control and heredity.
The transition involved a shift from a pre-industrialised to a consumer society, which,
clearly, had a bearing on women artists' construction of cultural identity.
On the whole, of those women who were considered modemist, most derived from the
upper middle class. Hjerten (1885-1948) was in the minority in combining a lengthier
marriage with an artistic career. While her relationship with Grunewald may have proved
25 For a detailed account of Hirsch Pauli's life and work, consult: M. GYNNING, Det Ambivalente Perspektivet: Eva
Bonnier och Hanna Hirsch-Pauli i 1880-talets konstliv, Stockholm 1999.
26 LEVIN, op. cit., p. 7, quoting Michel Foucault, The His tory of Sexuality Vol. I. An Introduction, New York 1978.
457
5. S. Hjerten, Harvesting Machines ("Skórdermaskiner") 1915, oil on canvas, Per
Ekstrom-museet, Óland
at the turn of the century. Having as few impediments as possible to the processes of
natural selection were regarded as a way of preserving a culturally progressive people
from downfall and race degeneration.
Key's more controversial views on sexual ethics and her defence of women's property
rights compensated for the questionable reduction of fernale virtues to that of 'spiritual
motherhood', which she regarded as women's principal career. In her 1903 book Livslin-
jer l: Kdrleken och dktenskapet ('Lifelines l'), she attacked conventional expectations of
marriage and sexual roles, stressing that love was the only moral criterion. It is understan-
dable that Key's patronage of women artists would not extend to modernists, Hanna Hirsch
Pauli's fine realistic pastel rendering of Ellen Key in the Stockholm 's Workers' Institute,
being more sympathetic to the conservative reformist aims of the patron.25 Yet, as Hjórdis
Levin suggests, the debates outlined above reveal elear signs of the development of new
patterns of reproduction, sexual and family relationships.26 Traditional marriage, with
reproduction and inheritance as its focus, was replaced by a new pattern of sexuality that
stressed the importance of health, pleasure, sexual attraction, birth control and heredity.
The transition involved a shift from a pre-industrialised to a consumer society, which,
clearly, had a bearing on women artists' construction of cultural identity.
On the whole, of those women who were considered modemist, most derived from the
upper middle class. Hjerten (1885-1948) was in the minority in combining a lengthier
marriage with an artistic career. While her relationship with Grunewald may have proved
25 For a detailed account of Hirsch Pauli's life and work, consult: M. GYNNING, Det Ambivalente Perspektivet: Eva
Bonnier och Hanna Hirsch-Pauli i 1880-talets konstliv, Stockholm 1999.
26 LEVIN, op. cit., p. 7, quoting Michel Foucault, The His tory of Sexuality Vol. I. An Introduction, New York 1978.