DOI Heft:
Nr. 3-4
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#0473
DlFFERENCING MODERNISM: SwEDISH WoMEN ARTISTS IN AVANT-GARDE CULTURE
459
6. S. Hjerten, Studio Interior 1917, oil on canvas, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
floating, undulating surface.35 Agnes Cleve's concurrent painting Fire in New York of 1916
(ill. 4) similarly draws on cubo-futurist compositional elements. However, the tonalities
are combined with a stronger variation of Fauvist-like colour accents, which naturalise
and disintegrate the rectangular verticality of the skyscrapers.
Here, modernity is reinscribed not from the viewpoint of thefldneur or invisible fldneu-
se, but from the perspective of a studio or domestic window. Characteristic of avant-garde
practice, the experience of the city serves as a vehicle to explore the autonomy of picture
formation. Similarly, Hjerten's paintings of central Stockholm, such as Skordermaskiner
1915 (ill. 5), are usually aerial views painted from the window of the combined studio and
residential interior. The flattened portrayal of the quay and rail-tracks are separated from
the rollers, the circular accents of which contribute to the ornamental quality of the scene.
At one and the same time, the city landscape is distanced conceptually but placed within
hand's reach by virtue of its vivid surface treatment and colouration. It is as if control of
these public spaces could only be made more palpable by viewing them from the distance
of the domestic sphere.
While Hjerten does on occasion render the spectacle of city-life and entertainment, as in
the work Pd teatern 1915 (oil on canvas, Private Collection), the figures devoted most atten-
tion are invariably images of her husband, child, self-portraits, extended family or colleagu-
es from their social milieu. Critics noticed this tendency in her works and commented: 'Mrs
35 For further commentary, see: A. ÓHRNER, Siri Derkert, [in:] Dictionary of Women Artists, pp. 452-4; T. SAN-
DQVIST, Han finns, fórstdr du: Siri Derkert och Valle Rosenberg, Stockholm 1986.
459
6. S. Hjerten, Studio Interior 1917, oil on canvas, Moderna Museet, Stockholm
floating, undulating surface.35 Agnes Cleve's concurrent painting Fire in New York of 1916
(ill. 4) similarly draws on cubo-futurist compositional elements. However, the tonalities
are combined with a stronger variation of Fauvist-like colour accents, which naturalise
and disintegrate the rectangular verticality of the skyscrapers.
Here, modernity is reinscribed not from the viewpoint of thefldneur or invisible fldneu-
se, but from the perspective of a studio or domestic window. Characteristic of avant-garde
practice, the experience of the city serves as a vehicle to explore the autonomy of picture
formation. Similarly, Hjerten's paintings of central Stockholm, such as Skordermaskiner
1915 (ill. 5), are usually aerial views painted from the window of the combined studio and
residential interior. The flattened portrayal of the quay and rail-tracks are separated from
the rollers, the circular accents of which contribute to the ornamental quality of the scene.
At one and the same time, the city landscape is distanced conceptually but placed within
hand's reach by virtue of its vivid surface treatment and colouration. It is as if control of
these public spaces could only be made more palpable by viewing them from the distance
of the domestic sphere.
While Hjerten does on occasion render the spectacle of city-life and entertainment, as in
the work Pd teatern 1915 (oil on canvas, Private Collection), the figures devoted most atten-
tion are invariably images of her husband, child, self-portraits, extended family or colleagu-
es from their social milieu. Critics noticed this tendency in her works and commented: 'Mrs
35 For further commentary, see: A. ÓHRNER, Siri Derkert, [in:] Dictionary of Women Artists, pp. 452-4; T. SAN-
DQVIST, Han finns, fórstdr du: Siri Derkert och Valle Rosenberg, Stockholm 1986.