DOI issue:
No. 92 (October, 1904)
DOI article:Frykholm, Sunny: The imaginative and realistic art of Carl Larsson
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26962#0397
Carl Lars son
GATE OF BUNGALOW FROM A COLOURED DRAWING BY C. LARSSON
child of the gutter,” as he says himself, he had
from childhood imbibed weird ideas. Moreover,
his lively imagination, even in childhood, proves
that the artistic mind early creates its own world.
He invented stories about witches and ghosts, and
tales about knightly adventure, and in these imagi-
nations his future romantic ideas germinated. Wild
and romantic ideas filled his mind when he first
arrived in Paris, and these ideas he endeavoured to
express in his art. Swedish art had hitherto never
tried to give expression to these universal supersti-
tions. They belonged to a realm which had
not yet been touched by reflection; consequently,
Lars son worked like a
Titan in his attempt to
achieve the unattainable,
but the figures shaped
by his imagination were
nought to the world at
large. Instead of succeed-
ing in his endeavours to
find a style in which to
express his ideas, he only
aroused the compassion of
his friends, as well as of
his early teachers, who were
sorry to hear that he only
painted “ mad ideas ” in
Paris. The fact was that
he stood alone with his
ideas, and it is this indi-
viduality which is apt to
engender in others the
belief that a man is mentally
unsound; for, in order to
be considered sane, one has
to resemble the average
man, or shape one’s course
according to current con-
ventions. The ideas which
occupied Carl Larsson’s
mind in 1876 took the same
direction of wild romance
as those which had pos-
sessed their leading expo-
nent, Delacroix, and his
admirers, principally found
among the illustrators of the
French Romantic School of
1830-1840. How ideas
travel in this world is well
shown in the fact that one
of these illustrators based
one of his weird illustrations
on a Scandinavian novel. In that art-epoch, Larsson’s
Scandinavian ideas would undoubtedly have been
received with sympathy ; but in the realistic France
of 1876 he saw nothing result from them but trouble,
and was therefore in just the mood for receiving
sound advice from which he might derive benefit.
This his most admired Swedish teacher gave to him,
in advising him not to try to storm heaven but to
look around and study reality. Living at Grez, he
found a rather tempting reality in its green lawns,
calm water, and beautiful flowers, and made up his
mind to take advantage of this natural beauty to
cultivate a “ sane art.” Apart from this advice
GATE OF BUNGALOW FROM A COLOURED DRAWING BY C. LARSSON
child of the gutter,” as he says himself, he had
from childhood imbibed weird ideas. Moreover,
his lively imagination, even in childhood, proves
that the artistic mind early creates its own world.
He invented stories about witches and ghosts, and
tales about knightly adventure, and in these imagi-
nations his future romantic ideas germinated. Wild
and romantic ideas filled his mind when he first
arrived in Paris, and these ideas he endeavoured to
express in his art. Swedish art had hitherto never
tried to give expression to these universal supersti-
tions. They belonged to a realm which had
not yet been touched by reflection; consequently,
Lars son worked like a
Titan in his attempt to
achieve the unattainable,
but the figures shaped
by his imagination were
nought to the world at
large. Instead of succeed-
ing in his endeavours to
find a style in which to
express his ideas, he only
aroused the compassion of
his friends, as well as of
his early teachers, who were
sorry to hear that he only
painted “ mad ideas ” in
Paris. The fact was that
he stood alone with his
ideas, and it is this indi-
viduality which is apt to
engender in others the
belief that a man is mentally
unsound; for, in order to
be considered sane, one has
to resemble the average
man, or shape one’s course
according to current con-
ventions. The ideas which
occupied Carl Larsson’s
mind in 1876 took the same
direction of wild romance
as those which had pos-
sessed their leading expo-
nent, Delacroix, and his
admirers, principally found
among the illustrators of the
French Romantic School of
1830-1840. How ideas
travel in this world is well
shown in the fact that one
of these illustrators based
one of his weird illustrations
on a Scandinavian novel. In that art-epoch, Larsson’s
Scandinavian ideas would undoubtedly have been
received with sympathy ; but in the realistic France
of 1876 he saw nothing result from them but trouble,
and was therefore in just the mood for receiving
sound advice from which he might derive benefit.
This his most admired Swedish teacher gave to him,
in advising him not to try to storm heaven but to
look around and study reality. Living at Grez, he
found a rather tempting reality in its green lawns,
calm water, and beautiful flowers, and made up his
mind to take advantage of this natural beauty to
cultivate a “ sane art.” Apart from this advice