DOI article:
Gauffin, Axel: The landscape paintings of Prince Eugen of Sweden
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43448#0196
Prince Eugen of Sweden
threatened to deepen into all too sombre shadow,
that here, in the sunshine of Valdemar’s Udde,
made him scrape his palette clean with one bold
stroke. For while there is a sense of something,
so to say, “ extinguished ” about the scale of
browns in The Windmill of 1906, which shows a
characteristic part of the artist’s grounds, with the
ancient mill—so well known to Stockholmers—
standing out in powerful silhouette against a stormy
sky, the summer night pictures, Outward Bound
and The White Boat, both painted the same year
as the one just mentioned, gleam in a light whose
strength comes from a technique borrowed from
the impressionists. This light can, now and then,
even threaten to become somewhat thin, but this is
only exceptional. Over canvases such as those
just mentioned, with their transparent, midsummer
night’s mystical half-light, there lies a bright hope-
fulness, an optimism stubbornly won, which are
quite as imposing as the dark night “ stamningar ”
from Tyreso.
And thus we have reached the last period in
Prince Eugen’s artistic development. It is distin-
guished by increased conventionalising of decora-
tive problems and also by greater strength and
breadth in his easel pieces.
Perhaps it is especially this side of the artist’s
production which has gained by the light bath to
which his palette has been exposed during these
last few years. The Djurgarderis Strand in the
Royal foyer of the Dramatic Theatre is, with its
silver-grey mist tone over snow and frozen water,
a creation of exquisite decorative art. The trees
in the foreground bind the picture fast to the wall
with their sturdy, interlacing boughs. Another
step towards simplification in a conventional direc-
tion was taken by the artist in the fresco executed
by him for the new Ostermalm High School, Stock-
holm, and already reproduced in this magazine
(see the September number, 1910, p. 328). It is
a view of the capital from the south. The gazer
stands in the midst of groves and fields ; afar, on
the horizon, the city lifts its silhouette, while the
sun, breaking through clouds, casts five-fold sheaths
of glory over the distant, mirage-like prospect.
Widely different to the light blue and light green
“in the light of a summer night”
182
FROM THE OIL PAINTING BY PRINCE EUGEN
threatened to deepen into all too sombre shadow,
that here, in the sunshine of Valdemar’s Udde,
made him scrape his palette clean with one bold
stroke. For while there is a sense of something,
so to say, “ extinguished ” about the scale of
browns in The Windmill of 1906, which shows a
characteristic part of the artist’s grounds, with the
ancient mill—so well known to Stockholmers—
standing out in powerful silhouette against a stormy
sky, the summer night pictures, Outward Bound
and The White Boat, both painted the same year
as the one just mentioned, gleam in a light whose
strength comes from a technique borrowed from
the impressionists. This light can, now and then,
even threaten to become somewhat thin, but this is
only exceptional. Over canvases such as those
just mentioned, with their transparent, midsummer
night’s mystical half-light, there lies a bright hope-
fulness, an optimism stubbornly won, which are
quite as imposing as the dark night “ stamningar ”
from Tyreso.
And thus we have reached the last period in
Prince Eugen’s artistic development. It is distin-
guished by increased conventionalising of decora-
tive problems and also by greater strength and
breadth in his easel pieces.
Perhaps it is especially this side of the artist’s
production which has gained by the light bath to
which his palette has been exposed during these
last few years. The Djurgarderis Strand in the
Royal foyer of the Dramatic Theatre is, with its
silver-grey mist tone over snow and frozen water,
a creation of exquisite decorative art. The trees
in the foreground bind the picture fast to the wall
with their sturdy, interlacing boughs. Another
step towards simplification in a conventional direc-
tion was taken by the artist in the fresco executed
by him for the new Ostermalm High School, Stock-
holm, and already reproduced in this magazine
(see the September number, 1910, p. 328). It is
a view of the capital from the south. The gazer
stands in the midst of groves and fields ; afar, on
the horizon, the city lifts its silhouette, while the
sun, breaking through clouds, casts five-fold sheaths
of glory over the distant, mirage-like prospect.
Widely different to the light blue and light green
“in the light of a summer night”
182
FROM THE OIL PAINTING BY PRINCE EUGEN