DOI article:
Brinton, Selwyn John Curwen: The paintings of Paolo Sala
DOI article:Branting, Agnes; Adams-Ray, Edward [Transl.]: Modern tapestry-work in Sweden
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43452#0115
Modern Swedish Tapestry
is absent—only a fountain with a rich jet of water
splashing over its basin, and seen against a back-
ground of lake and mountain-side.
Water seems always a predilection of this painter,
and is treated invariably with absolute knowledge
and brilliant effect; but water in all its forms is
but a mirror, reflecting and absorbing light. “ The
efforts of modern painting,” it has been said by an
Italian critic, “ are almost unanimously centred
upon the conquest of light ” ; and if Paolo Sala
is less directly grappling with this fascinating
problem than his great contemporary at Milan,
Gaetano Previati, that is not to say that his art is
not deeply concerned with its more subtle mani-
festations. In the rendering of cloud and sky and
water, interpreting and interpenetrated with light and
atmosphere, of scenes from the city or lake or moun-
tain-side, and whether in the medium of oil or water-
colour, his art is unequalled in modern Italy and has
yet to reach its highest utterance. S. B.
Modern tapestry-work
IN SWEDEN. BY AGNES
BRANTING. {Translated by E.
Adams-Rayl)
Among all the many different forms in which
sloyd * is practised in our days in Sweden none is
more general or is exercised in a greater variety of
ways than textile handiwork. This circumstance
is not the result of any passing fashion or of any
accidental aesthetic current, but it is the sound
and natural development of an artistic sloyd, which
has been cultivated in this country for unnumbered
centuries.
It was at a very early period that textile sloyd
in Sweden gained a decorative character. The
dwelling-house, which in ancient times consisted
of a building with a high-pitched roof with no
ceiling to the rooms, needed, for practical reasons,
an interior textile covering overhead as a protec-
tion against falling dust and the
cold. There soon arose, too, a
desire to adorn the walls of the
house, and the principal means
employed for this purpose were
textile productions. These, while
thus used for practical purposes,
could be made to brighten and en-
rich the rooms with their wealth of
ornament and colour; they were
easily removed, when necessary, for
the purpose of being changed or
cleaned.
Even if many specimens of textile
work were brought here from
foreign countries, still we have evi-
dence that a great proportion cf
the tapestries were made in Swedish
homes, and ancient chronicles relate
how noble ladies in Sweden were
distinguished by their skill in artistic
textile sloyd.
* The word “sloyd ” (Swed. slojd) is
a term that has become pretty widely
known in Great Britain and America
since about the year 1887, when English-
speaking students first went to work at
the sloyd school at Naas, in Sweden.
The word signifies the production of
articles by hand, as opposed to making
them in vast quantities by the almost
exclusive employment of machinery8
Knitting, sewing, weaving, carpentry-
work, &c., are, in this sense, all forms
of sloyd.
“women at the fountain” (water-colour)
BY PAOLO SALA
102
is absent—only a fountain with a rich jet of water
splashing over its basin, and seen against a back-
ground of lake and mountain-side.
Water seems always a predilection of this painter,
and is treated invariably with absolute knowledge
and brilliant effect; but water in all its forms is
but a mirror, reflecting and absorbing light. “ The
efforts of modern painting,” it has been said by an
Italian critic, “ are almost unanimously centred
upon the conquest of light ” ; and if Paolo Sala
is less directly grappling with this fascinating
problem than his great contemporary at Milan,
Gaetano Previati, that is not to say that his art is
not deeply concerned with its more subtle mani-
festations. In the rendering of cloud and sky and
water, interpreting and interpenetrated with light and
atmosphere, of scenes from the city or lake or moun-
tain-side, and whether in the medium of oil or water-
colour, his art is unequalled in modern Italy and has
yet to reach its highest utterance. S. B.
Modern tapestry-work
IN SWEDEN. BY AGNES
BRANTING. {Translated by E.
Adams-Rayl)
Among all the many different forms in which
sloyd * is practised in our days in Sweden none is
more general or is exercised in a greater variety of
ways than textile handiwork. This circumstance
is not the result of any passing fashion or of any
accidental aesthetic current, but it is the sound
and natural development of an artistic sloyd, which
has been cultivated in this country for unnumbered
centuries.
It was at a very early period that textile sloyd
in Sweden gained a decorative character. The
dwelling-house, which in ancient times consisted
of a building with a high-pitched roof with no
ceiling to the rooms, needed, for practical reasons,
an interior textile covering overhead as a protec-
tion against falling dust and the
cold. There soon arose, too, a
desire to adorn the walls of the
house, and the principal means
employed for this purpose were
textile productions. These, while
thus used for practical purposes,
could be made to brighten and en-
rich the rooms with their wealth of
ornament and colour; they were
easily removed, when necessary, for
the purpose of being changed or
cleaned.
Even if many specimens of textile
work were brought here from
foreign countries, still we have evi-
dence that a great proportion cf
the tapestries were made in Swedish
homes, and ancient chronicles relate
how noble ladies in Sweden were
distinguished by their skill in artistic
textile sloyd.
* The word “sloyd ” (Swed. slojd) is
a term that has become pretty widely
known in Great Britain and America
since about the year 1887, when English-
speaking students first went to work at
the sloyd school at Naas, in Sweden.
The word signifies the production of
articles by hand, as opposed to making
them in vast quantities by the almost
exclusive employment of machinery8
Knitting, sewing, weaving, carpentry-
work, &c., are, in this sense, all forms
of sloyd.
“women at the fountain” (water-colour)
BY PAOLO SALA
102