DOI issue:
No. 162 (September, 1906)
DOI article:Frantz, Henri: A note on the recent work of Anders Zorn
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0303
Recent Etchings by Anders Zorn
was during one of those trips that I carved, in
birchwood, as formerly, the bust of my old grand-
mother. ...”
Having thus received from Nature his first im-
pressions and his first counsel, Zorn entered the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1877. After
staying there four years he travelled throughout
Europe in order to study the principal galleries ;
then for several years he lived in London, where
his work has always been greatly appreciated.
After that came new travels in Spain, Morocco,
and the East generally.
Zorn hardly began to paint at all in oils until
1887, on his return from these long pilgrimages.
Pecheur, his first essay, now in the Luxembourg,
was exhibited in 1888. In this work he gave full
evidence of those qualities which his later produc-
tions have revealed, particularly a very broad and
powerful sense of colour and absolute fidelity to
Nature. In all this Zorn showed himself to be the
disciple of a youthful art as yet devoid of the
“ refinements ” to be found in the more advanced
schools. With him there is no rendering, no
preparation, of Nature. Just as Nature appears to
his eyes, so he transcribes it—literally, instinctively,
like a savage of highest ability. How much more
subtly would Besnard have treated the same
themes, with his judicious choice of the motifs pro-
vided for his refined and delicate art of composition
wherein he is able to express all that is most
delightful in the Latin spirit! Indeed, one may
well be surprised at times to find in Zorn’s work
so much of the sheer crudeness of the primitive
painter; but it must not be forgotten that his art
is practically at its commencement, while that of
Besnard, for example, is the resulting effect of
some centuries of painting.
As M. Henry Marcel very justly remarked in his
admirable preface to the catalogue of the Zorn
Exhibition, Scandinavian painting had not hitherto
been itself. For a long time it had followed in the
wake of German art, whose homely scenes it
repeated almost textually—the conventional land-
scape and the factitious allegory. It was not
till about the year 1875 that the Swedish
artists opened their eyes to the splendours
of the unique scenery around them : understood
the wild grandeur of their fjords, the tender
melancholy of their great lakes, with their shady
fringe of white-trunked trees; grasped at last the
characteristics of a people picturesque alike in
personal beauty and in costume. Thus, in Finland,
there appeared Edelfelt and Galle'n; in Denmark,
Kroyer ; in Norway, Thaulow and Werenskjold; in
282
Sweden, Osterlind, the charming painter of child
life; Liljefors, the excellent animal painter; Karl
Larsson, the decorator, and Anders Zorn.
“Zorn,” writes M. Henry Marcel very acutely,
“is ever a peasant, with brawny arms fit to grasp
sheer reality. He created for himself, almost im-
mediately, a method extraordinary in its spontaneity
and cranerie; he attacks his canvas right away
with the brush, without previous preparation with
the chalk, the merest painted sketch giving him at
most his tones and values. Should he happen to
draw a complex movement, a difficult piece of fore-
shortening, the sketch, once grasped, is thrown
aside, the pose being from that moment forth
fixed in his brain, and away he goes, with furious
dash, hacking out his forms in great rough stripes,
yet with such accuracy of tone, with such absolute
exactness that at a proper distance everything
adapts itself, agrees and melts into a delicious
delicacy, into soft, light-kissed, quivering curves.
His nudes are admirable in their completeness.
The vigorous limbs move beneath the flexible
satin of the epidermis; the solid, even massive,
frame is sometimes decked with tender textures,
vaguely undulating in invisible lines. An ardent
sensuality marks all these things, but it is frank
and sane, with no trace of doubtful sub-meaning.”
In this exhibition of his Zorn had quite a series
of remarkable nus. Most often he prefers to
paint women and children in the open air, not
posed in the studio, but seen in the free solitude
of the shores of Dalecarlia—beside those lakes
which supply his palette with those azured reflec-
tions he loves to let play on the pearly skin of his
models.
Zorn is truly a splendid painter of rustic life.
Now he shows us, en flein air, the peasant-girl
rowing freely on the lake; now he dives into the
poor “ interiors ” of his village, where he watches
the young women at their usual work, making
bread, or listens to the Dalecarlian girl as she
fills the cottage with the sad notes of some Swedish
melody.
In his portraits Zorn is still essentially a colourist.
In each and all he finds a pretext for bringing out
some fine tone. In his rather austere portrait of
King Oscar, the blue of the “grand cordon” stands
out triumphantly against the white of the shirt-
front. So it is with the other portraits, in which
the artist never fails to find the means of reminding
us of his prodigious gifts. One other remark is
called for on the subject of Zorn as a portrait-
painter, It is just this : how “ live ” is his art, how
sincere, how truly modelled on reality itself.
was during one of those trips that I carved, in
birchwood, as formerly, the bust of my old grand-
mother. ...”
Having thus received from Nature his first im-
pressions and his first counsel, Zorn entered the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1877. After
staying there four years he travelled throughout
Europe in order to study the principal galleries ;
then for several years he lived in London, where
his work has always been greatly appreciated.
After that came new travels in Spain, Morocco,
and the East generally.
Zorn hardly began to paint at all in oils until
1887, on his return from these long pilgrimages.
Pecheur, his first essay, now in the Luxembourg,
was exhibited in 1888. In this work he gave full
evidence of those qualities which his later produc-
tions have revealed, particularly a very broad and
powerful sense of colour and absolute fidelity to
Nature. In all this Zorn showed himself to be the
disciple of a youthful art as yet devoid of the
“ refinements ” to be found in the more advanced
schools. With him there is no rendering, no
preparation, of Nature. Just as Nature appears to
his eyes, so he transcribes it—literally, instinctively,
like a savage of highest ability. How much more
subtly would Besnard have treated the same
themes, with his judicious choice of the motifs pro-
vided for his refined and delicate art of composition
wherein he is able to express all that is most
delightful in the Latin spirit! Indeed, one may
well be surprised at times to find in Zorn’s work
so much of the sheer crudeness of the primitive
painter; but it must not be forgotten that his art
is practically at its commencement, while that of
Besnard, for example, is the resulting effect of
some centuries of painting.
As M. Henry Marcel very justly remarked in his
admirable preface to the catalogue of the Zorn
Exhibition, Scandinavian painting had not hitherto
been itself. For a long time it had followed in the
wake of German art, whose homely scenes it
repeated almost textually—the conventional land-
scape and the factitious allegory. It was not
till about the year 1875 that the Swedish
artists opened their eyes to the splendours
of the unique scenery around them : understood
the wild grandeur of their fjords, the tender
melancholy of their great lakes, with their shady
fringe of white-trunked trees; grasped at last the
characteristics of a people picturesque alike in
personal beauty and in costume. Thus, in Finland,
there appeared Edelfelt and Galle'n; in Denmark,
Kroyer ; in Norway, Thaulow and Werenskjold; in
282
Sweden, Osterlind, the charming painter of child
life; Liljefors, the excellent animal painter; Karl
Larsson, the decorator, and Anders Zorn.
“Zorn,” writes M. Henry Marcel very acutely,
“is ever a peasant, with brawny arms fit to grasp
sheer reality. He created for himself, almost im-
mediately, a method extraordinary in its spontaneity
and cranerie; he attacks his canvas right away
with the brush, without previous preparation with
the chalk, the merest painted sketch giving him at
most his tones and values. Should he happen to
draw a complex movement, a difficult piece of fore-
shortening, the sketch, once grasped, is thrown
aside, the pose being from that moment forth
fixed in his brain, and away he goes, with furious
dash, hacking out his forms in great rough stripes,
yet with such accuracy of tone, with such absolute
exactness that at a proper distance everything
adapts itself, agrees and melts into a delicious
delicacy, into soft, light-kissed, quivering curves.
His nudes are admirable in their completeness.
The vigorous limbs move beneath the flexible
satin of the epidermis; the solid, even massive,
frame is sometimes decked with tender textures,
vaguely undulating in invisible lines. An ardent
sensuality marks all these things, but it is frank
and sane, with no trace of doubtful sub-meaning.”
In this exhibition of his Zorn had quite a series
of remarkable nus. Most often he prefers to
paint women and children in the open air, not
posed in the studio, but seen in the free solitude
of the shores of Dalecarlia—beside those lakes
which supply his palette with those azured reflec-
tions he loves to let play on the pearly skin of his
models.
Zorn is truly a splendid painter of rustic life.
Now he shows us, en flein air, the peasant-girl
rowing freely on the lake; now he dives into the
poor “ interiors ” of his village, where he watches
the young women at their usual work, making
bread, or listens to the Dalecarlian girl as she
fills the cottage with the sad notes of some Swedish
melody.
In his portraits Zorn is still essentially a colourist.
In each and all he finds a pretext for bringing out
some fine tone. In his rather austere portrait of
King Oscar, the blue of the “grand cordon” stands
out triumphantly against the white of the shirt-
front. So it is with the other portraits, in which
the artist never fails to find the means of reminding
us of his prodigious gifts. One other remark is
called for on the subject of Zorn as a portrait-
painter, It is just this : how “ live ” is his art, how
sincere, how truly modelled on reality itself.