Studio: international art (49.1910)

Some Notable Swedish Etchers

SOME NOTABLE SWEDISH
ETCHERS. BY GEORG
BROCHNER.

The fiftieth birthday of Anders Zorn, the world-
famed Swedish painter and unquestionably one of
the most brilliant and powerful etchers of the day,
affords a fitting opportunity for a brief survey of
some of his more recent work and that of a few
of his compatriots within this branch of the graphic
arts. The occasion is all the more acceptable
inasmuch as these arts seem fully to share in the
present remarkable revival, not to say renaissance,
in Swedish art generally which is now succeeding
the fallow time into which the so-called Dusseldorf
period ultimately ebbed out. Paris then became
the rendez-vous of a num-
ber of singularly gifted
young Swedish artists,
and once away from the
wonted surroundings and
influences and a, then
perhaps, somewhat stale
academic tradition, the
artistic individualities of
this highly talented cluster
were afforded scope and
freedom for spontaneous
and independent develop-
ment.

Zorn, however, when
in 1881 he began his
lengthy peregrinations,
betook himself to Spain,
and, like other eminent
Scandinavian artists—-
amongst them Kroyer
and Thaulow — he was
profoundly impressed by
Velasquez; but Zorn
seems to have felt his own
naturel, artistic and other-
wise, in closer accord
with that of the great
Spaniard, and to have
been more enduringly in-
fluenced by him than
were the two other North-
erners I have just men-
tioned.

It would have been
tempting to deal more
exhaustively, in a retro-
pective manner, with

Zorn’s career as an etcher, but a few cursory notes
will have to suffice. He was, during his first
sojourn in London, initiated into the art of the
needle by his countryman, Axel Herman Hagg,
for many years a resident in London, where he is
better known under the Anglicized name of Haig.
Haig’s portrait formed the first subject of his pupil’s
efforts—it was in the year 1882—and four more
etchings hail from the same year, mostly repre-
senting Spanish women. Another, On the Thames,
was added the following year, the young Swedish
artist having for the time being made London his
headquarters. In 1884 eight etchings emanated
from Zorn’s studio, including a second portrait of
Haig. Both this and the first are expressive
likenesses, only the line, which, as behoves the

BY ANDERS ZORN
Stoclholm)

PORTRAIT OF C. F. LILJEWALCH, ESQ.

[From a trial proof in the Collection of Thorsten Laurin, Esq.,

114