Studio: international art (50.1910)

Carl Milles, Swedish Sculptor

In contrast to a great number of modem
sculptors—Barye excepted—Milles takes as much
living and loving interest in animals as in men.
His animal sculptures cover a field apart. He has
spent much time at Skansen, the well-known open-
air museum in Stockholm, in studying the delight-
ful bears climbing in a little rocky enclosure,
playing and frolicking with their cubs. The result
of these studies was a remarkable decorative work
now being raised at the cost of a private con-
noisseur at the gate of a little park in Stockholm,
named the Berzelius Park after the famous
chemist. Two groups of playing bears cut in
granite adorn these gates. The hardness of the
material has enforced an artistic economy, a monu-
mental compactness of composition, of which the
artist with astonishing cleverness has taken due
advantage, and in spite of
all difficulties, a rich and
harmonious effect is gained;
even this rough material
catching a beautiful glitter
in sunshine. Of the two
groups the bear playing
with its cub that is lying
on its back presents the
most decorative repose;
the other, at first sight a
puzzling combination of
heads and paws, has a
more pointed humour and
fresher details. The large
sculptures are balanced by
delicate little images, also
in granite, of a pair of
weasels and a beaver
drinking.

At present Milles is
occupied in modelling two
flying eagles as counter-
parts to the bears. They
will be cut in granite
and adorn the palace of
Valdemars-udde, the home
of Prince Eugen, himself
a gifted painter and con-
noisseur. One eagle is
represented as clutching,
with claws deeply em-
bedded, a large fish the
other is soaring about in
pursuit of prey. Though
represented in violent
movement, these birds

however present no accidental or crude realistic
aspect, but are pervaded by the same decorative
feeling for style with a stronger accentuation of
silhouette than in the bear groups. A glimpse of
these eagles is given in the illustration of the
sculptor in his studio (p. 211).

A more naturalistic touch characterises his two
groups of elephants—the one in soft grey stone
purchased by the Swedish National Gallery, the
other larger and treated in a different way. They
are modelled with the greatest care and apparent
delight in the soft curving lines and rounded
flanks of these huge creatures.

Another of Milles’ animal groups occupies a place
by itself. It is a colossal sculpture called Swan-
lizards, i.e., some pre-historic plesiosaurians crouch-
ing upon a rock in the sea, stretching their supple

DETAIL OF PROPOSED MONUMENT TO FRANZEN

BY CARL MILLES

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