Studio: international art (52.1911)

A Swedish Sculptor, Carl J. Eldh

BUST OF AUGUST STRINDBERG BY CARL J. ELDH

(In the Stockholm Museum).

the introduction. We had been together to see
the new school at Karlawagen, where I had been
so much impressed by the sculpture of a certain
decorative fountain at the school, that I inquired
who was the artist. Some few minutes afterwards
Thorsten Laurin took me to a little studio at
Xervawagen, where Eldh came to greet us with
his roughing-chisel in his hand.

His studio is a museum, a storehouse of infinitely
precious things, revealing the soul and the talent of
a great-hearted man. One of the first pieces which
attracted our attention was a plaster statue of a
woman of tender aspect, with a sweet but sad
expression eloquent of goodness and of endurance
—two characteristics which are often to be found
in the faces of the people—the head slightly
drooped and covered with a veil, the shoulders
wrapped in a shawl and a plain dress hanging in
straight folds completing this silhouette, which in
its simplicity is reminiscent of the most beautiful
sculptures of antiquity. On the pedestal is the one
word " Mor " (Mother).

But it is not possible to see all Eldh's work in
his studio, and it is only through photographs or
plaster models that I have become acquainted
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with those which, in the original, grace many
private collections and public galleries in all
countries.

Eldh is absolutely a sincere artist, and the
splendour of his achievements is due to their
being faithful reproductions of forms seen and
studied. His sculptured female figures are master-
pieces which cannot be adequately described in
words ; they charm us as much by the truthfulness
of the pose as by their pureness of line. It must
be borne in mind that every Swede is brought up
in the great school of Nature and feels for the
human form that respect and admiration which a
certain false modesty or prudishness has deprived
us of in other countries. In Scandinavian countries
custom does not enjoin that use of bathing
costumes which is so rigorously enforced elsewhere ;
it never enters the head of a Swede, on" his way to
bathe in the village ponds or from the shores of
their lakes, to have recourse to the practice of
other European countries in concealing any part
of the body. Only those nations which have
admitted and understood the true significance of
the nude are capable of developing true artists.
From this point of view it is possible to find great
similarity at every point between the life of modern
Scandinavia and that of ancient Hellas. As was

" POVERTY" BY CARL J. F.I.DII