DOI Heft:
No. 225 (December 1911)
DOI Artikel:Gauffin, Axel: The landscape paintings of Prince Eugen of Sweden
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0200
Prince Eugen of Sweden
neighbourhood has " damped " the strings on which
the artist has here played. When, sometimes, his
motives are taken from other tracts, we feel that
his touch grows lighter, blither even. Such, for
example, are his " Haga stamningar," * the three
frescoes in the foyer of the Royal Opera House,
Stockholm (1897-1898). These frescoes mark the
first steps of Prince Eugen as a decorative artist,
but although his whole temperament pointed to
this branch of art as peculiarly his, this first attempt
cannot be called an altogether happy one. A
growing greatness of conception and of decorative
character in execution is shown by the fresco painted
in 1899 for the North Latin School, Stockholm,
called An Archipelago La?idscape, Tyreso, and by his
Stockholm Palace, Night, already mentioned, which
was painted the same year for the Swedish villa at
the Paris Exposition of 1900, and was afterwards
presented by the artist to the Hall of the Stockholm
" Nation " at Upsala University. Yet another step
towards the development of a personal decorative
style became manifest in the painting of the
gigantic landscape Summer, for the apse of the
great hall of the school mentioned above. The
* The Swedish word "stamning" (pi. stamningar),
like the cognate German word " Stimmung," is quite
untranslatable. It means the feeling or mood that per-
vades one when gazing at some scene (beautiful, terrible,
amusing, &c.), listening to music, or when one is in
company, good or bad, and the like.—Translator.
task of satisfactorily employing the fifteen-metre-
long, strongly curved field was one of special
difficulty, but the artist's solution of the problem
was as original as it has been successful. All
round in the foreground he has placed, at nearly
equal distances, a row of lofty, slender trees,
between whose trunks and crowns the perspective
opens towards a landscape of "happy, summer
lawns " and sunny, inland seas.
It is as if the artist, in one last, grateful, farewell
look, bade " Good-bye" to that Tyreso where lie
had spent so many more than pleasant summers,
so rich in artistic creative work; for it was during
the course of that same year (1904) that Prince
Eugen took possession of his newly erected man-
sion, "Valdemar's Udde," on the island of
Djurgarden, near Stockholm.
It was Ferdinand Boberg, the Swedish architect
who is so well known for his many original
creations, who conjured forth this home for a
prince-artist—a home enshrined in an exterior
which infallibly attracts the attention of the
traveller just before he enters the inner harbour of
the capital of Sweden. A reproduction in bronze of
the Samothracian Nike, and Carl Milles' two mighty
granite eagles, stand out clearly against the light
facade. The interior, with its large, light salons,
meets us with a choice collection of modern Swedish
art; Josephson's Stromkarlen ("Nixie") let into the
"THE CASTLE OF BORGHOLM'
178
FROM A TINTED CARBON DRAWING BY PRINCE EUGEN
neighbourhood has " damped " the strings on which
the artist has here played. When, sometimes, his
motives are taken from other tracts, we feel that
his touch grows lighter, blither even. Such, for
example, are his " Haga stamningar," * the three
frescoes in the foyer of the Royal Opera House,
Stockholm (1897-1898). These frescoes mark the
first steps of Prince Eugen as a decorative artist,
but although his whole temperament pointed to
this branch of art as peculiarly his, this first attempt
cannot be called an altogether happy one. A
growing greatness of conception and of decorative
character in execution is shown by the fresco painted
in 1899 for the North Latin School, Stockholm,
called An Archipelago La?idscape, Tyreso, and by his
Stockholm Palace, Night, already mentioned, which
was painted the same year for the Swedish villa at
the Paris Exposition of 1900, and was afterwards
presented by the artist to the Hall of the Stockholm
" Nation " at Upsala University. Yet another step
towards the development of a personal decorative
style became manifest in the painting of the
gigantic landscape Summer, for the apse of the
great hall of the school mentioned above. The
* The Swedish word "stamning" (pi. stamningar),
like the cognate German word " Stimmung," is quite
untranslatable. It means the feeling or mood that per-
vades one when gazing at some scene (beautiful, terrible,
amusing, &c.), listening to music, or when one is in
company, good or bad, and the like.—Translator.
task of satisfactorily employing the fifteen-metre-
long, strongly curved field was one of special
difficulty, but the artist's solution of the problem
was as original as it has been successful. All
round in the foreground he has placed, at nearly
equal distances, a row of lofty, slender trees,
between whose trunks and crowns the perspective
opens towards a landscape of "happy, summer
lawns " and sunny, inland seas.
It is as if the artist, in one last, grateful, farewell
look, bade " Good-bye" to that Tyreso where lie
had spent so many more than pleasant summers,
so rich in artistic creative work; for it was during
the course of that same year (1904) that Prince
Eugen took possession of his newly erected man-
sion, "Valdemar's Udde," on the island of
Djurgarden, near Stockholm.
It was Ferdinand Boberg, the Swedish architect
who is so well known for his many original
creations, who conjured forth this home for a
prince-artist—a home enshrined in an exterior
which infallibly attracts the attention of the
traveller just before he enters the inner harbour of
the capital of Sweden. A reproduction in bronze of
the Samothracian Nike, and Carl Milles' two mighty
granite eagles, stand out clearly against the light
facade. The interior, with its large, light salons,
meets us with a choice collection of modern Swedish
art; Josephson's Stromkarlen ("Nixie") let into the
"THE CASTLE OF BORGHOLM'
178
FROM A TINTED CARBON DRAWING BY PRINCE EUGEN