Studio: international art (78.1919)

CARL LARSSON

surroundings in the small village of Sund-
born, in Dalecarlia, thanks to his intimate
art, are well known to every one in Sweden.

A popularity of this exceptional kind
must needs imply a highly developed
talent, but is in no wise due to that alone.
Still less has it come through Larsson’s
courting the public, by adapting his art to
their taste. Whatever he did, it was,
indeed, for his own pleasure that he did it.
But his pleasure was so intense and his
power of communication so impulsive that
the spectator, without effort and without
pondering, found in the works of his art
exactly that which the artist had desired to

"THE ARTIST'S MOTHER” (1893)
WATER-COLOUR BY CARL LARSSON

(National Museum, Stockholm)

give. And more than that: he found

what he himself, in most cases, secretly
longed for, the joyous aspect of life,
inspired at the same time by humour and
reverence, summed up in a smile of bliss
and gratitude for everything that life had
bestowed on the artist. This spontaneous,
beautiful smile, now boyish, now manly, it
is that saves Larsson from lapsing into
mawkish sentimentality, as has happened to
so many other depicters of happy family
life and the world of children. First and
foremost it is the deep-souled freshness
and the charming gaiety of his disposition
that make Larsson the great artist he is,

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