Studio: international art (82.1921)

STUDIO-TALK

RELIEFS IN GRANITE
(STOCKHOLM LAW COURTS)
BY CHRISTIAN ERIKSSON

days. Approaching closer, one's attention
is arrested by five figures in relief above
the gateway, with a judge seated on his
throne to crown the whole. Then, as one
passes up the staircase, one sees straight in
front between the two doors the figure of
Justice, in beaten copper, and bordering the
actual gateway arch, the heads and minor
figures which accentuate the stones of the
archway and lend symbolical expression to
the purpose of the building. The architect
has collaborated here with two sculptors.
Christian Eriksson and Gustaf Sandberg.

Carl Milles has laboured greatly in this
field of decorative art. Thus he has decked
one of the chief bank houses in this city—
Stockholm's Enskilda Bank—with large
relief figures in black granite, which,
with a semi-humorous touch, treat the
development of banking and business
negotiation from the most primitive stages
right down to the stockbrokers of our days

using their telephones. The task that con-
fronted the artist was one of exceptional
difficulty ; but with his bold instinct for
style he has solved some of the most knotty
problems. Particularly remarkable is the
polished, highly rounded treatment of the
figures, and that delightful touch of carica-
ture which removes the impression of any
symbolic aridity and dull mannerism. One
of his most delicious things is the little
emblematic cartouche placed above the
larger figures. 00000
Of the younger Swedish sculptors,
Carl Eldh has been responsible for the
decoration of the Northern Museum in
Djurgarden Park, Stockholm, with small
realistic figures in granite ; Tore Strind-
berg has produced reliefs in stucco and
granite in a somewhat more academic style
for one of the most modern churches ; and
Gottfrid Larsson has done excellent work
for a business house. A. B.

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