Studio: international art (85.1923)

EINAR JONSSON, ICELANDIC SCULPTOR

“ TOWARD THE LIGHT "
BY EINAR JONSSON

studied under Stephan Sinding, at Copen-
hagen^ and afterwards for three years at the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the same
city. He executed, while with Sinding,
A Boy Praying in marble, and Nemesis;
and after the conclusion of his studies at
the Royal Academy a group, Outlaws,
which was exhibited at the Charlottenborg
Exhibition in 1901, and was afterwards
presented to Iceland byConsul D.Thomsen.

With the aid of a grant from the Icelandic
Althing, Jonsson spent the year 1902-1903
in Rome, where he was not favourably
impressed by what he saw of ancient art.
His aversion to the antique had been
formed, no doubt, in Copenhagen, and was

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the natural reaction of a mind of singular
individuality, of vision and breadth, against
the deadening influence of the classical
tradition that Thorwaldsen's example had
so firmly established in Northern Europe.
To Jonsson it seemed that much—or even
most—of modern art is, as it were, a
u petrified imitation ” of ancient art. His
attitude to that art is clearly indicated in
a work entitled The Antique, which he
made after his stay in Rome, in 1904. It
is the statue of a Greek goddess, beautiful
enough to have been by Thorvaldsen : it
might be an image of Greek art. Before her
breast the goddess holds the head of
Medusa, whose look turns the beholder to