DOI Artikel:
Wettergren, Erik: Applied art in Sweden
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19430#0117
APPLIED ART IN SWEDEN. BY ERIK
WETTERGREN
HERE are two forces, broadly speaking, that have
given impetus to modern Swedish Industrial Art, viz.,
national tradition, and the vigorous, creative spirit
which has been active during the last few years. It is,
perhaps, the second of these factors which has been
the more evident, chiefly because it has expressed itself
in the production of machine-made articles. All mech-
anical industry, from an artistic standpoint, is a phenomenon that has no
permanent home. With its technical superiority as a motive-power it
finds its way hither and thither amongst all countries where the traditional
styles exist, styles born of handiwork which is eternal and should be in-
violate. Not before artistic results are developed by the methods of pro-
duction employed by mechanical industry—methods differing funda-
mentally from those used by the handicraftsman—can such industry
acquire style, and thus become one of the most powerful forces of the
present day.
Nothing, therefore, is more natural than that, at the very beginning of
such a creative process in industrial art, even the traditional elements,
which undoubtedly should be utilized, are eliminated, and that it is a new
“form-world”—as international as industry itself—which makes its ap-
pearance on the scene. And yet, even here, there exist within the
modern Swedish industrial movement creative forces in which the
national spirit lives so intensively that it leaves its impress on this mech-
anical work, more especially on the output of those designers who em-
body in their productions their artistic ideas. But these artists are sur-
rounded by works which are the outcome of a powerful movement which
is endeavouring to preserve and utilize the teachings, the technicalities
and patterns which peasant skill and taste acquired during the course of
centuries, and which have come down to us as a priceless inheritance.
This home-sloyd (handicraft) movement, as it is called, is one element in
present-day artistic production ; the effort which is being made in the
field of mechanical industry to turn out goods of high quality is another,
and, for the moment, the more prominent feature.
The mainspring of this movement was centred in an old-established and
venerable institution called the Svenska Slojdforening (Swedish Sloyd,
or Handicrafts Association) which has just completed the seventy-fifth
year of its existence. From the very beginning of the new movement,
some eight years ago, it was realized by the leading spirits of the Associa-
tion that it would not be possible to attain productions of really high
quality until sound execution and good material were brought into har-
107
WETTERGREN
HERE are two forces, broadly speaking, that have
given impetus to modern Swedish Industrial Art, viz.,
national tradition, and the vigorous, creative spirit
which has been active during the last few years. It is,
perhaps, the second of these factors which has been
the more evident, chiefly because it has expressed itself
in the production of machine-made articles. All mech-
anical industry, from an artistic standpoint, is a phenomenon that has no
permanent home. With its technical superiority as a motive-power it
finds its way hither and thither amongst all countries where the traditional
styles exist, styles born of handiwork which is eternal and should be in-
violate. Not before artistic results are developed by the methods of pro-
duction employed by mechanical industry—methods differing funda-
mentally from those used by the handicraftsman—can such industry
acquire style, and thus become one of the most powerful forces of the
present day.
Nothing, therefore, is more natural than that, at the very beginning of
such a creative process in industrial art, even the traditional elements,
which undoubtedly should be utilized, are eliminated, and that it is a new
“form-world”—as international as industry itself—which makes its ap-
pearance on the scene. And yet, even here, there exist within the
modern Swedish industrial movement creative forces in which the
national spirit lives so intensively that it leaves its impress on this mech-
anical work, more especially on the output of those designers who em-
body in their productions their artistic ideas. But these artists are sur-
rounded by works which are the outcome of a powerful movement which
is endeavouring to preserve and utilize the teachings, the technicalities
and patterns which peasant skill and taste acquired during the course of
centuries, and which have come down to us as a priceless inheritance.
This home-sloyd (handicraft) movement, as it is called, is one element in
present-day artistic production ; the effort which is being made in the
field of mechanical industry to turn out goods of high quality is another,
and, for the moment, the more prominent feature.
The mainspring of this movement was centred in an old-established and
venerable institution called the Svenska Slojdforening (Swedish Sloyd,
or Handicrafts Association) which has just completed the seventy-fifth
year of its existence. From the very beginning of the new movement,
some eight years ago, it was realized by the leading spirits of the Associa-
tion that it would not be possible to attain productions of really high
quality until sound execution and good material were brought into har-
107