Search

The content of Matisse's "Apollo" (fig. 1) is full of mystery. Several different motifs—a face, water, three trees, a fan, leaves in various colours, and two posts-are brought together in a symmetrical composition. Attempts have been made to regard the picture as illustrating certain passages in the Apollo myth, for instance the story of Daphne and Apollo, or of Phaethon, the son of the Sun- god. It was the course of events in the myth that was to identify and explain the various motifs, but these attempts led to disparate and conflicting conclusions. The author of this paper endeavours to find out whether Matisse had any particular way of treating mythological themes. The two Icarus pictures he made in 1943 do not reflect the conflict situation of the myth, for Icarus is portrayed in a night scene against a background of stars instead of the sun: the vax in his wings would not melt in this setting. In actual fact the figures represent airmen on a night-attack who were being fired at: the white figure (an aircraft) is caught in the beam of a searchlight, has been hit, and is beginning to fall (fig. 4), while the black one (fig. 3) has not been struck by the projectiles. "Amphitrite" (fig. 5) does not show the goddess herself, but her watery surroundings. The various sea motifs are easily identifiable: an amoeba, sea horses, a sea serpent, pieces of coral. Each is shown in a section of its own and creates the effect of an underwater photograph. In 1947, when Matisse made this picture, Jacques- Yves Cousteau had popularized marine research, and this was the source of his inspiration. This article also points Out the model on which the composition was based: a Roman relief, "Mithras" (fig. 7), reproduced in the book on Roman antiquities Montfaucon published in 1719-24. The bull has been transformed into the bottom piece of coral (the head, legs and the bifurcated tail retaining their original form). The smaller figures at waist height on either side of Mithras have become the two sea horses and Mithras himself has shrunk to become the amoeba in the central section, his mantle being reproduced by the double outline round the amoeba. "Venus" (fig. 8) is shown as a torso modelled on the late-Hellenistic, twisted statues in the Louvre. The figure itself is the negative space between two paper cut-outs. The author demonstrates that Matisse never illustrated any myths but merely reproduced the mythological figured in them (Icarus, Venus); he symbolized Amphitrite by showing her environment in the depths of the sea. Title and form are chosen and treated to awaken general associations; when these have been established, recognition of the particular way in which Matisse's representation differs from the conventional one will open the way to further interpretations. The composition of "Apollo" is allied to that of the middle part of "Amphitrite" in conjunction with another of Montfaucon's illustrations, "Le Soleil" (fig. 6), also a Roman relief. This was found in the Palazzo Mattei in Rome and is described in the younger Aleandro's treatise of 1616. The relief portrays various classical gods in emblematic form. Phoebus Apollo (the bust and the lyre) and Bacchus (the krater) provide the central axis, which is flanked on either side by the attributes of Hercules (the lion skin and the club), thereby also creating an association with the Pillars of Hercules (the rock of Gibraltar and Jebel Muse). The piles of stones and the caducei together are attributes of Hermes (Mercury). The garland of fruit may be a symbol of Venus, and the fact that the caducei touch it might be an allusion to her love affair with Hermes, the product of which was Hermaphroditos. The "Le Soleil" relief inspired several artists even in the 17th century: Poussin's "The Judgement of Solomon" and "Neptune and Amphitrite" as well as Girardon's "Apollo and the Nymphs" (fig. 9) all employ the same scheme of composition.… [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Architect Alvar Aalto's (Finland, 1898-1976) production in the l930's involved large projects for Finnish paper industry. One of his most important commissioners was the Ahlström Company. After personally knowing both Mr Harry Gullichsen (1902-54), the director of the company, and his wife Mrs. Maire Gullichsen (b. 1907, née Ahlström) for some years he was asked in 1937 to prepare a general plan and a housing scheme for Kauttua, one of the company's production sites. Kauttua, in southwestern Finland, had a long industrial history and a core of historical buildings. Now a paper refinery plant was being started and housing was needed. Aalto suggested several alternatives for the plan and sketched new housing types. Only one of the intended buildings was completed in 1938. This is a multi-storey block on a slope with straight access to all apartments and with roof terraces. Factors such as health, nature, education and sports were evident in the planning ideology. The rather wide-ranging plans and the built fragment have been analyzed in this paper as an example of patronage, where the patron, Mr Gullichsen, and the artist, architect Aalto, mutually arrive at a certain functional and aesthetic conclusion. Mr Gullichsen wanted to demonstrate his zest for modernity in production, management and architectural environment and used Aalto as an instrument. Through the opportunity given to him Aalto was able to experiment and manifest his architectural ideas in an almost ideal situation. Mr Gullichsen also sought after a model on which to base the housing projects on his company's many production sites. The investment in high-quality, consciously modernist architecture would be repaid in stability and increased efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at presenting and analyzing The Dreamer, a major work by the Norwegian painter Halfdan Egedius (1877-99). The painting was executed during the summer 1895, when Egedius was staying at Bø in the rural district of Telemark. It is mentioned quite frequently in the artist's correspondence, where he used to refer to it simply as a portrait of his friend and fellow artist Torleiv Stadskleiv. The composition is straight enough, the model being placed on a log-chair in the middle of a peasant interior typical of the district. The colour scheme is simple, based on strong, saturated hues arranged in striking contrast. A dark-haired man dressed in black Sits quietly, resting his head upon his hand and seemingly wrapped in his own thought. The idea for such an arrangement may derive from Edvard Munch's famous Night, painted at St. Cloud in 1890, where a brooding figure is placed in somewhat the same way in an interior lit from outside. Stadskleiv's peculiarly twisted pose, on the other hand, is directly dependent on Eilif Peterssen's portrait of Arne Garborg (1894), although in a more general sense it harks back to Rodin's famous Penseur and ultimately to the dark figure of Heraclitus in the School of Athens. Indeed, the portrait of Stadskleiv belongs within the long tradition of representations of the melancholy complexion. It was not made to commission and may rather be seen as a symbolic depiction of the inspired artist as such. The idea of a melancholy temper and its close connection with artistic creativity was of course well known at the time: the Finnish artist Magnus Enckell, for instance, executed a large painting with the title Melancholy the very same year. It should be added, perhaps, that the poet and journalist Arne Garborg, a leading light of contemporary Scandinavian culture, was known for his profound and brooding intellect. Stadskleiv himself was quite a character. A native of Bø he became to the town-boy Egedius something of a personification of the characteristic, traditional peasant culture of Telemark. He had a taste for the occult and was even given to superstitious beliefs. The two young painters were exceptionally close friends and stuck together a lot, not least during the summer 1895. It appears from Egedius' correspondence that Stadskleiv painted his friend's portrait more or less at the time the Dreamer was completed. Insistent allusions to the local rural milieu and Norwegian peasant culture are not accidental. Egedius had close connections to a circle of painters holding that true art must be national in character. In the Dreamer he consistently kept to colours and colour combinations which were at the same time propagated by the art historian Andreas Aubert as representative of the particular «Norwegian instinct for colours», and which were referred to by the painter Gerhard Munthe as a «national Norwegian choice of colours». Indeed, the Dreamer appears not only as the artist, but as the truly Norwegian artist as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a theory of the interpretation of artistic images. The thesis is that such interpretations operate as metaphors. The method is shown through an analysis of a late work by Henri Matisse—the "Apollon", 1953 (now owned by the Modern Museum in Stockholm). Firstly, two earlier interpretations are analysed to show how different views can be regarded as consistent and illuminating but nevertheless conflict deeply with each other. Then, the main interpretation undertaken in this article is pursued to show how artistic images are understood through patterns of interaction. The features of the image are seen to interact with meaningful material of different kinds—the comparative material of interpretation set in motion by the most dominant features of the picture as a whole. The dominant features chosen are: the title "Apollon" (joining the picture with the tradition of representations and myths concerning this God); the image of the sun; the image of the face and a possible hidden "body"; the principle of symmetry and dynamism in the pictorial organization; the principle of oneness as opposed to multiplicity; the fact that Matisse was 84 years old and approaching death when the picture was made; the fact that the picture is a paper cut-out with painted elements. The work is seen to deal with themes concerning the creative process in art as such and to develop, into modern terms, a classical French tradition oriented towards the sources of Mediterranean culture. Each time the picture is held to interact with the comparative material through the different dominant features, a special pattern of meaning is stressed. The picture interacts with the comparative material and the different patterns of meaning also interact. These processes of interaction are analysed as equivalent to the process of achieving meaning through metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Alfred Lichtwark (1852-1914) was appointed director of the Hamburg Kunsthalle in 1886 he set about reorganising the museum's art collections in order to create a modern museum and pave the way for a cautious approach to impressionism. He invited to Hamburg for this purpose many avant-guarde artists from Germany and elsewhere such as Max Liebermann, Leopold von Kalckreuth, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard and others, to paint local motifs. The Swedish painter Anders Zorn (1860-1920) was one of the first guests, being expected to give a model for modern colourism. His watercolour, The Port of Hamburg, was signed in 1891. Strangely enough, it was not integrated into the museum's collection until 1901. The first part of the present paper deals with the question of why Zorn's picture "disappeared" for a ten year period. Comparisons with other paintings that suffered a similar fate throughout the 1890's backed up by a study of archive material give an indication that Zorn's watercolour did not conform to the conservative tastes of the public at the time. So Zorn never became a famous name in connection with Hamburg's collection of local motifs. Nevertheless, The Port of Hamburg deserves attention because it seemes to shed a light on the cultural and political conflicts that Lichtwark had to face in order to support the development of modern art in Hamburg. On the other hand, as the second part of this paper points out, Lichtwark succeeded very effectively in introducing Zorn's engraved works as a model for modern art. The Kunsthalle collection of Zorn's etchings rose to international prominence. Famous personalities such as Gustav Schiefler and Aby Warburg supported Lichtwark's endeavour in this field. By 1910 the Hamburg Kunsthalle was in the position to own one of the most comprehensive German public collections of Zorn's etchings. The local press was also won over by Lichtwark's preferences and wrote frequently about Zorn's participation in various exhibitions. Influential privat collectors purchased Zorn's engraved works and the Commeter art gallery in Hamburg met demand for his etchings all over Germany. It is noteworthy that Zorn's art reached the pinnacle of its reputation at a time when the master engraver was no longer in the forefront of modern art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the character of the conditions valid for patronage in architecture, and also how the artist and his patron are jointly responsible for a work of art. More precisely Ivar Kreuger's not much recognized role as a favourer of architecture is illustrated. The financier Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932) and the architect Ivar Tengborn (1878-1968) were of about the same age. They both came from provincial families of no great importance and started their truly exceptional careers with studies in technology. Kreuger was like a Renaissance prince, and in the mid-twenties he accordingly decided to build the extraordinary business palace in Stockholm known as the Match Palace. To build a palace is the archetypical act of an art patron and Tengborn was appointed architect for this important task. In these years a reinterpretation of the fundamental legacy from antiquity and the Renaissance was strongly desired. The new spirit had already been given artistic form by Tengbom. His remarkable achievements have too long been rated second to the works of S. Lewerentz and E. G. Asplund. Asplund's reputation is now supported by his function as a point of reference in post-modern architecture. Tengbom was however the far more important stylistic forerunner of mannerist classicism. Already in 1912 Tengbom defined the new style in Stockholms Enskilda Bank Hq. and he kept his leading position all the way to its artistic culmination in the Match Palace. In a few years Kreuger had created a global monopoly in the match industry. Matches were only one branch of a complicated structure of world-wide financial operations focussed at the Swedish Match Company. The palace was begun in 1926 and was completed in spring 1928. Tengborn put to work a group of architects and outstanding artists: R. Hult, T. Wennerbalm, G. Cederwall, C. Milles, S. Gate, A. Almquist, R. Lindsträm, E. Dahlskog, E. Gullberg, A. Munthe, I. Grünewald and C. Malmsten. Many of them were well-known from the decoration work of Tengbom's Stockholm Concert Hall and from the Paris exhibition in 1925. Kreuger needed symbols for his mission as a patron for mankind. The symbols used refer both to universalism and to a cult of the company. The Prometheus theme is illustrated in the court-yard pavement as well as in a great fresco by Isaac Grünewald in the session hall. Other works illustrate 'The five continents worship the fire' and Carl Milles' fountain represents Diana.… [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem discussed in this paper arises from the emotional experience of Liss Eriksson's The Couple (figs. 1, 2 and 3). The discussion of the impression of tenderness and close contact between two people is in the main based on comparisons, even though internal characteristics of the work are also taken into account. The aim is to demonstrate the importance of choices of alternatives which consciously, or possibly unconsciously as well, play a part in experiencing the emotional qualities of a work. The examples from earlier periods begin with a presentation of a series of solutions to the problem of depicting the meeting between Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem. The intellectualism of Giotto (fig. 7) and his emphasis on the spatial function of the bodies is presented with examples from the religious art of the late Middle Ages (figs. 4, 5 and 6) which suggest a continuum from a discursive reading to the simultaneous experience of the artistic symbols. This moves into the area of the profane with Rembrandt's Jewish Bride (fig. 8) in which the gestures and other aspects of body language are discussed in relation to spatial problems and problems of light. Solutions from the works of Edvard Munch and Auguste Rodin are presented in which, against the background of differing personal and artistic concerns, the physical union of the bodies is one of the aspects emphasized strongly (figs. 9 and 10). In his publicly commissioned sculpture The House Liss Eriksson's starting point was Giacometti's Palace (1933). The version of the Couple which formed part of this work was later developed into the equally public work The Couple, a synthesis of ideas from The House, but now compressed and concentrated to the presentation of the two persons themselves, in close spiritual and physical union. The article concludes with discussion, now with a widened frame of reference, of the role played by choice in experiencing the emotional dimensions of The Couple. With the help of quotations from Björn von Rosen, the poet and artist, and Robert Musil, for instance, the absurdity of reconstructing unambiguous connections between formal structure and emotional experiences is emphasized. Only to a certain degree can the area of experience be rationalized. The inadequacy of language when it comes to the communication of this subtle content is illustrated, moreover, also with the introductory quotation from Joseph Brodsky, a reminder that can also be addressed to those who interpret pictures, "You do not dissect a bird to discover the source of its song; what you should dissect is your own ear.» In other words the aim of this discussion is to show that the emotional dimensions of a major work of art, despite the difficulties, should not be withheld from the rational analysis of art criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the literature on late 19th century art in the Northern Countries the question of its ties with Germany and German art has generally been neglected. The period is understood as dominated by Paris - German centers like Düsseldorf, Munich and Berlin according to this opinion represented old fashioned and even obsolete styles and attitudes towards art. This is of course an oversimplified and rather naive view of the art historical situation in Europe around 1900. The traditionally strong economical and cultural links between the Scandinavian countries and Central Europe, the position of German as the first foreign language learnt at school, the attraction caused by the dynamic economical development of Germany after its unification in 1870 and the development of Berlin into a major metropolis could not have been without influence on Scandinavian art. In my paper which was read as an introduction to the symposium I try to outline some of the central problems concerning such connections and the investigation into them. First of all I think it is important to remember not to treat international connections in the field of culture as one way influences but as a matter of mutual exchange; the question is not only what Scandinavian artists may have seen or whom they may have met abroad but also which impact their art or their personality may have had there. It is also useful to remember that receiving influences does not mean playing the passive but the active role of the game. Influence or reception is a matter of looking around, accepting or rejecting, assimilating etc. and not of being marked by an external force. An interesting question which needs further study is the representation of Scandinavian artists at German Exhibitions and their commercial success. Many artists like P.S. Krøyer, A. Zorn or W. Hammershøi, to mention only a few, were shown in Germany almost every year throughout the 1890s and during the first years of the new century, and their works were generally favourably reviewed by the German critics. This however should not be interpreted only as a tribute to the intrinsic qualities of their art, it also has a lot to do with the specific cultural situation in Germany and with the part the idea of Northern culture played in it. As soon as German museums and private collections gave up their politically determined resistance against French modernism the star of Northern art rapidly faded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article relates the author's view on the modern conception of the visual world in Middle Ages period based on the architecture on the Hollywood films. He cited the presumption of Vivian Sobchack, Associate Dean at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), about the relationship between historical facts and historical fiction. He set as an example the film "The Lord of the Rings" which showed the microhistorical evidence of the past to made his conception more reliable.

The article discusses the historical study of grotesque and obscene aspects of medieval art in the Middle Ages. It studied several features of the medieval art and the bachtinian influence in the writings of Michael Camille on obscenities. Several studies of base and blasphemous motifs in Scandinavian medieval art were also included.

The intense debate in the last decade on the nature of knowledge and the position of epistemology in cognitive psychology, cybernetics etc. has revived the old questions about aesthetic experience as comparable or contradictory to discursive forms of information as well as the question of the essential differences between art criticism and art history. Just as an experiment the author has analysed the epistemological premises of the well-known program for iconographical analysis that Panofsky formulated 1939 in his "Introductory" to Studies in Iconology. Panofsky is one of the very few art historians whose model for scientific investigation has been relevant for other humanistic disciplines. He is also one of the very few art theorists who has articulated a didactic instruction for the interested layman as well as for the scholar on how to reach valid historical knowledge. These were the prime reasons for examining his system. Other researchers, e.g. Gombrich, Arnheim, Riegl, Wölfflin, would have become objects for the same kind of analyses, but their methodologies are neither as explicit or as elaborated as Panofsky's system really is. The author does not focus on the three-step-investigation model (i.e. in the revised version of 1955: pre-iconographical description, iconographical analysis, iconological interpretation) that forms the second and the most well-known part of the iconographical method, but on the first and the third parts (concerning the object and the equipment of interpretation) and the comments by Panofsky to these and to their fundaments in everyday experiences and elementary visual perception. Panofsky never used the word "aesthetic" in his model and we could rather describe his system as a method of "making" aesthetic expressions intellectual and discursive. By the analysis it will be clear that Panofsky modelled his system on the classification categories of the analytical philosophy and that he used a terminology that placed him in a philosophical tradition as opposed to the traditions of aesthetic theory. Panofsky might have got some inspiration to his broad-minded epistemological premises by the common-sense philosophy of G. E. Moore; at the same time we can state that he was also indebted to the older idealistic tradition, which will be traced in his use of concepts like "synthetic intuition". In his sceptical attitude to the behaviouristic premises of the formal analysts the later Panofsky argued in a manner reminding of Potter—though Panofsky's argumentation still was characterised by a somewhat idealistic exaggeration as when he called them "insectolarists", as in Meanings in the Visual Arts 1955. Perception + interpretation were the basic concepts in Panofsky's theory. By the controlling principles based on history of tradition Panofsky furthermore profiled his theory in analogy to classical epistemologies—and to the natural sciences—by seeking the empirical corrective of our knowledge. Though Panofsky was not that sophisticated as a practical philosopher as we might have expected, his ambition to define what kind of general knowledge our cultural connotations will be based on, is well worth of being honored by modern hermeneutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The still-lifes known as 'quod-libet' still-lifes—illusionistically rendered wooden surfaces in which a ribbon for holding letters is depicted filled with documents, letters and other trifles—developed into an independent genre in the Netherlands in the 1650s and 1660s. One of the earliest painters to work with the genre, the Dutchman Samuel van Hoogstraten, used the motif to create a composition which would characterise himself as an artist and a writer (fig. 2). In Sweden the presentation of an intellectual portrait of this kind was to dominate the content of quod-libet paintings. Among the works dealt with in this article, one or two with a vanitas motif (figs. 16 & 19) and a few that seem to lack any intellectual meaning are exceptions. It is also noticeable that the majority of these exceptions stem from the middle of the 18th century and later, in other words when the tradition had already passed its heyday, and that many of them are also markedly provincial. The two earliest known artists who painted quod-libet still-lifes in Sweden were both from the Netherlands. Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts spent the winter of 1673-74 in Stockholm, when he completed the still-life, fig. 3, commissioned by the burgesses of Stockholm as a gift to Claes Rålamb, the governor of the city. Gijsbrechts had specialised in trompe l'oeil motifs and even in an international perspective can be seen as one the first artists who helped to create the quod-libet genre. In other respects his works in general seem to lack any features of portraiture. Rålamb's painting constitutes an exception in Gijsbrechts' work in that the recipient's name is stated on the documents depicted. In 1678 one of van Hoogstraten's pupils, Cornelis van der Meulen, established himself in Stockholm. His still-life, fig. 1, is an intellectual self-portrait, in which letters addressed to the artist himself have been combined with the artist's implements and products. It is probable that the painting is identical with the small work with letters that van der Meulen presented when, according to the guild's records, he became a member of the guild of artists in Stockholm in 1679. Johan Kiopper and Carl Hofwerberg belong to the generations that came next. Klopper, the older of the two, had spent some years studying abroad, when he returned to Sweden in 1694. "Portraits" dominate among the relatively few works known to be his. Hofwerberg was an officer, but is best known for a series of altar-pieces in churches in the northern provinces of Sweden. Up to now there has been no certainty about his artistic training and the similarities between the one quod-libet still-life known to have been painted by Kiopper, fig. 4, and two still-lifes signed by Hofwerberg are therefore significant. Klopper acted as the drawing-master at the University of Uppsala, and it is probable that Hofwerberg, who studied for a few years at the university, beginning in 1713, was one of his pupils. Hofwerberg's two quod-libet still-lifes, figs. 5 & 6, were painted in 1737 for two brothers, Count Ture Gabriel Bielke and Count Carl Gustaf Bielke, and reflect the spheres of interest of each of them. Hofwerberg also had commissions from the De Geer family for their manor house at Leufstabruk. On the basis of documentary records and similarities with the signed quod-libet works, the author of the article attributes a still-life dedicated to Charles De Geer the younger (fig. 8) to Hofwerberg. Among the best known interiors from the rococo period in Sweden are the wall panels in the billiard room at the manor house in Akerö (fig. 10). They were painted in 1753 by Johan Pasch, and commissioned by Count Carl Gustaf Tessin for the dining room of the castle of Läckö.… [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sources cited within this issue are presented including "Jeanne d' Arc," by Helen Glud, "Heraldry," by Whitney Smith, and The Swedish Institute: Exhibitions 1979/80.