Midvinter blot
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| Midvinter blot |
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| Carl Larsson , 1915 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 640 × 1360 cm |
| Swedish National Museum |
Midvinterblot ("Mittwinteropfer") is a painting by the Swedish painter Carl Larsson , which has been exhibited in the National Museum in Stockholm since 1997 . Larsson's original intention was to hang the work in the upper area of the museum's stairwell, but a number of different reasons led to the painting being rejected several times.
description
The motif of the painting was interpreted as an episode from the old Scandinavian poetry Ynglingatal . The Swedish legendary king Domalde sacrificed himself to the gods after several years of poor harvest. The king is pulled on a sleigh to the temple of Uppsala , where, among other things, trombone players and two priests, one of whom solemnly lifts a Thor's hammer over his head, await him.
Larsson explained his first sketch, which was shown in the museum in 1911, with the text: “Here a king is sacrificed for the good of the people (to enable a good annual harvest). He was drowned in the holy spring that was at the foot of the tree (according to Adam von Bremen there was a tree in front of the temple that was green all year round) ”. The sketch also showed various sub-kings, the king's son on his black horse, the queen, a minstrel with a harp and women dancing.
The competition
After a competition started in 1883 to decorate the staircase hall of the National Museum (see there), which was led by a committee specially set up for this purpose, Carl Larsson had decorated all the walls of the lower floor with frescoes. In 1907 he also designed a wall in the upper area with his painting "Gustav Wasa's Entry into Stockholm on Midsummer's Day 1523". For the opposite wall he had actually proposed the painting "Gustav II Adolfs Landgang in Pomerania 1630" and received the first prize for it, but an official order was still pending.
Midvinter blot is rejected for the first time
After an Easter trip to Copenhagen , when Carl Larsson was temporarily alone in Sundborn , he had a new intuition for the last free wall of the staircase hall. He now wanted to design the area with a motif from the Swedish world of legends. In the National Museum in Copenhagen he studied the ornamentation of belt buckles from the Iron Age and in Sundborn he made the first preliminary study, a simple pencil drawing in the format 29 × 59 cm. In January 1911 his first proposal was ready and it was exhibited in the National Museum. The picture is only preserved as a photograph.
Carl Larsson's idea aroused mostly amazement and was seen more as an eccentric idea than a serious proposition. The theme did not fit with the basic idea that Larsson had put forward for the decoration of the staircase, which had been adopted by the government in 1894. Larsson had completely rejected his first proposal with Gustav II Adolf and the placement opposite “Gustav Wasa's entry into Stockholm” was considered unmotivated. The treatment of the topic also raised questions. It was criticized that the decorative composition with the colorful oriental coloring lacked the historical mood. The king was seen as theatrical, and the priest, who initially raised a dagger, and the queen, who threw herself to the ground, made a grotesque impression on Larsson's contemporaries.
An anonymous sender who called himself "archaeologist" opposed some anachronisms in Larsson's painting in Dagens Nyheter in February 1911, to which Larsson immediately replied that he viewed the author as "a malicious villain who wants to harm me". In the same article Larsson admitted that he was not particularly interested in painting the work for the National Museum: “The public is so clearly against me this time (and perhaps rightly) that neither my friend the reader nor my enemy the archaeologist must be concerned. "
In the autumn of 1911, Larsson was asked in an interview by Stockholms Dagblad what plans he had for the last wall of the National Museum and he reported:
“I was really thinking about something from Skansen . With a dance stage in the middle, the motif would have the advantage that one could show national costumes. And so you could imagine any festival, with important personalities interspersed here and there ”. He also said: “ You have to hurry if something is to come out. If I am to do everything I have planned, I have to get up early in the morning. "
In 1913 Larsson edited the picture so that the priest figure, now in a blood-red cloak, stands in the foreground with his back to the viewer. The snow-covered side wings of the temple have grown larger, the tower has disappeared and a green tree dominates the left half of the picture.
In October of the same year, Larsson created another version of the subject and sent it to the National Museum with a request that the panel "look, judge and judge" whatever the outcome. The sketch was exhibited in the museum in early November. Larsson had changed the drawing so that the king now voluntarily went to sacrifice. The composition also differed from the original version in other details. The imaginative temple with its large, white roof surfaces was completely redesigned and depicted with simpler lines. It now took up most of the background and replaced the empty areas of the first sketches. The bard with the harp had disappeared and the number of minor characters increased. The priest now held a sacrificial dagger in his right hand. The king was standing in profile and threw his head back, the fallen queen was shifted towards the left edge and the king's son on the horse was partially hidden by the sub-kings.
The new sketch aroused displeasure among art critic Axel Gauffin, who spoke in Stockholm's Dagblad. Gauffin said that Larsson gave the work too strong a personal touch, which resulted from his entire career. According to Gauffin, this began with hesitant attempts at a young age and continued in fantastic images with which Larsson had repeatedly broken through the walls of reality. Gauffin wanted Larsson to find another subject that was more national, more understandable and more appropriate, but it should be Carl-Larssonesk all the same. As an alternative, Gauffin suggested a summer painting from 18th century Stockholm, in which Ulla Winblad (a character by Carl Michael Bellman ) is in a boat with an escort on the way from Södermalm to Djurgården .
The previous body had been dissolved, but the remaining tasks were taken over by the committee that was supposed to organize the museum's art collections. The commission consisted of the museum director Ludvig Looström, the artistic director Georg Göthe, the superintendent Carl Möller and the painter Richard Bergh .
On February 17, 1914, the council pronounced its verdict. The members of the panel agreed that Larsson should finish decorating the stairwell, but they did not like the subject of his proposal. Museum director Looström rejected the design and added that the previous paintings in the stairwell showed "important developments and personalities from the history of our country". Regarding the new painting, the artist was in the realm of complete imagination and neither the subject nor the artistic treatment can meet the demands for a monumental painting at this point. The three other members of the commission said that a midwinter festival would be a sensible counterpoint to the midsummer festival with Gustav Wasa's entry and that the sketch would be worthwhile from a decorative perspective. They also stated, however, that there is no record of a Swedish king who voluntarily sacrificed and that the subject is not characteristic of the customs of the Northmen in paganism. It would therefore be desirable that Larsson, if the work were to be carried out, omitted the sacrifice of the king and contented himself with a description of the midwinter festival. The three council members wanted to allow Larsson to carry out the work according to his sketch, but he should feel urged to make changes due to the criticism brought in.
The panel's verdict sparked a lively newspaper debate, and not just because of the contradicting compromise proposal, which showed that the commissioners were not satisfied with the motif, the mood and the coloring, and yet they ordered the execution in the hope Larsson would straighten it out to exclude what was the original idea and main content of the work.
Art historian Harald Brising suggested that the painting should be better seen in Stockholm's new City Hall , which was being built. The art critic Georg Nordensvan said that Midvinterblot was disturbing and splintering in the stairwell and he asked for a painting of a completely different character in this place.
On March 1, 1914, Larsson wrote to Sweden's minister of culture that he no longer wanted to have anything to do with the staircase of the National Museum:
“Of course I had hoped and thought that the Minister would see the matter bigger and let me finish this series of paintings to the best of my ability; but since I now feel bitter under this difficult and tough work process and miss the support of the sympathy that I think I need, I have now decided not to resist any longer, and leave the wall to their fate and the responsibility to my opponents, which is why I Lord Minister therefore ask not to worry about the subject any further. "
The painting is rejected again
Larsson did not give up, however. A few weeks later he wrote in a letter to a friend: “Do not think that I am such a poor man and that I give up. Oh no, I paint the picture at my own risk. ”So in May 1914 he stretched the gigantic canvas of over 13 meters in length in his studio in Hyttnäs and began to paint Midvinterblot without ordering; in May 1915 it was finished. At the same time he made another sketch that hardly differed from the previous one. This fourth sketch is almost identical to the final work. (Presumably made as an aid to transferring the proportions to the large format of the picture). The prince's son has now disappeared behind the right edge of the picture, only the horse's head is visible and all details have been carefully worked out. The wooden temple building is adorned with gold decorations and the priest holds the dagger threateningly upwards.
In 1915 the artist Anders Zorn offered the Swedish government to cover the costs of realizing Mitdvinterblot and Gustav Wasa's entry as frescoes .
In June 1915 the painting was temporarily hung in the staircase of the museum. In the press, the critics expressed their different views, but the negative evaluations outweighed. The art critic August Brunius said in Svenska Dagbladet : “It is a drawing that is more strongly, if not to say overloaded, colored on a strange subject with no inner rhythmic connection between its parts and no correspondence with the space to be decorated. “The poet and art historian Karl Asplund wrote in Nya Dagligt Allehanda that the comments made earlier on Larsson's proposal are still justified and he hopes that the artist would come up with a new proposal,“ Carl Larsson's honor as a painter is high enough that he does can endure if you oppose parts of your artistry. ”The artist Edvard Westman said in Aftontidning that the whole thing tasted like theater spex and lacked artistic depth and decorative entirety. The task did not fit for "the temperament of the otherwise so ingenious artist."
On February 21, 1916, the museum commission announced its decisions regarding the purchase of the painting on account of the state (Larsson demanded 35,000 crowns) and Zorn's offer to pay for the final frescoes. The panel rejected the proposal with three votes to one. Looström repeated his earlier opinion on the painting, Bergh and Göthe recalled their wish, which they had already expressed, that the victim should be softened or removed, but it was precisely this moment that emerged in the current proposal with increased sharpness. Möller voted in favor of the proposal considering the "uniform decoration of the hall."
The panel was still in agreement that Larsson should complete his work in the museum and sent him a letter with a request for a suggestion with “a more appropriate and less sensational theme of a purely historical character for the art museum and its murals, according to their own Choice of artist. ”Richard Bergh recalled the original award-winning proposal with Gustav II Adolf, but he could also think of a motif from Queen Hedwig Eleonora's time with Drottningholm Palace in the background.
Larsson took the letter as an insult. He did not reply to the letter directly, but in newspaper interviews he expressed his confidence that the painting “will be honored at some point - a good work of art will always endure and for this I really worked with pathos.” At the inauguration of Liljevalch's art gallery in March In 1916, Midvinterblot was exhibited on the largest wall of the largest room. Even so, there was no space for the upper part of the painting and had to be cut off just above the upper edge of the temple entrance.
Minister of Culture Westman had Midvinterblot judged by the artists Bruno Liljefors and Julius Kronberg as well as by the Austrian art historian Joseph Strzygowski . All three gave ratings that recognized Larsson's work. Kronberg said, "[...] that it has been a long time since I was so impressed by a work of art [...] the great composition, the mighty study, the wonderful colors [...] For me it is one of the most outstanding works of art history, not only in Swedish but in art history in general… ”Strzygowski wrote:“ It seems to me to be a pure duty to assure his (Larsson's) work a complete victory. ”The reports were published on May 16, 1916 in the press. But Larsson had reached a point that made him terminate his collaboration with the National Museum on June 20.
Return to the National Museum
From Larsson's autobiography Jag :
“The fate of 'Midvinterblot' broke me! I admit that with dull anger. And yet it was probably the best that happened there, my intuition now tells me - again! - that this painting, with all its weaknesses, will one day, when I am gone, be honored with a far better place. "
After Carl Larsson's death, the painting was in the Lund Decorative Arts Archives (now the Skissernas museum ) for almost 40 years . In the 1980s, Larsson's heirs sold the work to an art dealer, who offered the painting to the National Museum, which was refused. Then the dealer turned to the Historical Museum , which, however, could not pay the requested amount.
The owner sold the painting at Sotheby’s in London for a good 10 million crowns. The buyer was the Japanese art collector Hiroshi Ishizuka, who loaned the painting to the National Museum in 1992 on the occasion of its 200th anniversary. This resulted in various foundations and fundraising collections, with the proceeds of which the National Museum was able to buy the painting in 1997. Since then, it can be viewed in the museum's stairwell.
Stamp
On April 10, 2015, Åland Post issued a stamp with the painting.
literature
- Carl Larsson. Exhibition catalog. National Museum 1992, ISBN 91-7024-764-1 .
- Georg Nordensvan : Carl Larsson . In: Svensk konst och svenska konstnärer i nittonde århundradet . Ny, Grundligt omarbetad upplaga - New, thoroughly revised edition. tape 2 : II. Från Karl XV till sekelslutet . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1928 (Swedish, runeberg.org - here p. 369).
- Georg Nordensvan: Carl Larsson. Part 2: 1890-1919. Norstedts, Stockholm 1921.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nordensvan (1921), p. 168.
- ↑ Carl Larsson, Utställningskatalog, National Museum, S. 222nd
- ↑ Nordensvan (1921), pp. 168-169.
- ^ Dagens Nyheter February 20, 1911.
- ↑ Stockholms Dagblad November 4, 1911.
- ↑ Carl Larsson, Utställningskatalog. National Museum, pp. 223–225.
- ↑ Stockholms Dagblad November 16, 1913.
- ↑ Nordensvan (1921), pp. 186-187.
- ↑ Nordensvan (1921), pp. 187-189.
- ^ Letter to Minister of Culture Westman March 1, 1914.
- ↑ Carl Larsson, Utställningskatalog, National Museum, S. 225th
- ↑ Nordensvan (1921), pp. 189-193.
- ^ Svenska Dagbladet June 2, 1915.
- ↑ Nya Dagligt Allehanda 3 June 1915th
- ^ Aftontidningen June 16, 1915.
- ↑ Nordensvan (1921), pp. 195-196.
- ^ Nordensvan (1921), p. 196.
- ^ Nordensvan (1921), p. 196.
- ↑ Nordensvan (1921), p. 199.
- ^ Bo Lindwall (red.): Carl Larsson och National Museum. In: Årsbok för Svenska statens konstsamlingar. 16, Rabén & Sjögren 1969, pp. 173-174.
- ^ Carl Larsson (1931). Jag. Stockholm: Bonniers, p. 236.
- ↑ Information sheet of the National Museum on Midvinterblot ( Memento of the original of August 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 91 kB).
- ↑ Lisa Blohm: National Monument åter svenskt. In: Svenska Dagbladet. July 9, 1997.
- ↑ Midvinter blot. posten.ax, accessed June 30, 2015 (Swedish).
