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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78746 ***
+
+
+
+
+                                 SWEDEN
+
+
+
+
+                                 SWEDEN
+
+                        THROUGH THE ARTIST’S EYE
+
+                           +by CARL G. LAURIN+
+
+
+                    STOCKHOLM, P. A. NORSTEDT & SÖNER
+
+
+
+
+                               PRINTED AT
+                           _CENTRALTRYCKERIET_
+                             STOCKHOLM 1911
+
+                     THE COLOUR AND AUTOTYPE PLATES
+                          HAVE BEEN SUPPLIED BY
+                    A. BÖRTZELL’S PRINTING CO., LTD.
+                                STOCKHOLM
+
+                            PRINTED ON PAPER
+                                  FROM
+                       J. H. MUNKTELL’S PAPER MILL
+                                GRYCKSBO
+
+                                  ————
+
+                         _ALL RIGHTS RESERVED._
+          _Copyright 1911 by P. A. Norstedt & Söner, Stockholm_
+
+
+  _Englished by +Mr Grenville Grove+._
+
+  _+Mr Grenville Grove’s+ translation of +Mr Carl Laurin’s+ text has
+  been edited, the Swedish form and spelling of Swedish geographical
+  names carried through and the verses rendered metrically by +Dr
+  Henry Buergel Goodwin+. A French and a German translation will be
+  published simultaneously._
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: OUR COUNTRY
+  +Painting by OTTO HESSELBOM+
+  +NATIONAL MUSEUM+]
+
+  Fall, Christmas snow, and blow, ye North and West,
+  O’er fen and moor your deepest, richest sound,
+  Burn, star of the East, in the June night blest,
+  Sweden, our mother, be our strife, our rest,
+  Land, to our sons be thou our dear bequest,
+  Earth, where our fathers sleep in sacred ground.
+
+So sings a poet who has entered deeply into Swedish nature and Swedish
+life. “Sweden, our mother!” We love our mother, but we do not find it
+easy to dilate on her merits to any passing stranger. We know full
+well that there are other mothers, more beautiful, mightier, wiser
+than ours. We do not claim from others anything beyond respect for our
+mother, but we ourselves know what treasures we have received from
+her. Great painters have often been strikingly successful in painting
+or drawing their mothers. Love and reverence have guided their hands,
+and given birth to creations of immortal beauty. Think of Dürer’s
+drawing, of Rembrandt’s, Whistler’s and +Carl Larsson’s+ paintings
+of their mothers. The pent-up springs gush forth, loosened by love’s
+warmth, and, as Dürer has it, “the secret treasure of the heart is
+made manifest in the work”. And thus it is when the artist paints
+the land which gave him birth. He discovers and points out beauties
+and grandeurs which no other eye has discerned, and thus deepens and
+enriches the feelings of his countrymen towards their common fatherland.
+
+In Sweden we are now passing through a period of reaction, firstly
+from an era of false national pride with its cheap pathos and bombastic
+phrases, secondly from the tendency towards national self-effacement
+and undue depreciation of things Swedish which followed in the wake of
+the former movement, and was, if that be possible, still more baneful
+in its effects. We have acquired a wholesome dread of the big words and
+the grand gestures, but we are equally averse to barren criticism and
+petty heckling, and we are longing for a genuine, and ardent, yet at
+the same time discreet, patriotism.
+
+Fructified and inspired by the impulses received from foreign art,
+particularly French, our art, which is now in its golden age, has
+centred round that which is distinctively Swedish in nature and
+people, and has gone far to deepen our knowledge of our own country
+and ourselves. If it be true that self-knowledge is the principal
+thing, Swedish art must be said to have played an important rôle in our
+national life.
+
+Sweden, which occupies the east and largest part of the Scandinavian
+peninsula, is about 1,150 miles in length, a distance which would
+correspond to that say from Malmö to Naples. It is obvious that a
+country with this enormous extension from North to South must have a
+very varied climate. More than a seventh part lies within the arctic
+circle, while the fertile and thickly populated province of Skåne has a
+mean temperature like that of Central Europe.
+
+“Gamla Sverige”, Old Sweden, we call her, and that rightly, for the
+Teutonic race which peoples, though but too sparsely, this enormous
+region, almost as big as France, has been settled in our forests since
+time immemorial; the kingdom of the “Svear” is the oldest surviving
+state in Europe, and the actual soil and rock are among the oldest
+formations in the world. Granite knobs, polished by the glaciers of
+the ice period, and partially covered with moss and forest, occupy
+nearly three-fourths of Sweden, and give a distinctive aspect to the
+landscape. Some of our merits, such as the almost total absence of
+illiterates and an unusually low rate of mortality, we can not show the
+foreigner, much though we delight in them ourselves. On the other hand,
+there is too little marrying and multiplying amongst us, and emigration
+robs the country annually of thousands of young healthy, active people,
+who have been fed and educated while they were unproductive, only to
+have them go and employ their skill and energy in foreign countries.
+There are a variety of causes, psychological and economical, for
+this constant drain on our population. The most laudable is the old
+Viking spirit of daring and adventure, the most unworthy is the want
+of appreciation of our own national personality. The calm feeling of
+superiority which we meet with in Englishmen, Norwegians, Frenchmen,
+Hungarians, and Americans, is, unfortunately, still lacking in Sweden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  [Illustration: ENTERING THE HARBOUR
+  +Painting by PRINCE EUGEN+]
+
+If we except the Norwegian frontier and the rivers which separate us
+from the Russian Empire, Sweden is bounded on all sides by the sea.
+Both our navy and our mercantile fleet are manned by men of the very
+highest quality, who are coveted in foreign navies for their presence
+of mind and their courage. The “Sea-wolves”, who in the ninth century
+were the terror of the coasts of France and England, have now been
+transformed into dauntless sea-bears, not unlike the Vikings in outward
+appearance, apart from a little swelling on the under lip, caused by
+chewing-tobacco (page 12).
+
+  [Illustration: SEA-BEAR
+  +Drawing by A. ENGSTRÖM+]
+
+It is +Carl Wilhelmson+ and +Albert Engström+ that have depicted
+these types, walking the decks with their rolling gait and a humourous
+twinkle in the eye. Almost the entire coast of Sweden except Skåne
+(Scania) and Halland is protected by the _skärgård_, with its islands,
+rocks, and skerries, dangerous in time of peace for our own boats, but
+in time of war, let us hope, still more dangerous for the enemy’s. The
+coast population sail about amid breakers and shallows, in Bohuslän in
+_Koster_-boats, broad and cock-sure like the skippers themselves, in
+Blekinge in punts called _Blekingsekor_, along the coast of Norrland
+in the kind of boats called _skötbåtar_; in the neighbourhood of
+Stockholm the “Rospiggar”, as the inhabitants of Roslagen (the North
+part of Uppland facing the sea) are called, trade along the coast in
+their beautiful smacks, sailing with timber and sand among the firths
+and bays, as bold and skilful sailors as any of the sportsmen who in
+their white or mahogany-brown cutters cruise among the reefs past
+the hundreds of landing-places and bathing-boxes. In summer-time the
+landing-places are thronged with girls in light summer dresses, and
+boys clamber agilely about the railing, waiting for the steamer. It is
+a pretty sight to watch the boat sailing along in her smart coating
+of white paint, and by a skilful manoeuvre brought to shore at one
+landing-place after the other. A pretty sight too, as on an autumn
+night she glides along the dark waters, a little moving world ablaze
+with light, illuminating with her search-lights the mooring-places
+and the narrow passages between the holmes. In winter-time the empty
+and shuttered summer-villas, and the bathing-basins drawn up on the
+beach and now almost covered up with snow, intensify the sense of
+solitude and desolation, and give a certain tone of severe melancholy
+to the landscape. And yet it is in just this mood that nature most
+appeals to the skaters or skiers (page 22), as they speed along over
+the ice, running through in memory the events of the summer; how
+they surprised shrieking girls at the bathing-place or listened to
+some beloved soul reading poems by Fröding or Karlfeldt aloud on the
+veranda; or, if they had reached a little more advanced stage in life,
+how they enjoyed the sight of the children coming in from bilberrying
+with their mouths all blue and their clothes torn by fences and their
+skin by gooseberry bushes; what a beseeching look their faces wore,
+as they asked for permission to go out rowing, and how they seemed to
+revel in the liberty of their summer-holiday existence. It is +Axel
+Sjöberg+ and +Richard Lindström+ who have perhaps best depicted the
+_skärgård_ in winter. In a country like Sweden where the winters are
+so long, people want to make the most of the summer, and we realize
+instinctively what a great thing it is for the little folks to be
+allowed to disport themselves at will on the green grass, and climb
+and swim, as they please, forgetting the winter cold, and enjoying a
+long spell of liberty from school discipline. Our long summer holidays
+are a national boon, and, though attempts are being made to cut them
+short, there are plenty of zealous champions to start up in their
+defence. No Swede has done as much as +Carl Larsson+ to show what a
+glorious time the children have in the country “in lovely summer when
+the ground rejoices”, as one of our poets has so aptly expressed it. To
+the question, “what is the most beautiful thing in the world?”, someone
+has answered: “a flowery meadow”, and we have plenty of that kind of
+beauty in Sweden. Like in +Liljefors’+ “A Family of Foxes”, where the
+young foxes are shewn disporting themselves amid the white chervils
+and yellow buttercups, the children delight in plucking cowslips in
+the light-green June grass, and in summer they love to hunt out places
+where the strawberries are hiding, and they shout with joy when in the
+baking sun by the side of the ditch they discover the purple berries
+in which the whole perfume and sweetness of the summer seems to be
+concentrated. One of the greatest privileges we enjoy in Sweden is
+that there is plenty of space, and that everything is not enclosed.
+One may sit on the grass without being driven away, one may bathe by
+the shore without getting fined, and that’s a grand thing for the
+children, and for grown-ups too, for the matter of that. One is allowed
+to fish anywhere one likes, for sport; there are plenty of fish for
+everybody, anyway. +Carl Larsson+ has painted fishing on a rainy day in
+his picture “When the Fish bite well”; he has also painted the kind of
+fishing which the children most enjoy, fishing for crayfish, that great
+event in the height of summer, when they scramble about bare-legged
+with their small landing-nets and pick up the blackish-green crawling
+crayfish with loud shouts of delight (page 19). Their elders, on the
+other hand, deem the supreme moment of the fishing to have arrived when
+the scarlet crayfish are lying in state on a huge dish in the middle
+of the table, and their funeral rites are inaugurated by drinking a
+glass of old Swedish brandy. A more wholesome fluid, which is a source
+of great joy to us in summer, is water, and I suppose there are few
+countries where people bathe so much in the open as in Sweden. The
+loneliness of the country often permits of a freedom from costume which
+inspires the artists. Two fine pictures in the Gothenburg Museum, one
+by +Acke+, representing naked male bodies standing out against the
+breezy dark-blue sea, and +Zorn’s+ picture “Out in the Open” (page 20),
+which is so highly esteemed in Sweden, are no doubt the best specimens
+of this kind of art. In the latter picture, one of +Zorn’s+ very best,
+we see a typically Swedish scene, which everyone must be capable of
+appreciating: on a grey granite rock polished by the action of the
+water, a couple of fair-haired girls are creeping down towards the warm
+glittering water. The soft bodies set off against the hard rock, the
+rowing-boat, the feeling of freedom and breeziness away out in virgin
+nature; all this has been expressed by the artist in a way which makes
+us thoroughly pleased with what is ours.
+
+  [Illustration: SUNRISE
+  +Painting by BRUNO LILJEFORS+
+  +THIEL’S GALLERY. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+The _skärgård_ right away from the outermost skerries where +Axel
+Sjöberg’s+ gulls dream under the starry heavens, and where +Liljefors’+
+eiders in the light of the morning sun creep down into the water from
+the outermost rock (page 13), where the fishermen’s herring-nets are
+hung out to be dried and mended by the rotted landing-places, all this
+has been masterfully delineated in Strindberg’s “The People of Hemsö”
+and in +Albert Engström’s+ drawings. Other artists have painted the
+bays and inlets nearer Stockholm, with their leafy banks. The spirit of
+summer is wonderfully well expressed in +Richard Bergh’s+ great picture
+“Summer Evening” (page 15) in the Gothenburg Museum. The scene is the
+church bay in the island of Lidingö, on the upper veranda. A young
+couple are looking out over the luxuriant verdure below them. Down by
+the water, we see the landing-stage. It is a moment of happiness. One
+fancies one hears the humming of bees in the summer heat, and that
+it is their monotonous chant which makes one feel the fulness of the
+moment still more intensely.
+
+  [Illustration: SUMMER EVENING
+  +Scene from Lidingön+
+  +Painted by RICHARD BERGH+
+  +IN THE GOTHENBURG MUSEUM+]
+
+The Stockholmers look upon the _skärgård_ with loving eyes; it is
+difficult for them to imagine how it must affect the stranger who
+approaches the capital from the East gazing from the deck of a large
+steamer over the rocks where the seals crawl, gliding past the holmes
+where stunted firs blasted by the storm are struggling for life, and
+travelling along broad bays, now dark-blue, now bluish-grey, through
+narrow sounds, past leafy banks, not seldom disfigured with villas of a
+more than doubtful architectural beauty, finally arrives at Stockholm.
+Can the foreigner, who sees this for the first time from the high deck
+of the steamer, can he understand and appreciate all the delightful,
+beautiful, touching things, all the grandeur which we see who have
+been familiar with the _skärgård_ from our childhood, who have lived
+in it, sailed on it and bathed in it, and have had our eyes opened
+by Sehlstedt’s popular songs and +Carl Larsson’s+ illustrations to
+them, by Strindberg’s stories and novels, and by +Liljefors’+, +Axel
+Sjöberg’s+ and +Richard Lindström’s+ paintings?
+
+  [Illustration: MY FAMILY
+  +Mrs. Karin Larsson and her children at Sundborn+
+  +Painting by CARL LARSSON+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. THORSTEN LAURIN. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+The _skärgård_ in Bohuslän assumes more imposing forms and has a
+severer beauty, at any rate in its seaward parts, for in the interior
+Bohuslän fjords the vegetation is luxuriant. The travellers who come
+from England to Göteborg (Gothenburg) by boat, first catch sight of
+rocks as bare as the walls of a fortress, but with more beautiful
+forms, emerging from the breakers. +Karl Nordström+, born in the island
+of Tjörn in Bohuslän, has in an austere and manly style painted these
+granite rocks with the undulating lines, now with the foam dashing at
+their feet, now with bonfires flaming on their crests. +Nordström’s+
+art is of a piece with the nature mysticism of our remotest ancestors,
+and when we see his picture “Easter Bonfires” in Thiel’s Gallery
+(page 23), where flames shoot out to greet the coming light, we think
+how for thousands of the years Swedes have made merry around these
+fires, rejoicing that the reign of cold and darkness has once more
+been shattered. It is +Karl Nordström+ and +Carl Wilhelmson+ who have
+depicted the nature and people of the West coast, the former the hills
+and the decorative cloud masses against which they stand out, or the
+sequestered valleys, where the sun is baking hot, and dense thickets
+of bushes, sheltered from the blast, fill the crevices. The latter is
+the painter of the serious-looking people who inhabit these parts, and
+in winter gain their livelihood by converting the glittering shoals of
+herring into silver coins.
+
+  [Illustration: FARM IN SKÅNE
+  +Engraving by ERNST NORLIND+]
+
+In looking at +Wilhelmson’s+ pictures, there comes upon us something of
+the earnestness which is natural to this coast population, who have to
+risk their lives in order to gain their subsistence. +Wilhelmson+ loves
+the high colours which occur in the landscape when the sun shines on
+the pink-tinged hills, and broad, light-brown boats with white sails
+standing out against the red fishermen’s cottages. For these people
+who have been brought up in the hard and narrow religious school of
+Schartau, the church is the object to which their thoughts turn with
+longing in the midst of their toil and drudgery; particularly the
+women in their black silk kerchiefs with their prayer-books wrapped up
+in their handkerchiefs look as sorrowful as if they were going to a
+funeral, as they repair to the sanctuary on foot or in boats (page 25).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Most foreigners come to Sweden from the south with the Danish or the
+gigantic Swedish-German ferry steamers, and then they see that part
+of the Swedish coast which is not surrounded by skerries. Skåne and
+Halland are the only provinces that lie directly on the sea, and even
+at some distance from Malmö or Trelleborg one can discern from the sea
+the vast green plain with its white churches and black wind-mills.
+Curiously enough, none of our great living artists has depicted the
+Öresund, one of the most beautiful fair-ways in the world, with its
+deep-blue waters, oftentimes filled with hundreds of white gleaming
+sails, and its banks fringed with beech woods. The shallow Halland
+firths and the great lines and high colours of this now deforested
+district have found in +Nils Kreuger+ an admirer and delineator of high
+rank.
+
+  [Illustration: FISHING FOR CRAY-FISH
+  +Water-colour by CARL LARSSON+
+  +IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM+]
+
+Skåne (Scania) differs both in natural scenery and culture from the
+rest of Sweden, with which, like Halland and the winsome Blekinge,
+it has been united only 250 years. The Skåningar (Scanians) are
+well-pleased with themselves and their country. They possess the most
+stately castles, the most well-fed peasants, the richest trades-unions,
+and the most violent socialists--all gauged by a modest Swedish
+standard. This has not been denied, and talented Swedish authors
+have admirably delineated this _milieu_, with the exception of the
+castles, surrounded by gigantic trees and with their images reflected
+in the ponds. In some of these castles a life is led such as even
+an English country-gentleman would consider fit for a human being,
+with huntsmen in red coats, and munificent hospitality; and the gay
+lieutenants and elegant ladies are perhaps not quite so hard-hearted
+here as in the more northerly parts of the realm. In our country one
+has been a little unfair to the higher classes, and that in spite of
+the fact that the heads of society have eagerly participated in the
+national work, and spared neither energy nor money when the public
+welfare has been at stake. If we except a few excellent portraits of
++Georg v. Rosen+, +Anders Zorn+ and +Oscar Björck+, modern Swedish
+art has not taken its subjects from castles and parks. Otherwise the
+“Skåneland”, as the inhabitants of this rich district affectionately
+style it, has in recent times found very good interpreters. The old
++Gustaf Rydberg+, and quite recently +Ernst Norlind+ and +Axel Kulle+,
+have shown us the white farmhouses (page 17), which are so solidly
+built, that their very outward appearance gives us an inkling of what
+their inmates must be like. Sometimes one may catch sight on the roof
+of the long-legged aristocratic figure of the stork, while the more
+plebeian characteristics of self-complacency and _embonpoint_ come out
+in the cocks and hens and geese in the court-yard. The beauty of the
+Scanian plain landscape has often been described in novels and lyric
+poetry; Ernst Ahlgren, K. G. Ossian-Nilson and Ola Hanson are no doubt
+its foremost portrayers. However, Skåne has still to wait for its
+conclusive interpretation in modern art. Skåne has not yet received in
+painting all the homage it deserves. The solid ancient culture of the
+Scanian peasant has formed the subject of +Hugo Salmson’s+ pictures;
+scenes from melancholy avenues of pollard willows, from expanses of
+green fields with decorative groups of trees, standing like sacred
+groves on the _åsar_ (ridges) which bound the horizon, these and many
+other things have been attempted by the talented Scanian painters; but
+they have never attained the greatness displayed by a +Nils Kreuger+
+or a +Karl Nordström+ in their pictures from Halland and Bohuslän.
+Even the picturesque seaside life on the sandy beach of Falsterbo or
+the steep rocky shores of Kullen has not yet found a portrayer. The
+huge rock projecting many miles out into the sea is one of the most
+beautiful things in the whole of Sweden. A whole swarm of young artists
+have striven to render the huge weathered blocks, and the luxuriant
+beech-woods; or the sea, now roaring and dashing its foam up against
+a fantastically formed rocky shore, or as it is seen from the Kullen
+light-house--which has now for well-nigh 400 years lighted up the mouth
+of Öresund--, lying calm and smooth as a mirror in the evening, when
+the flashes from the light-houses along the coast of Sjælland intensify
+the impression of the vast expanses one surveys. One realizes that
+corn and sugar, beer and _brännvin_ (brandy) are produced in plentiful
+quantities on the Scanian plains, when one sees the tall chimneys
+rising up alongside of each other right away in the country in the very
+midst of the well-cultivated fields. The Scanians believe that good
+food, and perhaps also good commonsense, is properly speaking only to
+be found in Skåne. That is perhaps going too far, but certainly the
+well-nourished, energetic and shrewd population of this district with
+their broad burring dialect has a natural self-reliance, which would
+not be amiss for the other inhabitants of the realm.
+
+  [Illustration: OUT IN THE OPEN
+  +Oil painting by ANDERS ZORN+
+  +IN THE GOTHENBURG MUSEUM+]
+
+If the traveller coming from abroad makes as soon as he sets foot in
+Malmö acquaintance with things Swedish, in the shape of a “sober-minded
+porter”, to use Heidenstam’s exquisite phrase, nevertheless it must be
+said that Skåne with its fertile fields, its yellow tile-factories,
+and the whitewashed farms makes an un-Swedish impression. It is not
+until the train begins to whirl through the pine woods of Småland,
+and there appear at the stations small flaxen-haired, shy-looking,
+blue-eyed girls, mute as fishes and with beseeching looks offering
+for sale raspberries and bilberries in birch-bark baskets, it is not
+till then that one feels one is home in Sweden. +Richard Bergh+ has
+painted one of these little girls, a quiet, timid little girl, busy
+gathering flowers in the meadow. There are in Sweden many little girls
+like that, who stand by the gates to open them in the hope of receiving
+a copper, and would rather bite off their tongues than answer the
+friendly question “What’s your name, little girl?”. Småland is a large
+province, as big as the whole of Switzerland. Its inhabitants are
+considered sly and stingy; and it’s no wonder they are mean, for most
+of them certainly have to work for all they are worth to get something
+nourishing and the food doesn’t drop ready-cooked into their mouths:
+nay, but they have to quarry stone, and burn woodland, and struggle
+hard, and yet they remain as lean as the kine.
+
+If one wants to understand Småland properly, one ought to read +Albert
+Engström’s+ recollections from childhood and study his drawings. Then
+one realizes how the world goes in the little red cottages, how warm
+and cosy it is in winter, when they mull a pint of brandy, and the air
+is thick with vapour from the damp clothes; or how strengthened in
+spirit and lifted above the petty worries of every-day life one feels
+at the revival meeting with its coffee, alleluja rejoicings, and more
+or less brotherly and sisterly love. One of the greatest of modern
+artists is +Herman Norrman+. He has shown us what a glorious thing the
+forest can be, and he has painted it so that one literally feels the
+scent of the _Ledum_, the resin, and all the strong, fresh scents which
+fill the air on a hot summer’s day, and are carried to one’s nostrils
+by a cool breeze from the marsh with its cotton-grass and mystic plant-
+and insect-world. There is a kind of passionate warmth, both physical
+and psychical, in +Norrman’s+ landscapes, where both heaven and forest
+are ablaze with red. In gazing at these pictures of +Norrman+, the
+heart is filled with a kind of half-defiant bliss.
+
+Along the coast of Kalmar Sound the fields are covered with rippling
+corn. Far in the north lies the beautiful Tjust and its _skärgård_,
+which has been painted by +Gottfrid Kallstenius+. Singularly enough,
+the vast, romantic Kalmar Castle, once called the “key to Sweden”, has
+not yet found an artist to depict it. Even making allowance for the
+painting of “views” having gone out of fashion, one cannot but find it
+strange that the next largest lake in the country, the curious long
+and narrow Lake Vättern, which plays such a great part in Heidenstam’s
+poems, and whose shores in Småland have an almost southern character,
+has not been painted by our greatest artists. Omberg and the district
+about Jönköping and Grenna, the little cosy town from which one looks
+out over the easily ruffled surface of the gigantic blue lake, is one
+of the sights of Sweden.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
++Gustaf Ankarcrona+ has painted several of the Småland manors, places
+which have a homelike atmosphere about them both summer and winter.
+One is received with overwhelming hospitality, various kinds of
+sausages and cakes, such as have been eaten in Swedish farms since time
+immemorial, are laid before one; and the late major, the proprietor, as
+he comes out on the front steps to welcome his friend who has driven up
+in a sledge, gives him a sly wink that he has been successful in making
+a good brew of punch according to the good old receipt (page 34).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Central Sweden is characterized by a number of lakes; amongst them is
+Lake Vänern, which is a regular inland sea, being the third largest
+lake in Europe. North of the Småland plateau, there extend round and
+along the shores of the two great lakes, the primitive settlements
+of the provinces of Östergötland and Västergötland. Quaintly-shaped
+hills rise from the plains of Västergötland, Kinnekulle, Halleberg
+and Hunneberg, Billingen, and Ålleberg, which latter has been painted
+by +Karl Nordström+. It was in this district that Christianity first
+struck root. It was here, at the foot of mount Kinnekulle, that Olof
+Skötkonung (O. the Lapking) was baptized in Husaby. It was here, at
+Billingen, that the beautiful cloister church of Varnhem arose and on
+the plain that ancient seat of learning, Skara, in the shadow of the
+Cathedral.
+
+  [Illustration: A MAN BINDING ON HIS SKIS
+  +Drawing by GUNNAR HALLSTRÖM+]
+
+If one takes one of the canal boats from Trollhättan (where now as
+of yore the troll is still a-roaring savagely from his abode in
+the Toppö Falls--though he has now to yield up some of his power
+to the turbines), and sails past the ancient Leckö Castle, where
+Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, the great Swedish Maecenas of the 17th
+century, once held court, one sees, on the Västergötland shore of
+Lake Vänern, mount Kinnekulle looming blue in the distance. Through
+the Västergötland branch of the Göta Canal one comes out into Lake
+Vättern, and directs one’s course to the ancient 16th-century castle
+of Vadstena, whose massive masonry and historic walls have fallen to
++Oscar Björck’s+ brush (page 33).
+
+  [Illustration: EASTER BONFIRES
+  +Oil painting by KARL NORDSTRÖM+
+  +IN THIEL’S GALLERY. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+Östergötland has not yet received its due share of attention from the
+artists. Östergötland is rich in historical associations and legends,
+which, for us Swedes at least, throw a yet greater spell about the
+beautiful scenery round the shores of the Göta Canal. Slowly and
+peacefully the boat glides along over the canal, and every now and then
+the boughs of the trees brush against the deck. There is something
+quiet and soothing about a canal trip through Östergötland, past Lake
+Boren with Ulfåsa Castle and its reminiscences of the Folkungar, down
+through the Berg locks to Lake Roxen, where lies Vadstena cloister
+church, which was consecrated by Magnus Ladulås. North of the high
+banks of Bråviken extends the forest region of Kolmården, where the
+young +Alfred Wahlberg+ painted the magnificent landscape in the
+romantic style of the Düsseldorf school.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the district around Lake Mälaren, the heart of Sweden, south,
+west, and north of the “Lögaren”, as it was then called, lived the
+Svear, whom we find mentioned as far back as Tacitus. This tribe was in
+possession of the chief place of sacrifice in the country, at Uppsala,
+and gradually subdued the other tribes, united the kingdom, and gave it
+their name. The artist who has best rendered the country round Mälaren
+is +Gunnar Hallström+. Although he has only painted the land and people
+as they are now, he has painted it in such a way that we have a feeling
+as if we and ours had lived round the shores of Mälaren for thousands
+of years, gazing out over the islands and seeing the same ragged fringe
+of pine wood stand out against the summer-night sky, seeing the birches
+turning yellow in the autumn, assuming a mantle of white in the winter,
+emerging in black lustre in the early spring, in order once more to don
+their garb of green. White, tall, with a noble bearing, and a dreamy
+soughing about their crowns, they stand on the ancient barrows of
+Björkö Isle, where in the midst of the distant firth the ancient royal
+town of Birka received the Franconian Ansgar, the apostle of the North,
+among its turbulent men and silver-bedizened women. Everything that
++Hallström+ has drawn and painted has about it a certain distinctively
+Swedish flavour; no mere superficial veneer, but penetrating to the
+very root of Swedish life, right down to its primordial source in
+mother nature, which woke our people to consciousness of itself. His
+pictures conjure up before us visions of the Sörmland “_hagar_” (see
+below), where the girls listened to the notes of the cuckoo in the
+spring nights, and of the wintry plains of Uppland, where the people
+rejoiced at the blood-stains of the victims on the white snow, and in
+wild frenzy offered up sacrifices to propitiate the god of the harvest.
+
+When one has taken the night train from the south and wakes up one
+summer morning, to find oneself at some Sörmland station, a delicious
+breath is wafted towards one from the forest and the granite soil. One
+feels that one is in Sweden.
+
+  [Illustration: OLD PEASANT WOMEN
+  +Drawing by ALBERT ENGSTRÖM+]
+
+The silence is complete, except for the brawny, fair-complexioned
+workmen quietly toiling away with spades and crowbars on the railway
+track. By the lake (there always is one), stands a little white church.
+If one follows the high road, one comes upon another lake with a
+venerable manor-house nestling in its orchard. The soil of the meadows
+and ploughed fields is no doubt stony, but the clover thrives, and the
+fields stand so thick with rye, that the thought is borne upon one
+that there are very few countries where one gets so much out of the
+soil as in Sweden, thanks to the intensity with which agriculture has
+of recent years been carried on. More than a third part of all the
+cultivated land in Sweden has been brought under cultivation during the
+last 30 to 40 years; but fortunately--and this is the special charm of
+the scenery of central Sweden--there is a great deal of land, which is
+incapable of cultivation, pastures and “_hagar_”, where the cows peep
+out from among the alder bushes by the brook, and shy horses browse at
+liberty, hindered only by the fences and gates which shut them out from
+the enticements of the clover meadows. In the seventies +Edvard Bergh+
+painted, nay, I may say, discovered, the beauty of the _hage_. In the
+eighties Strindberg described the _hage_, that cross between a meadow
+and a wood, as something distinctively Swedish. The soil of the _hage_
+consists now of granite knobs, now of short cropped greensward; or else
+it is ornamented with white lilies-of-the-valley or pink bitter-vetches
+in the shady spots or in the sunny places with great patches of colour
+made by the blue and yellow Wood Melampyrum, standing in serried ranks
+like soldiers. In the autumn, when the mists come sweeping in through
+the birches of the _hage_, fiery-red flybane gleam in the wet grass.
+
+  [Illustration: CHURCH-GOERS IN BOATS
+  +Picture from Bohuslän+
+  +Oil painting by CARL WILHELMSON+
+  +IN THE ARTIST’S HOME+]
+
++Reinhold Norstedt+ has painted this Sörmland scenery with the most
+delicate touch and fine intuition: the sparkling brooks running over
+the roots shaded by the dark-green smooth foliage of the alders, the
+proud Eriksberg Castle peeping forth amid umbrageous groups of trees,
+the _hagar_ studded with birches now wild, now more parklike, as in the
+great picture in the Dramatic Theatre at Stockholm.
+
+  [Illustration: BIRCHES, “HAGE”, IN SÖRMLAND
+  +Painting by REINHOLD NORSTEDT+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF DR. H. WALDENSTRÖM. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+A gentle melancholy tone of peace and happiness, a touch of pensive
+dreaminess, which is one side of our national character, pervades
++Norstedt’s+ pictures, which, though often small, are always crammed
+with feeling. The Swedish landscape is generally lacking in plasticity.
+The lakes and rivers afford vast perspectives, but, if we except
+Norrland, there are no great altitudes to speak of. “Smiling”,
+“pleasing”, “inviting” are the words which first rise to one’s lips,
+especially as to the landscape round the Lake Mälaren. One of those
+who has entered most deeply into the very soul of that kind of Swedish
+landscape, is Prince +Eugen+. There is a touch of lyric feeling in the
+Swedish temperament, a desire to see both the outer and inner being
+of things brought down to one tone; it is in the light of this trait
+that the desire for the cups that inebriate, which has from of old been
+a part of the national character, is no doubt to be explained. This
+Swedish trait has found its fullest expression in the personality of
+the poet Bellman, in whose poems wild revelry is mingled with dreamy
+pensiveness, and boisterous mirth with deep melancholy. This desire to
+see the landscape “in tone”, no doubt also explains the many Swedish
+pictures with the night as their subject, particularly the summer
+night when the dim gloaming covers over all imperfections and tones
+down all glaring colours. The various features of the landscape blend
+together and melt into a full-toned harmony. Just as the fragrant
+orchis in our woods emits a richer perfume in the night, so does many
+a shy and sensitive heart in Sweden give forth its best and deepest
+feelings, when the landscape appears in that weird light when things
+seem strange, yet at the same time familiar, and reality and dreamland
+blend into one another. Prince +Eugen+ has in his picture “Summer
+Night” in the National Museum, and also in a number of other pictures,
+best perhaps in “Night Cloud” (in Thiel’s Gallery), expressed in an
+unusually forcible manner what we other Swedes feel--perhaps not so
+intensely as the artist himself--of the happiness and the momentousness
+of existence when a huge greyish-white cloud comes slowly trailing
+along over the landscape which lies steeped in the pale light of the
+summer night. The district round Stockholm, especially the parts about
+the ancient Tyresö Castle in Södertörn, have been rendered by Prince
++Eugen+, sometimes passionately, sometimes dreamily, so that he has
+enriched us with new hitherto unappreciated beauties. Most imposing is
+his huge picture “Even Landscape from Tyresö”, in Norra Latin Grammar
+School, Stockholm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The scenery of Uppland, which is characterized by small knobs of
+protruding rocks, interrupted here and there by loamy plains, has, if
+we except the coast towards the sea and Lake Mälaren, perhaps not so
+much to entice the painter, though indeed the new landscape school of
+painting has shown that the greatest beauty can be culled out of the
+most insignificant subjects. The Swedish artist who has done more than
+any other to teach us how to see Sweden was born in the Uppland plain.
++Bruno Liljefors+ has shown us that it is simply a question of “drawing
+out” the beauty which is to be found everywhere. However, it is the
+forest and the sea that he most loves, and he paints them, we might
+almost say, from the animal’s point of view. It has been said that he
+paints a duck family as a duck would paint, if it could. Mother duck
+casts a wary look at her small fluffy balls, stumbling along among the
+tussocks or cruising among the bending rushes and quacking among the
+water-rings in the enchanting summer night. The forests of Uppland
+and Södermanland, or the Småland coast, and the animal world of both
+these districts, are +Liljefors’+ favourite subjects. It is to the
+forest amid the “solemn dirges of the pines”, that many a Swedish heart
+yearns; it is there they renew the memories of their own childhood,
+and hear the echo of the childhood of our race resounding through the
+ages; the forest is at once free and enclosed, silent and full of
+many sounds. The enchantment of the forest has seldom been described
+more impressively than in +Liljefors’+ “Huntsman on the Alert” (next
+page). This peasant sportsman, with the alert, nay almost devotional,
+expression on his face, is a symbol of what the forest means to us
+Swedes.
+
+  [Illustration: HUNTSMAN ON THE ALERT
+  +Oil painting by BRUNO LILJEFORS+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF VULT VON STEIJERN ESQ. KAGGEHOLM+]
+
+In Sweden we have still a primeval forest. The forest is not tame
+like a domestic animal, nor trimmed and raked like a decently kept
+park. There is something of fairyland about it, and it is full
+of mysteries and awful things. The inner mysteries do not reveal
+themselves to anyone: here, as in all things, the one who can
+understand and love sees and hears more than others. The tiny, crimson,
+almond-scented _linnéa_, which was given that name by the Swedish King
+in the Realm of Flowers, Carl von Linné (Linnæus), and which grows
+in the moss under the firs, is found only by the keen-eyed; and it
+is still more difficult to see something of the animal world, to be
+a witness to the dramas enacted among the elks (page 42), or see the
+loves of the big forest birds when with curious cries and strange
+antics they experience the great frenzy which is the acme of life, or
+when the animals of prey, panting with passion and hunger, slay their
+victims. When we ordinary folks go through the forest, we do not see
+anything. Some of us can doubtless tell whether a pine is worth a crown
+a root, and give directions for cutting the trees to the right lengths
+with the least possible loss of cubic space, and this is certainly a
+most important matter in our plank-producing country. But how many can
+in the course of a few hours’ ramble through the forest come upon the
+tracks of an elk, catch sight of a black cock, find a fox’s den, or who
+is lucky enough to witness the wooing of a pair of capercailzies? But
+all this has been seen and painted many times over by +Liljefors+: The
+Horned Owl (Gothenburg Museum), with glowing eyes, hissing and puffing,
+perched on its rock in the forest; the wily Foxes (Thiel’s gallery)
+hiding in the clefts of the rocks, while the pale crescent of the moon
+shines in the sky; the fat grey-hen which sits torpid and complacent on
+its perch in the fir, and unwillingly leaves its place in order with
+clumsy flight and a crash which scares all the little birds, to alight
+on the ground and be wooed by the black cock; the elegant wading birds,
+which with the subdued grey-brown hue of their feathers look so well
+against the silvery and brown tones of the marshy ground; all this has
+been revealed to us by +Liljefors+ from the artistic aspect, and a few
+visits to Thiel’s Gallery, where the largest and best collection of
++Liljefors’+ pictures is to be seen, together with the study of the
+valuable pictures of the same artist in Gothenburg Museum and in the
+National Museum at Stockholm, will be full of instruction for those who
+desire to know something of what is deepest in Swedish nature.
+
+  [Illustration: MARCH EVE
+  +Painting by EDVARD ROSENBERG+
+  +IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM+]
+
+  [Illustration: LUCIA
+  +Painting by GUNNAR HALLSTRÖM+]
+
+From south Uppland and Öråker _herrgård_ (manor) +Georg Pauli+ has
+taken the subject for his fresco painting “Decorating the May-pole”.
+In midsummer, when the sun is at the zenith, when the lilac blooms,
+the may-pole is decked with leaves, and then even the most surly
+“blossom out”. At midsummer time, just as at Christmas, people grow
+a little kinder to each other. Friendly feeling often rises one or
+two degrees, and not seldom reaches the boiling point, as is shown
+by the announcements of engagements, which are unusually frequent
+at this time. In honour of the lightest night in the whole year, it
+is the custom all over Sweden for the young people, when they have
+danced to exhaustion round the May-pole, to await the coming dawn on
+some beautiful point of outlook. +Georg Pauli+ has in a very romantic
+picture “Midsummer Watch” (in the possession of Esq. Erik Frisell
+Stockholm) immortalized a midsummer watch on a hill near Skurusund, not
+far from Stockholm. The sharp contrast between the harshness of winter
+and the mildness of summer, causes us to cling more passionately,
+perhaps, than more southern races, to nature, when she reveals herself
+to us in her full glory; and do not our flowers smell sweeter, our
+grass grow thicker, are not our forests more luxuriant, and are not our
+berries, surely, richer in flavour than further south? On the other
+hand, the beauty of the Swedish landscape, as has been said before, is
+not of a kind which obtrudes itself on one; but, when one has once been
+captivated by the union of modesty and pride in the Swedish nature,
+one learns to love it so much the more fervently; even if in order to
+express our feelings we must have recourse to the untranslatable word
+“_stämning_”, that which we seek first and foremost in our nature, our
+lyric poetry, and our paintings; the nearest equivalent is “mood”;
+but it has often to be rendered by “feeling”, “tone”, “sentiment”,
+“atmosphere”. In music the best interpreter of true Swedish feeling
+is no doubt August Söderman in his “Peasant Wedding”, which has about
+it the atmosphere of a sunny midsummer morning in birch-studded
+_hagar_ and amid glittering lakes. A great work of art, with a ring of
+steel about it, which is also characteristically Swedish, is +Edvard
+Rosenberg’s+ “March Eve” (page 30). The scene is a valley in the
+district round Stockholm. A flame-coloured light still lingers on the
+rocky knobs and the bare tops of the birches. Wind and sun have formed
+the snow-drifts into ramparts now congealed by the night frost, where
+the dark-blue shadows are thickening. In spite of the cold and the
+harshness there is something which bodes of spring. He who sees this
+landscape in the right way, experiences a feeling of complex character,
+just as in a full-toned chord joy and pain may be united, filling our
+whole soul to overflowing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“O Värmeland, thou beautiful, thou glorious land, crown of the lands
+of the Swedish realm”, so run the words of the song, and even if
+most of the other provinces of Sweden feel themselves to be the most
+beautiful gem in the crown of Sweden, yet none of them have been able
+to express their love for their home like the people of Värmland. Their
+song, vibrating with intense passion, has rushed forth like a mighty
+river over the land of Sweden. “There is a belt of iron round Svea’s
+waist”, and from the mines of Värmland much iron has been fetched
+up, but still nobler metals have been gathered from the hearts of
+Värmlanders. “In the greater part of Sweden it is iron that has paved
+the way for culture”, writes Erik Gustaf Geijer of his native land,
+and from his manly heart there resounds a genuine Swedish note, which
+reminds us of Tegnér’s words on our language, “Pure as the ore is thy
+ring”. Geijer has also been a pioneer of culture. There is a breezy
+atmosphere about his spirit.
+
+When the Värmlander Tegnér one summer night in 1811 was driving a load
+of ore from Rämen works to Filipstad, his mind gave birth during his
+wanderings in the depths of the forest to the poem “Svea”, in whose
+ringing rhymes and flaming images all his present unrest and good
+resolutions for the future were given a form which called forth the
+enthusiastic applause of the whole country.
+
+In the works, manors, parsonages, and farms of Värmland, song and
+legend flourish more than in other parts of Sweden. Festival customs,
+survivals from primitive rites, which have attached us with such strong
+bands to our native soil and to those who have lived there before us,
+have been retained more faithfully in Värmland than in other places.
+
+  [Illustration: TUG OF WAR
+  +Painting by GUNNAR HALLSTRÖM+
+  +IN MARIA BOARD-SCHOOL. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+Christmas is the greatest Swedish festival, when one wishes that all
+eyes may shine and all hearts burn to vanquish the darkness and the
+cold. This is the time when families gather together, when one feels
+the comfort of having someone to love and rejoice with, and of showing
+them what one feels for them, it is a time when one’s thoughts turn
+to the dead, and yet are full of hope for the future, most of all
+when we see children rejoicing over the Christmas tree, the lights
+and the presents; and then to the tune of some old Christmas reel,
+whose melancholy passion arouses slumbering memories, one dances
+round the tree of life with its lights and apples, and the star at
+the top. It is still the custom in the old forest settlements to go
+to matins on Christmas morning by torchlight. Some rejoice most at
+the old hymn “Hail, lovely morning hour”, while others look forward
+most eagerly to the “brandy” and cold ham, which will afterwards be
+served. Those who celebrate Christmas in the true spirit are pleased
+with everything. A beautiful Värmland custom is the Lucia celebration.
+To inaugurate Christmas, the festival of light, it is the custom on
+the 13th December, before it is yet day, for the lady of the house or
+one of the girls, garbed in white and with lighted candles stuck in
+a green chaplet of fir twigs in the hair, to treat all the members
+of the household to coffee in bed. +Gunnar Hallström+ has drawn this
+beautiful symbolical custom (page 31), in which one feels a warm breath
+wafted towards one and a ray of light proceeding from both heathen
+and Christian ritual. Much the same feelings are aroused in us by the
+imaginary world of the great Värmland authoress, Selma Lagerlöf. This
+prophetess, who sees visions of Värmland, who conjures up all good
+powers, has taught not only Sweden but the whole world, how things are
+in Gösta Berling’s native land.
+
+  [Illustration: VADSTENA CASTLE
+  +Painting by OSCAR BJÖRCK+
+  +IN REALLÄROVERKET. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+Our greatest lyric poet since Bellman, Gustav Fröding, is also a
+Värmland man. He writes about his forests and _hagar_, so that we
+literally feel the scent of fir twigs, of lilies-of-the-valley and
+of birch leaves, and all we Swedes feel, when we read Fröding, how
+strongly we are attached to our rocky knobs and dwarf pines. We
+recollect, when as children we called out “home” at the primrose spots
+in the _hagar_ and sought for raspberries in the pile of stones.
+“Yon copse is to me dear, my childhood whispers there”, runs one of
+Fröding’s verses, and all Swedes will echo the feeling. Fröding has
+also delineated the people, the poor who beg and suffer, but also their
+levity, their dances and addiction to the brandy bottle, and wild romps
+with “Stina Stursk” and other red-cheeked tittering girls in shawls,
+who forget everything for the present and do not consider enough what
+the future may bear in its bosom.
+
+  [Illustration: THE SLEIGH-BELLS TINGLE ON THE UP-DRIVE
+  +Painting by GUSTAF ANKARCRONA+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF F. BÜNSOW ESQ. STOCKHOLM+]
+
++Carl Wilhelmson+ has painted Värmland peasants in his picture
+“Labourers” (page 37) in Thiel’s gallery, and he makes us feel
+supremely satisfied at belonging to such a trustworthy-looking people.
+All the figures in the picture, down to the little boy, have a
+reliable, steady, downright look about them. This boy will perhaps be
+rather slow and cautious, if he is asked a question, but one can rely
+on him. You may safely send him to water the horses, and if he receives
+permission to go to town to buy something, he will not spend his money
+on the way. In this part of the world manliness develops late. The
+little fellow will no doubt be an awkward enough cub yet a good while,
+but he will be a fine fellow when he has grown to manhood.
+
+  [Illustration: A VIKING EXPEDITION. +The artist’s children+
+  +Water-colour by CARL LARSSON+]
+
++Fjæstad+ has painted the moss on the tree-trunks and rocks, the water
+dripping and frozen, but his favourite subject is the snow accumulating
+under the stems of the fir-trees in high-piled fantastic heaps (see
+the cover). And +Björn Algrensson+ shows us in his picture “Interior”
+in Thiel’s Gallery, what one feels like in an out-of-the-way cottage
+in the forest, as one watches through the window the big heavy flakes
+slowly falling, till at last one has to use a snow-shovel to get out
+through the door. It is then one feels what home really means. On
+Lake Fryken, which is long and narrow like a river, lies Rottneros,
+the Ekeby of Gösta Berling’s Tale. This region has been depicted by
++Georg Pauli+ in his drawings. Down by the enormous expanse of Lake
+Vänern, that great inland sea, whose chief affluent is the river
+Klarälfven, which runs through the whole of Värmland, lies Säffle. It
+is here that +Otto Hesselbom+, who became famous in Italy before he
+was appreciated in Sweden, has his residence. In modern times we have
+been a little afraid of the painting of “views”, but +Hesselbom+ has
+shown us what decorative grandeur there may lie in the very structure
+of the landscape, seen from a high point. In his painting “Our Country”
+(page 9), we see wooded ridges, shading the long and narrow lakes,
+and in the far distance a glimpse of Lake Vänern. Värmland, with its
+hilly contours, its nature of river valley to the Klarälfven, and its
+lonely, interminable forests, forms a transition not merely to Dalarne
+(Dalecarlia), on which it borders on the north-east, but also to the
+genuine Norrland scenery. “_Bergslagen_” is the name given to the
+districts in Värmland, Västmanland, Närke, Uppland, and Dalarne, where
+mining is carried on. There ore is mined and smelted in blast-furnaces
+or smelting-works, and charcoal is burnt in the lonely charring-stacks
+in the forest.
+
+  [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A COTTAGE AT RÄTTVIK
+  +Water-colour by CARL LARSSON+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF VULT VON STEIJERN ESQ. KAGGEHOLM+]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  [Illustration: LABOURERS
+  +Painting by CARL WILHELMSON+
+  +IN THIEL’S GALLERY. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+Up along the river Dalälfven and its glens till its two sources,
+penetrated thousands of years ago the forefathers of the _Dalkarlar_
+(Dalecarlians), who now live in Dalarne. The men who grew up amid
+the straight white-trunked Dalecarlian birches lived in village
+communities, but were almost isolated from the rest of Sweden. Dalarne
+came to be the source from which the country drew her strength, and was
+for hundreds of years the heart of Sweden, sending warm red Swedish
+blood pulsating through the sickening body of the state; and the part
+which the _Dalkarlar_ played in Engelbrekt’s war of independence
+about 1430, and in that of Gustaf Vasa about 1520, told of unimpaired
+power and strength. The judgment which the old king Gösta (Gustaf)
+passed on the Swedes, that they are a stubborn race, inclined for
+great achievements, holds good first and foremost of the Dalecarlians.
+“Säkert” (I am sure) is an expression which they are very fond of, and
+the Dalecarlian dialect has a particularly manly and pure ring. In
+certain districts they have retained a language which is unintelligible
+to other Swedes. In the villages on the banks of Lake Siljan, in the
+parishes of Mora, Rättvik, and Leksand, they still retain, more than in
+any other place in our country, the beautiful old costumes. And even if
+new levelling movements have tended to do away with the beautiful lace
+and the artistic weavings, so that even the women are dressed in the
+way they call “slimsklädd” i. e. half town, half country, even if the
+seething social discontent in the south part of Dalarne makes itself
+felt with unusual emphasis--, yet there are in these parishes round
+Lake Siljan both men and women, hardy, healthy and strong like old
+birchwood (page 36). From ancient times there have been no gentlefolk
+in Dalarne other than the parsons and judges. Now-a-days we find there
+the two classes which are socially and ethically furthest apart:
+peasant-farmers and proletarians. The strongly pronounced character of
+the people, their brightly-coloured costumes, and the hilly country
+(hilly at least from the point of view of south and central Sweden)
+round the beautiful lake has always attracted the artists to Dalarne.
+At Sundborn in the Falun district +Carl Larsson+ has built up for
+himself a home with a personal and genuinely Swedish character, such as
+one might expect from a man who is himself the embodiment of much that
+is essentially Swedish. His series of water-colours, “The Larssons”,
+“Spadarfvet” (our own soil) and “Åt solsidan” (on the sunny side)
+give us, in picture and text, in word and truth, the finest essence
+of Swedish family life. His pictures are warm in feeling, and crammed
+with beauty, full of fun, yet at the bottom serious. No one, perhaps,
+has painted the Swedish children like +Carl Larsson+. In Sweden we
+do not like old-fashioned, affected, molly-coddled children: we
+want our children to be out in the open air as much as possible; in
+our elementary schools, which, unlike those of other countries, are
+cheap and impart a good deal of free instruction, the children of the
+different classes mix with each other; and in the country one likes
+them to play with the farmer’s children and the crofter’s children.
+The shyness of the little peasant children has already been remarked
+on. The town children, and the children of the higher classes, are as
+a rule frank and lively and look respectfully and confidingly on the
+stranger. +Carl Larsson+ has painted and drawn the children, those
+precious treasures in whose hands the future of our country will one
+day lie, in a great variety of different ways: struggling with their
+lessons, bathing, fishing, rowing, and trudging through the snow,
+sturdy little things in grey clothes and red pointed caps, or sweet
+fair-haired girls, mothering with true womanly instinct their dirty
+little baby brothers and sisters (page 35). There is a rich variety in
+the different costumes of the parishes in Dalarne. At the place where
+the river Österdalälfven on the south shore of the Siljan flows out of
+the lake, and cuts its way through the sand, is situated the village of
+Leksand. On a point one sees a whitewashed church, round whose walls
+the _masar_ (Dalecarlian men) in long black coats, the married women in
+white and the _kullor_ (unmarried girls) in red or flowery caps, have
+been gathering for hundreds of years. The Leksand costume tends to give
+the girls a somewhat podgy figure.
+
+  [Illustration: BJÖRS-MIA.
+  +Painting by EMERICK STENBERG+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF MRS. ANNA LEVIN. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+It is an extraordinarily beautiful sight when the long church boats
+come rowing over Lake Siljan, and the country-people assemble on the
+church hill under the huge birches, enjoying the rest and sociability
+of the Sunday. An artist who thoroughly knows the Dalecarlian usages
+and the Dalecarlian costumes is +Emerik Stenberg+, who lives in a
+little village in the parish of Leksand. His “Wake in Leksand” (in the
+Museum at Gothenburg), represents those hale and hearty old men and
+fine old women assembled round an open coffin. The types have been
+admirably hit off, and the mourning colours, black and yellow, are
+very effective in the candle-light. +Stenberg’s+ “Björs-Mia” which
+represents a _Leksandskulla_ (peasant-girl from Leksand) sitting
+with her feet firmly planted on the ground, with an air of broad
+assurance, ready for one of those humorous, sarcastic answers which
+are so characteristic of the peasantry of Dalarne, is one of the most
+instructive Dalecarlian pictures in existence. It interprets admirably
+both the outward and inner life of this type of peasant-girl. Her
+attitude of careless ease is particularly effective.--Rättvik,
+which is also situated on Lake Siljan, has not been depicted by
+any really eminent artists, though +Zorn+ has sometimes taken
+_Rättvikskullor_ (peasant-girls from R.) as models for his etchings.
+Their tall conical hats and the motley cross-striped patch on the
+front of their skirts are well-known all over Sweden, and one often
+sees these smart powerful-looking girls working in the gardens in the
+country-houses outside Stockholm. In no part of Sweden do we find such
+a highly-developed peasant culture as in Dalarne, and it is a fortunate
+coincidence that our perhaps greatest artist, +Anders Zorn+, was
+born in Mora, and, after travelling all over the world and achieving
+universal fame, has gone back to settle there. That elemental force
+which has always been found and still exists in Dalarne, whose roots
+extend right into heathen times, which shines forth in the blood-red
+colours of the peasants’ dresses, and resounds “in marrowy heathen
+music” in the tunes on cow-herd’s horns echoing among the hill-sides
+and through the forests, is also found in +Anders Zorn+. Like his
+friend the poet Karlfeldt, who is also a _Dalkarl_, he has with every
+fibre of his being sucked in all the beautiful visions which Dalarne
+has to offer; he has gazed over the glittering bay of Gésundaberg; he
+has drunk of the cool “bottle-brown” water of the Dalälfven; he has
+drunk in the juices of the berry-laden soil, he has chewed at the resin
+of the firs, and inhaled the smell of the mountain dairy, a mixture of
+cow-house odours and the fresh scent of the forest, with a tang of sour
+milk from the milk-room. It is in the same surroundings and on the same
+fare of hard bread and pease pancake with a sweet or two on Sundays
+that “Kings-Karin” (page 43) has been reared, the healthy-looking
+peasant-girl in the red shawl, with her unruly eyes, her slightly
+protruding cheek-bones, the fresh, almost too red, complexion, with a
+healthy, unconscious sensuality, who embodies some of the most precious
+characteristics of our race. She is a symbol of uncorrupted peasant
+life, a spring of power which it is to be hoped will never be troubled
+nor ever lose its force.
+
+  [Illustration: MID-SUMMER DANCE
+  +Oil painting by ANDERS ZORN+
+  +IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM+]
+
+No painter has ever been able to render the peasant nature in all its
+fulness and strength, like +Zorn+. His buxom naked peasant-girls are
+products of a natural mode of life, but there is no attempt to convey
+a lesson on the evils of town-life, or to advocate a more hygienic
+manner of existence. He presents them to us in the bath, their powerful
+bodies glistening with the warm water, or at the loft-door, or as they
+wade out into the brook, fair-haired and full of health and youth, the
+sweetest and juiciest berries which the Swedish soil has brought forth.
++Zorn+ paints the crafty face of the peasant watch-maker, working away
+at his Mora-clock, a kind of grandfather’s clock, deeply absorbed
+in his mechanical improvements, with that inventive genius which is
+natural to us Swedes, and has given birth to such famous inventors
+as John Ericsson, the constructor of the Monitor and inventor of the
+screw-propeller, de Laval, the inventor of the de Laval Separator, and
+L. M. Ericsson, the great telephone-constructor.
+
+  [Illustration: ELKS
+  +Drawing by BRUNO LILJEFORS+]
+
+Once in a while +Zorn+ depicts the character of our people from the
+seamy side. In “A Fair at Mora”, we see a Dalecarlian peasant lying on
+the grass dead-drunk. By his side sits in gloomy apathy a flaxen-haired
+woman, waiting for him to recover.--Whether the fellow will be a nicer
+customer then, is another matter.
+
+  [Illustration: KINGS KARIN
+  +Oil painting by ANDERS ZORN+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF DR. HJALMAR LUNDBOHM. KIRUNA+]
+
+If mid-summer with its warm evenings and its smell of dried hay
+is the grand festival of the year in Dalarne, yet when the snow
+crackles under the runners of the sleighs, and its passengers are
+muffled up in sheepskins and red rugs, whose bright colour stands out
+against the white snow, and the jingle of the bells resounds over the
+dazzling white landscape, one realizes pretty strongly that one is
+living, as a Dalarne peasant once expressed it, in a ‘nice North’.
++Anselm Schultzberg+ in his winter pictures from the southern part of
+Dalarne has set forth the wintry beauty of this country, which has
+also been rendered by +Arborelius+. In +Schultzberg’s+ great picture
+“Walpurgis-night Bonfires in Bergslagen”, one sees how the bonfires are
+blazing on the hills, while the snow-drifts which are still to be seen
+on their slopes tell that the reign of winter is not yet completely
+shattered. Those who know their history will recollect, when they see
+these fires, that it was just in Dalarne that the trials of witches
+in the 17th and 18th century were most prevalent. The old hags were
+burnt at the stake, and the victims, who were themselves blinded by the
+dark superstition around them, confessed to having had intercourse
+with the Prince of Darkness himself. From Käringberget (the Hag Hill)
+in Leksand, these unfortunate victims to the cause of light and truth
+lighted up the region round them. Just as the church bells, which
+once in times of dark superstition rang to scare away the powers of
+evil, now with their deep memory-laden voice admonish us to ‘lift our
+hearts’, an admonition which all need and all are willing to bow to;
+so now do those symbolic fires shine forth, themselves purified from
+wailing and corruption, full of memories from olden times and promises
+for the future, ushering in the summer, whose great festival is perhaps
+never celebrated with greater splendour than round the maypoles by the
+side of the churches in Dalarne.
+
+  [Illustration: MINERS ON THE ORE MOUNTAIN AT KIRUNA
+  +Painting by CARL WILHELMSON+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF DR. HJALMAR LUNDBOHM. KIRUNA+]
+
+Mora lies on the north side of Lake Siljan, where the Österdalälfven
+falls into the lake, on a rather low promontory separating it from the
+Lake of Orsa which has been drawn and painted by +Aron Gerle+.
+
+  [Illustration: LAPP
+  +Drawing by ALBERT ENGSTRÖM+]
+
+Above the great expanse of Lake Siljan rises in the west the Gesunda
+Hill. It was from the church mound at Mora that Gustaf Vasa in 1521
+spoke the words of earnest admonition which took root in the hearts of
+the men of Mora. It was here that the spirited resolution was formed
+which laid the foundations of a free and independent Sweden. This, the
+most important moment in the life of Sweden, has been immortalized by
++Zorn+ in his masterly picture of Gustaf Vasa, standing on a hill in
+Mora, where the young Uppland nobleman laid his whole soul into his
+words to the men of Dalarne. After some decades he and his descendants
+were to cover the emblem of the ‘Sheaf’ (_Vase_) with greatness and
+glory, as the poet sings:
+
+  “The sheaf of pallid grains no longer
+  Which once in Uppland stood on ploughed ground;
+  It ranketh now with fleur-de-lys and eagle,
+  The wide world over honoured and renowned.”
+
+On Midsummer Eve 1523 King Gustaf marched in triumph into the
+festively decked capital. The work of liberation was accomplished.
+From that time we can celebrate midsummer with great joy, and when
+we see the leafy boughs in the halls, on the stems of boats and
+dancing-floors, and smell the scent of the birch leaves, we are filled
+with a feeling of mingled joy over the great festival of the summer
+and over our land and people. The Swede is much addicted to melancholy
+brooding, but also to the opposite extreme, rowdiness and fights with
+knives and brandy bottles. It is fortunate for us, when these contrasts
+work themselves out in singing and dancing. The fanaticism of the
+pietistic schools has frequently been succeeded by a social hate,
+fanned into fiercer flame by the envy which is inherent in the Swedish
+character. But there are also friendly powers at work in our people’s
+disposition, a sense of justice and fairness, respect for man as a man
+no matter what his position and circumstances, and a healthy sensuality
+and joy of life, which loves nature and what is natural. The joy of
+being together, of eating, drinking, dancing and singing in the open
+air, this is the real spirit in which to celebrate midsummer. +Zorn+
+has painted the midsummer dance on the green, the men at first rather
+more solemn than they are further south, but later on when the girls
+begin to shout with delight and the men’s hearts are set beating, there
+is rapture over the present and all that one promises to each other on
+the warm summer eve of the lightest night in the year (page 40).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Norrland does not make a figure in Swedish history till late; it is
+only in recent times that its forests and mines have been exploited,
+and it is only very lately indeed that it has been discovered from
+the literary and historical point of view. The poetry of Ådalen
+has been described by Pelle Molin, Olof Högberg has portrayed life
+in Norrland in the 17th century, and +Ludvig Nordström+ has in his
+broad humorous way depicted the life that goes on in the Norrland
+coast towns, and the simplicity of the petty tradesman coming into
+conflict with the blustering superiority of the upstart. Norrland is
+larger than the whole of the rest of Sweden put together, but it has
+a population of only 950,000 souls. On its northern frontier it is
+hilly and mountainous, while the rest of the country, which slopes down
+to the sea, consists of river valleys and interminable forests and
+marshes. Only a little more than a hundredth part of Norrland has been
+cultivated; thus almost the whole country is still in a wild state.
+As has just been mentioned it has only recently been ‘discovered’.
+Out of the ‘slumbering millions’ a good many have certainly woken up
+and travelled on the Ofoten line to Narvik or down the rivers to the
+saw-mills in order to be transformed into the gold which the country
+is so much in need of, but those beauties of inestimable value which
+the Norrland Nature possesses are still slumbering. The rivers may have
+rolled along down to the sea for thousands of years, but, before a poet
+or artist has sung or painted the sense of eternity which is aroused by
+the water quietly flowing by in the shadow of the pine forest, these
+mysteries do not reveal themselves in their fulness to us ordinary folk.
+
+The scenery of Gästrikland, which corresponds to that of Dalarne, and,
+strictly speaking, does not belong to Norrland, has been described
+by +Erik Hedberg+. He seizes hold of the beauties which for an
+understanding mind may lie in mean things.
+
+Härjedalen and Jämtland, which from 1111 to 1645 belonged to Norway,
+also resemble that country in character. The desolate beauty of the
+former province has still to wait for its discoverer. Nor has Jämtland
+played the part in Swedish art which it deserves. It is true that
++Anton Genberg+ has painted the white-patched hills, standing out in
+violet against the sunset sky; but the fertile country round Storsjön
+(the Great Lake), the characteristic form of Mount Åreskutan, and the
+Tännforsen Falls booming in the stillness of the mountain region,
+though known all over Sweden, have not yet enticed our artists, who
+look askance on too easily intelligible ‘view’ motives. It is as if
+they thought that their beauty was obvious enough anyway.
+
+  [Illustration: THE ALFVAREN IN ÖLAND
+  +Oil painting by NILS KREUGER+
+  +AT THE ARTIST’S+]
+
+Northern Sweden is of such enormous extent that, geographically
+speaking, the district round Lake Storsjön lies in the centre of
+Sweden. When one speaks of the beautiful Norrland, it is really these
+three things one thinks of. Mount Åreskutan with the Tännforsen Falls,
+the rivers, flowing down the valleys, cutting their way through earth
+and sand, and the mountains and Torneträsk marshes in Lappland. All
+this has, of course, been rendered in picture during the last decades,
+but not in such a manner that it bears comparison with what has been
+painted in the more southerly parts of the kingdom. +Carl Johansson+
+has painted the quiet, serious lines of the river landscape, the edges
+of the åsar (ridges) against the sunset sky, and, most often of all,
+the beautiful river, Indalsälfven, which flows through Jämtland and
+Medelpad. A trip up either of the two rivers Indals- or Ångermanälfven,
+first by boat, when the logs of timber, sliding down to the saw-mills
+on the coast, knock against the sides of the boat, and afterwards by
+carriage through the river valley, is one of those things one must do,
+if one wants to get to know Norrland. One sometimes hears miles off the
+booming of the falls, like an ‘organ chord’, as Pelle Molin has it,
+emphasizing the sense of eternity.
+
+For thousands of years the forest has been left to grow and rot
+uncared for. Now a new America has burst into the stillness, carrying
+in its train unexpected profits and equally unexpected crashes,
+stripped and devastated regions, spoliation, and social and political
+strife. Recklessness and savagery have doubtless always been found
+in Sweden. People had ravenous appetites, and they eat ravenously
+too when there is food to be had. When the timberwork of the cottage
+groaned under the severe cold, people longed for something to warm
+them up. In good times the Norrland woodmen drank champagne from time
+to time with their American pork, and the peasants who had, for a few
+thousand kronor, parted with their farms, worth, with their forest
+land, hundreds of thousands of kronor, kept the notes locked up in the
+drawer only for a short time, and then spent them before they knew
+what they were about. The Swedes are not a commercial people, and in
+that respect the Norrlanders are true Swedes. As early as 1600 Anders
+Buraeus wrote of his country-men, the people of Ångermanland, that they
+are ‘slow in all their commerce’, and it is still almost impossible to
+bring a Norrland peasant to the scratch over the smallest commercial
+transaction. “_Mir nichts und dir nichts, so haben wir alle beide
+nichts_” (Nought for me and nought for thee, so there’s nought for both
+you and me), was the motto which king Charles IX deemed applicable
+to Swedes, and the Norrland peasant would rather let his ptarmigans
+go rotten than let the buyer make any profit on them himself; but
+hospitality, that beautiful barbarian virtue, is exercised more in
+Luleå than in Paris.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+However, the beauties of Norrland scenery are greater than those of
+its civilization. Stora Harsprånget, the most powerful water-fall in
+Europe, in Jockmock parish in Lappland, is a thing of greater beauty
+than the modern Sundsvall architecture, but there is a province in
+Norrland, the largest in the whole of Sweden, which possesses both an
+exquisite nature of unfading charm and a grand ancient culture. It is
+Lappland. In Swedish art Lappland has been rendered in +Höckert’s+,
++P. D. Holm’s+ and +J. Tirén’s+ pictures. As to +Höckert+, though his
+paintings are excellent from the purely technical point of view, in his
+“Lapphut” in the National Museum, we see that the Lapp mother bears far
+too much resemblance to a Paris model; on the other hand his “Wedding
+at Hornavan” renders admirably the wild carousals of a primitive
+people, when the bride on the leaf-decked boat lands by the shore. In
+“Lapp Chapel” in the museum at Lille he has painted the Lapps, a people
+readily and powerfully affected by religious impulses, listening to a
+sermon.
+
+When the Swedish people for a generation or so had been interesting
+themselves in what “the new Sweden” looked like when looked at through
+the eye of a banker, and had been reading so much about interest
+yielded by waste land, and vexing their souls at the profits which
+energy and far-sightedness had at length succeeded in wringing from
+the great iron ore mountains at Gellivare and Kirunavara, towering
+aloft above the plain, people began to discover these regions also
+from the artistic point of view. The curious contrast between the
+primitive people who had had the desert-like stillness of their country
+disturbed by blasts of dynamite, who, as they made their way over the
+snow-covered plains saw the electric light shining on the mountains,
+is rendered still more striking by the silence and desolation which
+envelopes these mining communities within the arctic circle. +Carl
+Wilhelmson+ has on a large canvas represented the blasting of the
+ore in the open air (page 44). Below, one sees the surface of Lake
+Luossajärvi and a more extensive view than is generally afforded when
+the ore is mined within the bowels of the earth. The air is also
+considerably fresher on Mount Kiruna. In winter it is dark in the
+middle of the day, and then one has to work by electric light. +Karl
+Nordström+ has painted the beautiful lines of Mount Kiruna, when the
+great iron ore mountain is aglow like red-hot iron in the light of
+the setting sun. +Prince Eugen+ has rendered the same mountain, when
+covered with snow; and the whole of the district where the Lapps drive
+their herds of reindeer along the railway, and the trains passing
+along it laden with ore have been drawn by +Albert Engström+, whose
+temperament is in a quite extraordinary degree attuned to the spirit of
+the wilderness and the inner life of a primitive people.
+
+Our civilization is death to the Lapps. When from Abisko one gazes out
+over the Torneträsk marshes and on the banks sees the grey herds of
+reindeer browsing on the plains, and amid the mountain birches catches
+a glimpse of some dark-blue Lapp costumes, one thinks sorrowfully
+how ere long the last Lapp with his quaint gait will be waddling
+along among the dwarf-birches, shrunk and shrivelled like himself,
+and disappear under the flaming Northern Lights (_Aurora borealis_)
+in his _pulka_, leaving the Swedish hut, where he so contentedly and
+cheerfully carved his roast reindeer joint with an ornamented knife,
+driven forth by forces which he cannot comprehend, much less resist.
+Then Sweden will have suffered an irreparable loss. Civilization has
+forced its way, riches have increased, and then one day our hour will
+come, when the cold has increased and driven us south again. It is this
+thought which is voiced from Kiruna church-tower in +Albert Engström’s+
+words:
+
+  Rise, curfew, up to the sun, to the North-Light’s circles wide,
+  Rouse sleeping fields, wake slumbering moor and heath,
+  And bless the fields whose fertile soil doth bide
+  The ploughman’s toil, and grant them peace hereafter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  [Illustration: AUGUST STRINDBERG
+  +Painting by RICHARD BERGH+
+  +IN THE POSSESSION OF THE PUBLISHER K. O. BONNIER+]
+
+The two large islands in the Baltic, Gottland and Öland, are both
+in their nature and their culture of a peculiar beauty, which is
+appreciated by the artists. With its mild climate, and consequently
+southern vegetation, with its rocky soil of limestone and sandstone,
+the Gottland landscape differs from what we are accustomed to on the
+main land of Sweden. In Gottland is situated the most picturesque of
+Swedish towns, Visby. Even if Gottland’s greatness is now historic,
+yet many old traditions from ancient times survive among the people;
+ancient traditional games and old folksongs and melodies still live a
+vigorous life on the romantic island. The artists have been attracted
+first and foremost by the peculiar architecture that flourished in
+the Middle Ages not only within the stately ancient walls of Visby,
+which with their hanging towers and bastions still stand erect and
+almost intact, but also in the romantic ruins of the churches of the
+transition period, which are an ornament to the island. Like a Northern
+Cyprus or Sicily, Gottland was once the centre of the Baltic, where
+currents of culture from different quarters ran together, and the
+trading fleets of Visby collected gold on all the coasts of the Baltic.
+Gottland is from the architectural point of view the most interesting
+province in Sweden. In the rural parts of the island there are an
+extraordinarily large number of churches erected during the Middle Ages
+with architectural details peculiar to this island. The Gottlander
++Axel Herman Hägg+ and +Robert Haglund+ in their etchings have depicted
+the Visby ruins, which it was proposed in 1783 (a period which was
+lacking in historical sense) to pull down, a proposal which fortunately
+was not put into execution for want of funds. Even poverty may have its
+blessings.
+
++Hanna Pauli+, and more particularly +Richard Bergh+, have painted the
+town wall of Visby, one of the most remarkable historic relics in the
+whole of Scandinavia.
+
+Öland, the smallest province in Sweden, the long and narrow island off
+the coast of Småland, has been described with keen power of observation
+and powerful realism by Carl von Linné (Linnæus), perhaps our best
+descriptive writer, who in 1741 undertook his celebrated journey to
+Öland. The Ölander, +Per Ekström+, the painter of the glittering
+sunshine has painted a number of scenes from that poorly-wooded island,
+from which one sees the sun and the sea almost from all parts. The
+mediæval castle of Borgholm, which was rebuilt by Nicodemus Tessin the
+elder by order of Karl Gustaf, was never properly finished. Up on the
+citadel, where sea-walls sloping precipitously down to the sea afford
+an extensive view over the water and over the bare plateau of Alfvaren
+(Chalk-heath), stands the old castle, which has been rendered by
+several artists, amongst others Prince +Eugen+.
+
+  [Illustration: STOCKHOLM CASTLE
+  +Painting by PRINCE EUGEN+
+  +IN THE CLUB-ROOM OF THE STOCKHOLM ‘NATION’, AT UPPSALA+]
+
+But _the_ painter of Öland is +Nils Kreuger+, one of the foremost
+artists in Sweden, who has shown us the richly-coloured beauties of
+the remarkable scenery of Öland, and painted the horses wading in the
+dark-blue water, the cattle clipping the short grass on the parched
+brown plains, and the sheep seeking shelter from the wind behind the
+red limestone walls. There is something of the desolate grandeur of the
+desert landscape about the plateau of Alfvaren, and both the latter
+and the luxuriant vegetation on the strip of shore below the citadel
+have received the most artistic interpretation in +Kreuger’s+ paintings
+(page 47).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  [Illustration: LEJONBACKEN
+  +Painting by LOUIS SPARRE+]
+
+The small rural towns of Sweden have, owing to the outrageous way in
+which they have been treated lost much, sometimes all, of the homely
+charm which once distinguished them. Being, until quite recent times,
+built of wood, they have been devastated by fire more thoroughly
+than towns built of stone. The rapid development which Sweden has
+undergone during the last forty years, has also fostered an inclination
+for violent innovations, and it is not until recently that æsthetic
+considerations have won the ear of practical men. Our architects, who
+by their restorations of the cathedrals of Uppsala and Lund and other
+towns have almost entirely spoilt these venerable monuments of the
+past, are now devoting themselves with keen interest to preserving
+what still remains. Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden, has
+managed to preserve a number of the canals which remind us of the Dutch
+ideal which prevailed when the town was built in 1619 with the aid of
+Dutchmen. The canals have been painted by +Reinhold Norstedt+ and +Axel
+Erdman+. On the main canal stands the Gothenburg Museum, accommodated
+in a house in which in the 18th century the East Indian Company had its
+main office. It was this company that introduced the large quantities
+of Chinese porcelain, which still lend a refined old-fashioned tone to
+many a Swedish dinner-table. The Museum is specially rich in modern
+Swedish art, and those who are interested in Swedish paintings will
+have to patronize it thoroughly. Swedish painting is deeply indebted to
+patrons of art in Gothenburg, most of all to Pontus Fürstenberg. On the
+heights round the town there still stand the picturesque redoubts, Göta
+Lejon and Kronan, the latter erected from designs by Erik Dahlberg,
+the man who guided the Swedish army over the Belt. The harbour of
+Gothenburg, with the largest mercantile fleet in Sweden, has been
+painted and drawn by +O. Holmström+.
+
+Some little distance above Gothenburg, and like it on the river Göta
+älf, lies Kungälf, in the shadow of the Bohuslän hills, painted
+by +Hanna Pauli+ in what is perhaps the most beautiful picture
+representing a Swedish country-town.
+
+On Lake Vättern lies the garden-city Grenna, where the gardens among
+the white rows of houses along the high road, which is the main street
+of the town, groan under pears and cherries. Grenna, like one or two
+more of our smaller towns, has the somewhat unusual advantage of “being
+in the country”. +Alfred Bergström+ and +Lennart Nyblom+ have painted
+the Grenna district. In Vadstena, whose ancient castle has been painted
+by +Oscar Björck+ (page 33), there are still preserved some relics
+of the Middle Ages. Blåkyrkan (the Blue Church) built by St Birgitta
+(Bridget) in bluish limestone after the directions of Christ himself,
+carries the thoughts to the cloister founded by St Birgitta and reminds
+one of that Swedish woman of the 14th century, with her powerful
+personality, who with Teutonic frankness was not afraid to speak her
+mind even to the Pope.
+
+  [Illustration: +VERNER von HEIDENSTAM IN HIS HOME AT DJURSHOLM+
+  +Painting by OSCAR BJÖRCK+
+  +IN THE GOTHENBURG MUSEUM+]
+
+A cluster of our most interesting small towns lies around Lake
+Mälaren. Sigtuna boasts of being older than Stockholm. Its period of
+glory was in the 12th century, and its numerous church ruins give
+the melancholy of fallen greatness to the little homely town, whose
+grass-grown market-place has now been gravelled, in order that the
+inhabitants of Sigtuna might escape hearing the awkward question: “Has
+there been good pasture for the cows in the market-place this year?”
+Mariefred lies dreaming with her small wooden houses at the foot of
+Gripsholm, the most imposing castle in Sweden. The high walls tower
+aloft defiantly, and the castle, which was erected by Gustaf Vasa and
+where his sons held each other confined, where Gustaf III had his
+dainty theatre erected, and where the side-scenes, against which the
+figures of the courtiers, as they acted, once stood out, are still
+preserved, is one of the most remarkable monuments of the past in
+Sweden.
+
+  [Illustration: RIDDARHOLM CHURCH ON A SPRING EVENING
+  +Drawing by KARL NORDSTRÖM+]
+
+For Swedish ears the very names Strängnäs, Arboga, Köping, Västerås
+have a ring of idyl and of history, and it is remarkable that they
+have not been more frequently depicted by our artists. +Hesselbom+ has
+painted the old town of Strängnäs, and its red cathedral towers, round
+which the daws flutter.
+
+Inestimable beauties have been irreparably lost through the irreverent
+way in which our cities have been handled, but one can still say of the
+homely old town of Ystad, which, as Linné writes, “lies right in the
+middle of the south side of Skåneland”, that there are “quite a number
+of old houses in the town”. It will be the chief duty of our times to
+preserve as far as possible the old-fashioned half-timber houses, and
+the old town-plot.
+
+The two university towns of Uppsala and Lund are richer in historic
+memories than in remarkable architecture. The cathedrals of these towns
+have lost their interest for the artists after their restoration, and
+it is chiefly with lyric poetry and music that Uppsala is associated.
+On _Valborgsmässoafton_ (eve of Walpurgis Night) the white-capped
+students march in procession through the avenue of Odinslund, and the
+hymn to spring mounts up on the clear frosty evening, up to the few
+stars which are to be seen twinkling in the sky, and the bonfires gleam
+here and there on the Uppland plain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stockholm is the largest and most beautiful town in the peninsula. It
+is worshipped, as is only right, like a beautiful queen, and treasured
+by the whole of Sweden like a gem. It has been described with most
+insight by those who have passed their childhood in its islands and
+played in its market-places, by Stockholm’s own children, Bellman,
+Strindberg, +Carl Larsson+, Oscar Levertin, Hjalmar Söderberg, +Prince
+Eugen+. Even if we do not always see “that Stockholm woven of sun and
+songs -- -- --, which one may see for brief moments, if one is youthful
+and a poet”, at any rate the poets and artists have with their magic
+wands revealed to us many of the beauties which now enhance our love of
+the lovely city, which above others is the possession of the whole of
+Sweden.
+
+Of that Stockholm which in 1523 decked itself out in birch-leaves to
+greet young King Gösta (Gustaf Vasa), not much is preserved. The old
+palace--“the main-building”, as it was then modestly called, where
+Gustaf Vasa ruled in the literal sense of the word, is no longer in
+existence. When Gustaf Adolf left this palace in order to defend Sweden
+at Breitenfeld and Lützen, and give his life, as he said himself, “for
+the glory of the fatherland and God’s church which therein rests”, he
+wished on behalf of the citizens of Stockholm “that your small huts may
+become large stone houses, your small boats large ships and vessels,
+and that the oil in your cruses may not run dry”. And in fact Stockholm
+made enormous strides during the period of Sweden’s greatness.
+
+It was when this period was drawing to a close that the new palace,
+the creation of Nikodemus Tessin, was begun. It has been painted best,
+perhaps, by one who was born within its walls, +Prince Eugen+, who has
+rendered “the venerable cube” in a large picture, in which one sees
+Stockholm Castle on a summer evening (page 51). Over the dark waters of
+_Strömmen_ (‘the stream’) hover a few gulls, descendants of the birds
+who flew over the town, when Bellman one morning in 1780 described the
+harbour of Stockholm as follows:
+
+  In pulleys and ropes you hear not a creak;
+  The morn is young, round the masts you spy
+  High up in the air so breezy and bleak
+  The sea-gulls soar and fly.
+
+Most of those who have described Stockholm from the artistic side have
+selected for treatment the harbour and the busy life which centres
+around it. In contrast to other seaport towns, the large steamers
+anchor in the very heart of Stockholm. Imposing granite quays run along
+the shores both of _Saltsjön_ (the sea) and Lake Mälaren, but even if
+the idyllic charm which characterized the Stockholm of the ’forties
+and ’fifties, such as it was painted by +G. V. Palm+, has now in a
+great measure disappeared; and even if we do not now, as then, row
+about on the Riddarholm Canal and strike up ditties under the arch of
+the beautiful old Riddarholm bridge, where _Riddarhuset_ (the house of
+the nobles) mirrors its baroque façade in the canal; yet it may happen
+that by the clump of trees down by Riddarholm harbour, one may hear
+the song ‘Captain, set full steam ahead’, struck up by the societies
+and associations which on Sunday mornings take a trip in one of the
+many Mälar-boats “out to the country, out to the birds”, doing homage
+to nature with that somewhat bibulous sentimentality, which in our
+days is rendered affecting, to a certain extent, by the sanction of
+antiquity with which it is invested. The part of the harbour called
+_Strömmen_ has been painted by +Axel Lindman+ in a big picture, full of
+steamers and sailing-boats, of sunshine and sparkling water. When that
+picture was painted, August Strindberg, our greatest and most original
+delineator of Swedish nature (page 50), had given us in his novel
+“Röda rummet” (The red chamber) and the series of short stories called
+“Giftas” (Marrying), a new and fresher view of the beauty of Stockholm,
+and one appreciated more than ever the spring mornings when the
+vessels, painted red along the water-line, tugged at their hawsers and
+ropes. +Anders Zorn+ discovered and pointed out the curious rings and
+lines of the gurgling water, and he has immortalized a summer evening
+in 1890, from one of the most beautiful points, _Skeppsholmen_. In the
+foreground one sees some ladies walking on the holm, and the background
+is taken up by the _Strömmen_, which is perhaps most delightful of all
+on a June evening, when the scent of lilac from the hedges mingles with
+the fresh breeze from the running water, and when a few bars played
+by the orchestra in _Strömparterren_ go to join the murmur of the
+stream. The harbour in winter-time has been painted by +Oscar Björck+
+in a brightly-coloured picture, exultant like a trumpet-note. The snow
+set off against the black hulls of the boats and with the picturesque
+silhouette of Skeppsholmen has been painted by +Alfred Wahlberg+, and
+finally +Per Ekström+ has rendered the majestic lines of the Palace
+seen through the snowstorm over _Norrström_ (the northstream).
+
+  [Illustration: RIDDARFJARDEN ON A SUMMER NIGHT
+  +Oil painting by EUGEN JANSSON+
+  +IN THORSTEN LAURIN’S COLLECTION. STOCKHOLM+]
+
+Only on the condition that one is prepared to grant that Stockholm is
+a very nice place in winter, morning, noon, and evening, and at night,
+too, can one allow that ‘Stockholm is a summer town’. The elegant,
+white steam-boats go out over the green water to the country houses in
+the _skärgård_, crowded with merry people. The Stockholmer considers
+himself, let us hope rightly, to be far more lively than the man from
+Härjedalen, and even than the Gothenburg man. The cool sea-air blows
+in refreshingly not only over the lawns in the park _Kungsträdgården_,
+when the water sparkles and foams over the shell-shaped edge of the
+fountain, but also among the narrow alleys leading to the crooked old
+streets called _Västerlånggatan_ and _Österlånggatan_. The latter has
+been painted by +Eugen Jansson+ on an early morning in summer, when the
+sailmakers’ flag-canvas hangs motionless, and the footsteps echo on the
+pavement, and the old mediæval Stockholm street, which otherwise has
+for centuries been crowded with loafers of the most fast colour, for a
+few early morning hours is full of naught but mysticism.
+
+Stockholm is a watery town, even if one often mixes something strong
+in the water. There is good drinking-water and excellent mineral
+water, which latter is copiously drunk, not tossed off in American
+fashion, but leisurely. It is an innocent pleasure with a glass of
+‘_vichy-vatten_’ in front of one to look out on the world, or at any
+rate on _Torget_ (the square i. e. Kungsträdgården), from the bench,
+which has won literary fame through Hjalmar Söderberg’s novel ‘Doktor
+Glas’. The excellent bathing-establishments, with both hot and cold
+baths, invite one to still more revelling in water. +Eugen Jansson+ has
+in two sunny pictures painted the interior of one of these Stockholm
+swimming-baths, when the sunburnt bodies give us a strong impression of
+our national healthiness. The dives are often performed with such skill
+and agility, that an impression of real beauty is produced. Stockholm
+has been excellently depicted by +Axel Erdman+. He has painted the
+street Götgatan, where the peasants come driving in from the country to
+sell their wares in Kornhamnstorg market-place. +Erdman+ has a sharp
+eye for the picturesque charm of the old market-women, as, muffled up
+in their furs, they sit hour after hour at their stalls, serene and
+placid, till the disappearance of a chicken puts them in a passion,
+or an urchin who has stolen an apple makes them tremble with moral
+indignation.
+
+_Staden inom broarna_ (the city within the bridges i. e. the city
+proper) was once all that there was of Stockholm, and in this part
+of the town, where now-a-days there is a busier and livelier traffic
+than elsewhere, we find our oldest and most beautiful buildings.
+The harbour-life in the present-day Stockholm has been depicted in
++Carl Wilhelmson’s+ “Scene from Skeppsbron”, a fresco painting in the
+post-office. The baroque façades of the 17th century have been painted
+by +Louis Sparre+, who has also depicted the imposing entrance to the
+Palace, Lejonbacken (the lion hill) (page 52), with its bronze lions,
+which as early as the 17th century ornamented the old Stockholm Castle;
+and in a series of drawings, water-colours, and oil-paintings he has
+drawn the attention of Stockholmers to the fact that, unless we adopt
+as firm a tone in defending things of historical and æsthetic value,
+as we do in things whose value can be more easily estimated in money,
+there is still much that we may lose.
+
++Sparre+, +Erdman+, and +Gerda Wallander+ have painted Kornhamnstorg
+with its stalls and gables. In a large picture in a board-school in
+Stockholm +Nils Kreuger+ has painted a scene from the harbour of
+Stockholm on a midsummer eve, seen from “Slussen”, the lock. It is
+a sunny morning. A fresh breeze is blowing over the water. In the
+foreground one sees some carts decked with green in honour of the day
+rumbling over the cobble-stones. There is a festive note in the air.
+
++Kreuger+ has several times painted the most beautiful bridge in
+Stockholm and, in fact, in the whole of Sweden, Norrbro, which
+connects Norrmalm (the North End) with Staden (the City). This
+imposing structure, which was built during the early years of the 19th
+century, owes its origin to +Adelcrantz+, the architect who created
+the most beautiful opera hall in the world (now, alas, pulled down),
+where Gustaf III fell the victim of Anckarström’s pistol. Norrbro is
+beautiful at all times in the day, but perhaps most of all on a summer
+evening, when, as Snoilsky says in his poem on Stockholm, ‘from the
+swirling waters under the bridge a strange hushed note is heard to
+go piercingly through the air’, and the electric lamps cast their
+silvery light over the tops of the trees in _Strömparterren_. No less
+beautiful is the view afforded a few hours later from the northern part
+of the bridge, where one sees _Strömmen_, the Palace, Blasieholmen,
+and Skeppsholmen. Everything is ‘in tone’ in the light summer night,
+and it makes a mystic impression to see the façades lighted up from a
+quarter, which the Stockholmer, however often he may come home late at
+night, or rather early in the morning, is after all not _quite_ so used
+to. +Reinhold Norstedt+ has represented this subject on a very large
+picture. The same painter shows how art can cast its enchantment on the
+more sober façade of a business house. If one takes an outlook from
++Boberg’s+ creation, Rosenbad House, which mirrors its yellowish-white
+walls and its green-glazed roof in the Norrström, and which is one of
+the most beautiful things which have in recent times been built in
+Stockholm, one sees on a February afternoon the ice-floes from Lake
+Mälaren come travelling over _Strömmen_ and sailing under Vasa Bridge.
+It is the hour which we moderns find so alluring, when it is not yet
+dark, but the lamps are beginning to be lighted. There are already
+lights in a couple of windows in the Norstedt printing-house.
+
+People in Stockholm make pretty hard endeavours to enjoy themselves,
+and no doubt often succeed. Skansen is perhaps the nicest place of
+entertainment. It is not so easy to say which is the least nice place,
+but, if we judge by the amount of alcohol consumed, one or other of the
+public-houses where ‘Bobban’ and ‘Feta Fille’, and other of +Albert
+Engström’s+ favourites seek happy oblivion after their own fashion,
+will serve as a counter-poise. The haunts of pleasure have not often
+been rendered in art. From Skansen, however, we have +Zorn’s+ amusing
+picture of the _Delsbostintan_ (peasant-girl from Delsbo) telling a
+story; but from all our Stockholm theatres there is nothing at all, not
+even from the new Dramatic theatre, which itself, however, has many
+good works of art both outside and inside. As for the international
+life of the circus and music-hall artists, +Gösta von Hennings+ has
+given us some very valuable pictures, but this has little to do with
+Sweden seen through artist eyes. +Hennings+ has also painted the
+‘punch-drinking’ on the Opera terrace, and it is said to be one of the
+most Swedish things imaginable to sit on this terrace and look out
+on a beautiful view, one of the most beautiful in the whole world,
+Stockholm’s ‘ström’, to the accompaniment of a string-band playing
+our melancholy folk-songs, all the while drinking punch quietly and
+steadily, and from time to time breaking the silence with a “_Skål i
+alla fall!_” (your health, anyway).
+
+Although there are not a few old, and a great number of modern,
+beautiful houses in Stockholm, very few of our now-living artists have
+rendered _Riddarhuset_ (the house of nobles), _Börsen_ (the Exchange)
+in Stortorget and the old _Riksbank_ (Bank of Sweden) in Järntorget.
+There is a good deal of ‘_stämning_’ in +Karl Nordström’s+ drawing
+“Riddarholmen on a Spring Evening” (page 54). The little holm, which
+contains so many reminiscences, lies in proud seclusion, with its
+square silent. Every detail on the old brick walls of the church
+has a story to tell. Magnus Ladulås once wished to be allowed to
+sleep the eternal sleep behind the red walls of Riddarholm Church.
+On the Gustavian mortuary chapel one reads in faded lettering the
+words dedicated to Gustavus Adolphus: “SVECOS EXALTAVIT. MORIENS
+TRIVMPHAVIT”, and on the copper roof of the Caroline sepulchral
+monument the golden crown gleams in the evening sun. Down in the coffin
+with the lion skin and the club of Hercules lies, with head shot
+through, king Charles, the young hero, who once with such stubborn
+resolution set fate and misfortune at defiance.
+
+Many beautiful buildings have been erected in recent times. Among the
+best are the _General Post-office_, designed by +Ferdinand Boberg+,
+the building of the _Trygg Insurance Company_, whose massive forms are
+descried over the tops of the trees in Humlegården Park, designed by
++Lallerstedt+, _Nordiska Museet_ designed by +Gustaf Clason+, where
+the style of the Vasa Period is connected in a beautiful and ingenious
+manner with the style of our old belfries, _Läkaresällskapets hus_ (the
+premises of the Society of Physicians), designed by +Carl Westman+, in
+the old Klara churchyard, where reposes Bellman, the poet who has seen
+the most beautiful visions of Stockholm, and finally the _Östermalm
+High School_ by +Ragnar Östberg+, the most monumental school-building
+in our country, rich in good art both inside and outside. These
+buildings still lack, perhaps, the patina of time which painters deem
+they need before they can depict them; but the most commonplace blocks
+of modern houses, tenement-buildings, and straight half-finished
+streets have furnished motives for the art of +Karl Nordström+, +Aron
+Gerle+, and +Eugen Jansson+. These artists put something passionate
+into their colouring, they breathe a modern spirit of beautiful
+defiance into their pictures of these parts of the town which seem
+hopelessly dreary to the layman, and teach us that they too have their
+beauty. Many Stockholmers, artists and men of letters perhaps as
+much as any, live outside the town. They look out over the waters of
+Stora Värtan from Djursholm (page 53), of Lilla Värtan from Lidingö
+island, and of the inlet to Stockholm from the park Djurgården. It is
+in Djurgården that +Prince Eugen+ has his residence, adorned with the
+best things that modern Swedish art has created. Here the artist-prince
+paints this natural park, its oaks, meadows, and bays, at all times of
+the day and the year. Perhaps one might say that he has the very best
+historical, cultural, and above all artistic, qualifications for seeing
+Stockholm with artist eyes, when from Valdemarsudde (Valdemar’s point)
+he gazes at the town raised above the surface of the water.
+
+The Stockholm painter who in his pictures has caught the most subtle
+essence of the city’s character, an artist who in his glorious
+symphonic picture-poems has shown himself to be a real innovator in
+landscape painting, one of the very foremost delineators of nature
+now living, is +Eugen Jansson+. He looks mostly out over Stockholm
+from the heights of Söder (the South), and perhaps he has rendered the
+city most beautifully and most monumentally in the masterpiece in Carl
+Robert Lamm’s collection, where the afternoon sun pours its golden
+rays over Riddarfjärden, Kungsholmen, and the red factories in Söder.
+In +Eugen Jansson’s+ landscape-art we find many of the most Swedish
+characteristics, melancholy, yearning, love of gaudy colours, a touch
+of lyric and musical feeling, something at once soft, defiant, and
+world-embracing. Just as one of Bellman’s drinking companions in his
+death-hour sings,
+
+  “Bright starry firmament, vault around me now”,
+
+so does one of +Eugen Jansson’s+ pictures arouse in us a feeling of
+the temporal seen _sub specie aeternitatis_. He has made many pictures
+of the view from his windows high up on the hilly ground in the South
+(page 57). Most of them are in Ernst Thiel’s rich collection. Now
+he shows us an afternoon in winter, when the boats have opened up a
+channel in the ice of the bays and the last rays of the sun gleam on
+the windows of the Palace: now he carries us to steep, lonely, streets
+with wooden steps, mysteriously lighted by the gas-lamps; now we gaze
+as in a dream upon the water gleaming in the darkness, lighted up by
+the gaslight and the electric lamps, which border the quays like so
+many gleaming bluish-green jewels.
+
+If one goes on a summer night out into the streets, or into one of
+the small plots of garden which are still to be found on the hilly
+ground to the South of Stockholm, one has beneath one the arm of Lake
+Mälaren and almost the whole city dreaming in the light night. The
+houses and spires of Riddarholmen stand out against the sky, which is
+ever growing lighter. Stockholm is sleeping, the noises have died down,
+the workmen have left their clattering steam-winches and iron bars, the
+sailors are sleeping in their fo’c’sles, the bands in Kungsträdgården
+and Strömparterren have long since ceased playing. Then is heard from
+the tower of Riddarholm Church, where Fredman once with trembling
+hands mended the clock-works, the clock striking the hour with a sound
+which rings over the water and the town. One thinks of the great who
+sleep in the church vaults, of those who have fought and suffered, and
+sometimes given their lives, for Sweden. The sound is carried over
+the whole sleeping city, which has now for hundreds of years been the
+centre and greatest treasure of the country. One remembers all those
+who have thought, written, and worked down there in the town, and one’s
+thoughts go out over the country to the scented haycocks of Sörmland,
+to Norrland where the pale light of the midnight sun shines over the
+ore mountains and the summer huts of the Lapps, to the beech-woods in
+Skåne, to all our vast country lying there in the summer night, to
+the people in the red cottages, to those who have toiled in the stony
+ground. One thinks also with gratitude of those who in song and art
+have shown us the beauty and the value of what we have owned, still
+own, and still wish our descendants to preserve, and in our hearts
+wells up the conviction, at once earnest and joyful: I love Sweden.
+
+
+
+
+PICTURES.
+
+
+  GUSTAF ANKARCRONA (b. 1869)
+    The Sleigh-bells tingle on the Up-drive    34
+
+  RICHARD BERGH (b. 1858)
+    Summer Evening. Scene from Lidingön    15
+    August Strindberg (black and white)    50
+
+  OSCAR BJÖRCK (b. 1860)
+    Vadstena Castle    33
+    Verner von Heidenstam in his Home at Djursholm    53
+
+  ALBERT ENGSTRÖM (b. 1869)
+    Sea-bear. Drawing (black and white)    12
+    Old Peasant Women. Drawing (black and white)    24
+    Lapp. Drawing (black and white)    45
+
+  PRINCE EUGEN (b. 1865)
+    Entering the Harbour    11
+    Stockholm Castle    51
+
+  GUSTAF FJÆSTAD (b. 1868)
+    Is the Spring never coming? (In the possession of the sculptor
+    Christian Eriksson.) See the cover.
+
+  GUNNAR HALLSTRÖM (b. 1875)
+    A man binding on Skis. Drawing (black and white)    22
+    Lucia treats to coffee on the 13th December (black and white)    31
+    Tug of War (black and white)    32
+
+  OTTO HESSELBOM (b. 1848)
+    Our Country    9
+
+  EUGEN JANSSON (b. 1862)
+    Riddarfjärden on a Summer Night    57
+
+  NILS KREUGER (b. 1858)
+    The Alfvaren in Öland    47
+
+  CARL LARSSON (b. 1853)
+    My Family    16
+    Fishing for Cray-fish. Water-colour    19
+    A Viking Expedition. Water-colour (black and white)    35
+    Interior of a Cottage at Rättvik. Water-colour (black and white)  36
+
+  BRUNO LILJEFORS (b. 1860)
+    Sunrise    13
+    Huntsman on the Alert    29
+    Elks. Drawing (black and white)    42
+
+  KARL NORDSTRÖM (b. 1855)
+    Easter Bonfires    23
+    Riddarholm Church on a Spring Evening. Drawing     54
+
+  ERNST NORLIND
+    Farm in Skåne. Lithography (black and white)    17
+
+  REINHOLD NORSTEDT (b. 1843)
+    Birches, “Hage”, in Sörmland    26
+
+  EDVARD ROSENBERG (b. 1858)
+    March Eve    30
+
+  LOUIS SPARRE (b. 1863)
+    Lejonbacken at Stockholm Castle (black and white)    52
+
+  EMERICK STENBERG (b. 1873)
+    Björs-Mia    39
+
+  CARL WILHELMSON (b. 1866)
+    Church-goers in Boats. Picture from Bohuslän    25
+    Labourers    37
+    Miners on the Mountain at Kiruna    44
+
+  ANDERS ZORN (b. 1860)
+    Out in the open    20
+    Mid-summer Dance    40
+    Kings-Karin    43
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+  In the .txt version, surrounding characters have been used to indicate
+    _Italics_, +Mixed-Case Smallcaps+, and (in illustration captions)
+    +ALL SMALLCAPS+. Formatting for superscript and underscore have been
+    omitted.
+  Illustrations have been moved from within to between paragraphs as
+    needed.
+  Minor typographical and spelling errors have been corrected.
+  High/low quotes and guillemets have been changed to quotation marks.
+  Artists’ names have been put in +Smallcaps+ as needed.
+  Other inconsistencies (formatting, capitalization and hyphenation)
+    have been retained.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78746 ***