The True Colors of the North, Deconstructing the Myth of Scandinavian Design

“ Scandinavian artists would hold their own against modern paintings in any European country. They are genuinely Scandinavian. It is such a satisfaction to know that the Scandinavian lands have really begun to make a distinct contribution to the art treasures of the world. And as for porcelain, I am simply mad over the Royal Copenhagen variety; it is almost as difficult for me to pass a display of this ware without stopping, and gazing, and lingering, as it is for a toper to resist a grog shop. ”

“ There are also at Kensington other casts of curious Scandinavian woodwork of more Byzantine treatment, the originals of which are in the Museums of Stockholm and Copenhagen, where the collection of antique woodwork of native production is very large and interesting, and proves how wood carving, as an industrial Art, has flourished in Scandinavia from the early Viking times. ”

“ Metal-working and wood-carving were the most important arts of the Norse. If children study products of these arts and actually do some of the work, they will gain a quickened sympathy with the people and an appreciation of their power. They may, perhaps, make something to merely illustrate Norse work; for instance, a carved ship's-head, or a copper shield, or a wrought door-nail. ”

“ These bands were generally loose upon the comfort, one edge being held down by the pillow, but occasionally they were sewed to the edge of the bedcover.
In a work on arts and crafts relating to their presence in Sweden, it is written that “woven hangings were used to decorate the timbered walls of the halls of the vikings. They were hung over the temples, and they decorated the timber sepulchres of the dead. When the timbered grave of the Danish queen, Fyra Danabode, who died about 950, was opened, remains of woven woollen cloth were found.” ”

“ The singular combination of debased animal forms with interlacements, as on the silver roundel of the radiated ornament of the Caenby shield, is of frequent occurrence in Scandinavian ornaments, being the "Drachenzierathen" of the northern antiquaries. These types of decorative design, it must be observed, appertain to a widely extended class of monuments, sculptured stones, and other remains, of which a large number exist in Great Britain: and the common element of that design might probably be traced to an Asiatic, rather than a Roman origin. ”

“ The Norsemen were far from being a literary race and it was not in the form of manuscript illuminations that Irish art was introduced into Norway and Denmark, but rather in the rich gold and silver jewellery with which the Viking chiefs adorned themselves, and also on a larger scale in the magnificently decorative reliefs which were carved on the wooden planks which formed the frames or architraves of the doors of the Scandinavian wooden churches in the eleventh {94}and twelfth centuries, after the worship of the Thunderer had been replaced by the Faith of the White Christ. ”

“ But arts that in the Orient had appeared almost simultaneously with bronze—writing, masonry, wheel turning of pottery—did not reach Scandinavia until after bronze had been superseded by iron there. The consequence was that the Northern culture remained on the whole thoroughly barbarous. And yet, perhaps on account of this very backwardness, an aloofness resulted which drove the Scandinavian bronze-workers to follow their own tastes and develop their own forms and styles, often with taste as exquisite as simple. ”

“ In a history of the modern literature of the northern nations it is therefore necessary to show how the national and popular element exerted itself to cast off the foreign yoke which the foreign culture had put upon it, until it at length gained the necessary strength to establish a truly national literature which from its energy and fulness is able to produce flowers and fruits that owe their peculiar fragrance and color to the soil out of which they grew. ”

“ On the way to the Museum I stopped for a few minutes at an institute for the development of the Swedish manual arts. The object is to preserve the peasant knowledge of old-time weaving, needlework, and the like, and to create a demand for such work—an excellent purpose. I wish that you might have seen some of the woven pieces, Cynthia. They were beautiful, both in color and in composition. Some of the heavier ones reminded me of the finest work of the Navajo Indians. I am almost as charmed with the Scandinavian art weavings as I am with the Royal Copenhagen porcelain. ”

“ While at Falun I learned why the great majority of Swedish houses are painted dark red. The paint of this color is unusually cheap, for it is a by-product of the copper mine. The fact that the dark red homes peeping from a winter mantle of snow or a summer framing of green foliage add charm to the Swedish landscape appears to be only a lucky accident. ”

“ Far above the high altar is a colored image of Christ. It is very common to see such images in the Scandinavian Lutheran churches; they are simply one of the relics carried over from Roman Catholic days.
Both of us were much interested in the Industrial Museum, to which we went from the cathedral. Like museums in Sweden and Denmark, this one contained rooms furnished in the Norwegian styles of past centuries. There were quaint old utensils, too, hand-carved cheese tubs and painted antique smoothing boards—the remote ancestors of modern electric flatirons. ”

“ The house is wooden, and painted of a pale flesh-color. The architecture is of the light and fantastic order of which so much is to be seen in Norway,—the instinctive reaction of the Norwegian against the sharp, angular, severe lines of his rock-made, rock-bound country; and it is vindicated by the fact that fantastic carvings, which would look trivial and impertinent on houses in countries where Nature herself had done more decorating, seem here pleasing and in place. ”

“ As with all arts of the period, this branch was principally dedicated to the representation of sacred subjects. Besides these there are many samples of purely decorative weaving, beautiful for their colour and quaint conventional designs, often geometrical, or a continued repetition of one or two very simple expressions of the form of a doubtful animal. The cultured Norwegians treasure these pieces of woven cloth, and hang them on their walls, or even have them framed. In the various museums are excellent examples of every branch of this art. To-day it is a very thriving industry. ”

“ The architecture shows the Byzantine style in the rounded choir and the arched galleries along the sides, the Gothic in the windows and pointed gables, and the horned ornaments on the roof suggest the pagan temples of the ante-Christian period. A more grotesque affair could hardly be found in Christendom; it could only be matched among the monstrosities of Chinese [Pg 372] art. With the exception of the church of Hitterdal, in Tellemark, a building of similar date, this is the best preserved of the few antiquities of Norway. ”

“ Whilst there is something prosy and homely about Danish art, that of Sweden displays nervous elegance and cosmopolitan polish. Simplicity is in her eyes humdrum; she prefers light and brilliant notes. There, a naturalness and simplicity allows us to forget the difficulties of the brush: here, we chiefly receive the impression of a cleverly solved problem. There, the greatest moderation in colour, a soft all-pervading grey: here, a cunning play with delicate tones and gradations—a striving to render the most difficult effects of light with obedient hand. ”

“ Some important viaducts, iron bridges, and tunnels are passed, and as we approach Lake Maelaren on the east coast a more highly cultivated country is traversed, some of the oldest towns in Sweden being also passed, each of which is strongly individualized. There is a considerable difference observable between the architecture of the Norwegians and that of the Swedes, the former affecting the style of the Swiss châlet, while the latter build much more substantially. Their dwellings as a rule are better finished, and always neatly painted, in town or country. ”

“ Denmark resembles Holland in this: that in both, nature presents little luxury of emphasized colour or accentuated majesty of form. Broad flats are everywhere to be seen—vague, almost indefinable, in outline. Danish art is as demure and staid as the Danish landscape. As in Holland, the painters make no bold experiments, attempt no pretentious subjects, no rich colouring, nothing sportive or light. Like the Dutch, the Danes are somewhat sluggishly tranquil, loving dim twilight and the swirling mist. ”

“ What may be called the modern “art” current, with its virtues and vices, is as strong in Denmark as in England. Danish sculpture will be always famous, if only through the name of Thorvaldsen. In architecture the prevailing fashion is a return to the style of the first half of the 17th century, called the Christian IV. style ”

“ There is as great a difference between Danish and Swedish art as between Copenhagen and Stockholm. Copenhagen is a homely provincial town and life is confined to home circles. In Stockholm we find the whirl of life and all the elegance of a capital. It has been styled the Paris of the North, and its art also wears this cosmopolitan aspect. Düsseldorf, where in the ’sixties most painters studied their art, appeared to latter-day artists too provincial. ”

“ But Denmark is a leaner land than Holland, less moist and more thinly inhabited, so that its art lacks the comfortable self-satisfied character of Dutch art. It betrays rather a tremulous longing, a pleasing melancholy and delight in dreams, a trembling dread of contact with coarse and stern reality. It was only for a time, early in the ’seventies, that a touch of cosmopolitanism affected Danish art. The phase of grandiose historical painting and anecdotic genre was experienced there, as in every other country. ”

“ It is a genuine delight to study and visit these lands, because they are the least, perhaps in Europe, affected by the leveling hand of cosmopolitan ideas. Go where you will,—to England, about Germany, down into Italy,—everywhere, the same monotonous sameness is growing more oppressive every year. But in Norway and Sweden there is still an originality, a type, if you please, that has resisted the growth of an artificial life, and gives to students a charm which is even more alluring than modern cities with their treasures and associations. ”

“ The study of old farmhouse and cottage furniture has not been pursued in this country in so scientific a manner as in Sweden and in Denmark. The conservation of national heirlooms is a matter which must be speedily dealt with before they become scattered. It is a point which cannot be repeated too often. At Skansen, Stockholm, old buildings have, 41 under State supervision, been re-erected, and with their furniture they afford a practical illustration of the particular type of life of the district of their origin. ”

“ The government has furnished models of docks and bridges, of buildings and other engineering works. The familiar Swedish matches are here in pyramids. There are rooms furnished by Swedish artisans in birch and oak, with chandeliers of hammered iron, carpets from Swedish looms, and fine ceramics from the Swedish potteries. Other exhibits are in the Exposition palaces. In art, the Swedish collection in the Palace of Fine Arts is perhaps the most distinctive display made by a foreign nation. ”

“ By the time such men as Fisker in Denmark, Asplund in Sweden, and Aalto in Finland became ‘converts’ to the International Style in the late twenties, Scandinavian traditionalism had become almost as purged of stylistic detail as the architecture of Tony Garnier, or even that of Adolf Loos, had been for a generation. ”

“ The great achievement of the modern Renaissance period is the creation of a new technique in underglaze decoration, which has added something [Pg 225] to modern European ceramic art. The underglaze blue, employed at the old royal factory by Müller, was familiar from early Meissen days. But the revelation that underglaze painting of landscape had become something more romantic than Chinese prototypes was a fact only realized after Copenhagen had made successful experiment. ”

“ It is the same question one asks of the colour effects in the Copenhagen art faience. They are perfectly luscious and strikingly original. No one else has employed these combinations of pigments, nor their wide range of colours. They appear to have been produced by magic. But to any one with a working knowledge of a great factory will come the reflection that the apparent magic is the wizardry of genius, and genius has been defined as the infinite capacity for taking pains. ”

“ It is the highest ceramic landscape painting offered to the delectation of those possessed of sufficient connoisseurship to appreciate the supreme handling of a difficult technique.
It departs from the Chinese prototypes in underglaze blue. The deep blue of Nankin is delightful in its poetry, but it is a convention that landscapes are painted all blue. Copenhagen becomes more realistic, but no less poetical, with added touches of amber, and mauve, and grey, and sage green, and the blue, pale and tender, carries out a colour scheme which stamps this Western art as something original and ideal. ”

“ This quality comes in fluted services, decorated under the glaze with delicate patterns, generally floral, in blue camaïeu. In thicker pieces greater strength is gained without any sacrifice of quality. Styles of decoration more peculiarly European occur in great variety, and illustrate the Danish artist’s capacity for handling the richer colors of the porcelain painter’s palette. Flowers, birds, insects, and landscapes are seen in medallions edged with gold; and cupids or Nisser, as grotesque as those in terra-cotta, are represented in every conceivable attitude. ”

“ Here, in the Renaissance period, by slower evolution and particularly sure processes, the modelling of [Pg 278] figures has arrived at a state of undoubted excellence. Apart from the first early inspiration when things Japanese broke upon Europe with overwhelming force, the Copenhagen artists have obtained their inspiration from within. They have followed the instincts of their own race, and they have developed on lines essentially their own, both in form, in colour, and in technique. ”

“ Tapestry-weaving as a domestic industry has progressed hand-in-hand with wood-carving, and this ancient art is still a favourite occupation of the Norwegian housewife, who finds both pleasure and profit from its pursuit.
The earliest sagas tell us of woven pictures, thus pointing to the fact that even in those very remote times the Norwegians showed an inborn artistic sense. ”

“ The renaissance, which in Sweden burst forth at the beginning of the nineties, originated in a revival of interest in the decorative arts, especially in the textiles of the Viking and Saga periods. The Old Northern spirit ran like an undercurrent through the life of the whole country, and culminated in Artur Hazelius's epoch-making museum work, Skansen and the Northern Museum. Just at the right moment there was added a practical study of modern book-making in England and on the Continent. A whole generation was seized by the new ideas which were proclaimed with such power by William Morris. ”