Carl Larsson
Encyclopedia
Carl Larsson was a Swedish
painter
and interior design
er, representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement
. His many paintings include oils, watercolors, and fresco
es. He considered his finest work to be Midvinterblot
(Midwinter Sacrifice), a large wall mural now displayed inside the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts
.
in Prästgatan No.78, a house on the Tyska Stallplan in Gamla stan
, the old town in Stockholm
. His parents were extremely poor
, and his childhood was not happy. Carl's strong artistic talent had emerged early in his life. When he was 13 years old, his teacher at the school for the poor had persuaded him to apply for enrollment at Principskolan, the preparatory department of the Royal Art Academy
.
Renate Puvogel, in her book Larsson, gives detailed information about his Carl's life: "His mother was thrown out of the house, together with Carl and his brother Johan; after enduring a series of temporary dwellings, the family moved into Grev Magnigränd No.7 (later No.5) in what was then Ladugårdsplan, present-day Östermalm". As a rule, each room was home to three families; "penury, filth and vice thrived there, leisurely seethed and smouldered, eaten-away and rotten bodies and souls. Such an environment is the natural breeding ground for cholera
," he wrote in his autobiographical novel Me (Jag, Stockholm, 1931, p. 21).
Carl's father worked as a casual laborer, sailed as a stoker on a ship headed for Scandinavia, and lost the lease to a nearby mill, only to end up there later as a mere grain carrier. Larsson portrays him as a loveless man lacking self-control; he drank, ranted and raved, and incurred lifelong anger of his son through his outburst, "I curse the day you were born." In contrast, Carl's endlessly working mother provided for their everyday needs through her job as a laundress.
Carl's artistic talent was probably inherited from his grandfather on his mother's side, who was a painter
by trade.
However, at the age of thirteen, his teacher Jacobsen, at the school for poor children urged him to apply to the "principskola" of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts
, and he was admitted. During his first years there, Larsson felt socially inferior, confused, and shy. In 1869, at the age of sixteen, he was promoted to the "antique school" of the same academy. There Larsson gained confidence, and even became a central figure in student life. Carl earned his first medal in nude drawing. In the meantime, Larsson worked as a caricaturist for the humorous paper Kasper and as graphic artist for the newspaper Ny Illustrerad Tidning. His annual wages were sufficient to allow him to help his parents out financially.
After several years working as an illustrator of books, magazines, and newspapers, Larsson moved to Paris
in 1877, where he spent several frustrating years as a hardworking artist without any success. Larsson was not eager to establish contact with the French progressive impressionists; instead, along with other Swedish artists, he cut himself off from the radical movement of change.
After spending two summers in Barbizon, the refuge of the plein-air painters, he settled down with his Swedish painter colleagues in 1882 in Grez-sur-Loing
, at a Scandinavia
n artists' colony outside Paris. It was there that he met the artist Karin Bergöö, who soon became his wife. This was to be a turning point in Larsson's life. In Grez, Larsson painted some of his most important works, now in watercolour and very different from the oil painting technique he had previously employed.
Carl and Karin Larsson had eight children and his family became Larsson's favourite models. Many of his watercolours are now popular all over the world. Their eight children included Suzanne (1884), Ulf (1887, who died at 18), Pontus (1888), Lisbeth (1891), Brita (1893), Mats (1894, who died at 2 months), Kersti (1896) and Esbjörn (1900).
In 1888 the young family was given a small house, named Little Hyttnäs, in Sundborn
by Karin's father Adolf Bergöö. Carl and Karin decorated and furnished this house according to their particular artistic taste and also for the needs of the growing family.
Through Larsson's paintings and books this house has become one of the most famous artist's homes in the world, transmitting the artistic taste of its creators and making it a major line in Swedish interior design. The descendants of Carl and Karin Larsson now own this house and keep it open for tourists each summer from May until October.
Larsson's popularity increased considerably with the development of colour reproduction technology in the 1890s, when the Swedish publisher Bonnier published books written and illustrated by Larsson and containing full colour reproductions of his watercolours, e.g. A Home. However, the print runs of these rather expensive albums did not come close to that produced in 1909 by the German publisher Karl Robert Langewiesche
(1874–1931): His choice of watercolours, drawings and text by Carl Larsson, titled Das Haus in der Sonne (The House in the Sun), immediately became one of the German publishing industry's best-sellers of the year — 40,000 copies sold in three months, and more than 40 print runs have been produced up to 2001. Carl and Karin Larsson declared themselves overwhelmed by such success.
Larsson also drew several sequential picture stories, thus being one of the earliest Swedish comic creators.
Carl Larsson considered his monumental works, such as his frescos in schools, museums and other public buildings, to be his most important works. His last monumental work, Midvinterblot
(Midwinter Sacrifice), a 6 by 14 m (19.7 by 45.9 ft) oil painting completed in 1915, had been commissioned for a wall in the National Museum
in Stockholm (which already had several of his frescos adorning its walls). However, upon completion, it was rejected by the board of the museum. The fresco depicts the blót
of King Domalde
at the Temple of Uppsala. Decades later, the painting was purchased and placed in the National Museum.
_av_carl_larsson.jpg)
In his memoirs Jag (I) — published after Larsson's death — he declared his bitterness and disappointment over this rejection of the painting he himself considered to be his greatest achievement: "The fate of Midvinterblot broke me! This I admit with a dark anger. And still, it was probably the best thing that could have happened, because my intuition tells me — once again! — that this painting, with all its weaknesses, will one day, when I'm gone, be honoured with a far better placement."
Larsson admitted, however, in the same memoirs that the pictures of his family and home "became the most immediate and lasting part of my life's work. For these pictures are of course a very genuine expression of my personality, of my deepest feelings, of all my limitless love for my wife and children."
Fights between different schools of Swedish artists caused the "Midvinterblot" controversy to continue for many years. In 1987 the museum was even offered the monumental painting for free, provided it would adorn the empty wall for which it had been intended, but the museum declined the offer, so the painting was sold to the Japanese collector Hiroshi Ishizuka. In 1992, he agreed to lend it to the museum for its major Carl Larsson exhibition, where it was hung in the intended place. Public appreciation changed the "experts'" view about the painting, and with the help of private donations the museum was able to buy it from Hiroshi Ishizuka in 1997 and permanently display it where it originally had been intended to be.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and interior design
Interior design
Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
er, representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
. His many paintings include oils, watercolors, and fresco
Fresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
es. He considered his finest work to be Midvinterblot
Midvinterblot
Midvinterblot is a painting created for the hall of the central staircase in Nationalmuseum in Stockholm by the Swedish painter Carl Larsson in 1915. It is Sweden's most debated painting....
(Midwinter Sacrifice), a large wall mural now displayed inside the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts
Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts
-External links:*...
.
Biography
Larsson was born on May 28, 1853,in Prästgatan No.78, a house on the Tyska Stallplan in Gamla stan
Gamla stan
Gamla stan , until 1980 officially Staden mellan broarna , is the old town of Stockholm, Sweden. Gamla stan consists primarily of the island Stadsholmen. The surrounding islets Riddarholmen, Helgeandsholmen, and Strömsborg are officially part of, but not colloquially included in, Gamla stan...
, the old town in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
. His parents were extremely poor
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
, and his childhood was not happy. Carl's strong artistic talent had emerged early in his life. When he was 13 years old, his teacher at the school for the poor had persuaded him to apply for enrollment at Principskolan, the preparatory department of the Royal Art Academy
Royal Swedish Academy of Arts
The Royal Swedish Academy of Arts or Kungl. Akademien för de fria konsterna, founded in 1773 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...
.
Renate Puvogel, in her book Larsson, gives detailed information about his Carl's life: "His mother was thrown out of the house, together with Carl and his brother Johan; after enduring a series of temporary dwellings, the family moved into Grev Magnigränd No.7 (later No.5) in what was then Ladugårdsplan, present-day Östermalm". As a rule, each room was home to three families; "penury, filth and vice thrived there, leisurely seethed and smouldered, eaten-away and rotten bodies and souls. Such an environment is the natural breeding ground for cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
," he wrote in his autobiographical novel Me (Jag, Stockholm, 1931, p. 21).
Carl's father worked as a casual laborer, sailed as a stoker on a ship headed for Scandinavia, and lost the lease to a nearby mill, only to end up there later as a mere grain carrier. Larsson portrays him as a loveless man lacking self-control; he drank, ranted and raved, and incurred lifelong anger of his son through his outburst, "I curse the day you were born." In contrast, Carl's endlessly working mother provided for their everyday needs through her job as a laundress.
Carl's artistic talent was probably inherited from his grandfather on his mother's side, who was a painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
by trade.
However, at the age of thirteen, his teacher Jacobsen, at the school for poor children urged him to apply to the "principskola" of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts
Royal Swedish Academy of Arts
The Royal Swedish Academy of Arts or Kungl. Akademien för de fria konsterna, founded in 1773 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...
, and he was admitted. During his first years there, Larsson felt socially inferior, confused, and shy. In 1869, at the age of sixteen, he was promoted to the "antique school" of the same academy. There Larsson gained confidence, and even became a central figure in student life. Carl earned his first medal in nude drawing. In the meantime, Larsson worked as a caricaturist for the humorous paper Kasper and as graphic artist for the newspaper Ny Illustrerad Tidning. His annual wages were sufficient to allow him to help his parents out financially.
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1877, where he spent several frustrating years as a hardworking artist without any success. Larsson was not eager to establish contact with the French progressive impressionists; instead, along with other Swedish artists, he cut himself off from the radical movement of change.
After spending two summers in Barbizon, the refuge of the plein-air painters, he settled down with his Swedish painter colleagues in 1882 in Grez-sur-Loing
Grez-sur-Loing
Grez-sur-Loing is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France.-People:It is located 70 km south of Paris and is notable for the artists and musicians who have lived or stayed there...
, at a Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
n artists' colony outside Paris. It was there that he met the artist Karin Bergöö, who soon became his wife. This was to be a turning point in Larsson's life. In Grez, Larsson painted some of his most important works, now in watercolour and very different from the oil painting technique he had previously employed.
Carl and Karin Larsson had eight children and his family became Larsson's favourite models. Many of his watercolours are now popular all over the world. Their eight children included Suzanne (1884), Ulf (1887, who died at 18), Pontus (1888), Lisbeth (1891), Brita (1893), Mats (1894, who died at 2 months), Kersti (1896) and Esbjörn (1900).
In 1888 the young family was given a small house, named Little Hyttnäs, in Sundborn
Sundborn
Sundborn is a locality situated in Falun Municipality, Dalarna County, Sweden with 751 inhabitants in 2005.The most famous resident was the painter Carl Larsson and his house in Sundborn is a popular tourist attraction.-External links:*...
by Karin's father Adolf Bergöö. Carl and Karin decorated and furnished this house according to their particular artistic taste and also for the needs of the growing family.
Through Larsson's paintings and books this house has become one of the most famous artist's homes in the world, transmitting the artistic taste of its creators and making it a major line in Swedish interior design. The descendants of Carl and Karin Larsson now own this house and keep it open for tourists each summer from May until October.
Larsson's popularity increased considerably with the development of colour reproduction technology in the 1890s, when the Swedish publisher Bonnier published books written and illustrated by Larsson and containing full colour reproductions of his watercolours, e.g. A Home. However, the print runs of these rather expensive albums did not come close to that produced in 1909 by the German publisher Karl Robert Langewiesche
Karl Robert Langewiesche
Karl Robert Langewiesche was a German publisher. In 1902 he founded the Verlag Langeweische in Dusseldorf, one of the oldest book publishers in Germany still operating....
(1874–1931): His choice of watercolours, drawings and text by Carl Larsson, titled Das Haus in der Sonne (The House in the Sun), immediately became one of the German publishing industry's best-sellers of the year — 40,000 copies sold in three months, and more than 40 print runs have been produced up to 2001. Carl and Karin Larsson declared themselves overwhelmed by such success.
Larsson also drew several sequential picture stories, thus being one of the earliest Swedish comic creators.
Carl Larsson considered his monumental works, such as his frescos in schools, museums and other public buildings, to be his most important works. His last monumental work, Midvinterblot
Midvinterblot
Midvinterblot is a painting created for the hall of the central staircase in Nationalmuseum in Stockholm by the Swedish painter Carl Larsson in 1915. It is Sweden's most debated painting....
(Midwinter Sacrifice), a 6 by 14 m (19.7 by 45.9 ft) oil painting completed in 1915, had been commissioned for a wall in the National Museum
Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts
-External links:*...
in Stockholm (which already had several of his frescos adorning its walls). However, upon completion, it was rejected by the board of the museum. The fresco depicts the blót
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...
of King Domalde
Domalde
In Norse mythology, Domalde, Dómaldi or Dómaldr was a Swedish king of the House of Ynglings, cursed by his stepmother, according to Snorri Sturluson, with ósgæssa, "ill-luck". He was the son of Visbur....
at the Temple of Uppsala. Decades later, the painting was purchased and placed in the National Museum.
Legacy
Larsson admitted, however, in the same memoirs that the pictures of his family and home "became the most immediate and lasting part of my life's work. For these pictures are of course a very genuine expression of my personality, of my deepest feelings, of all my limitless love for my wife and children."
Fights between different schools of Swedish artists caused the "Midvinterblot" controversy to continue for many years. In 1987 the museum was even offered the monumental painting for free, provided it would adorn the empty wall for which it had been intended, but the museum declined the offer, so the painting was sold to the Japanese collector Hiroshi Ishizuka. In 1992, he agreed to lend it to the museum for its major Carl Larsson exhibition, where it was hung in the intended place. Public appreciation changed the "experts'" view about the painting, and with the help of private donations the museum was able to buy it from Hiroshi Ishizuka in 1997 and permanently display it where it originally had been intended to be.
Books about Carl Larsson
- Carl and Karin Larsson : Creators of Swedish Style ISBN 0-8212-2713-0
- The World of Carl Larsson ISBN 1-932043-21-7
- Home: Through the Paintings of Carl Larsson ISBN 1-59583-056-1
- A Home: Paintings from a Bygone Age ISBN 978-0-86315-549-9
- A Family: Paintings from a Bygone Age ISBN 978-0-86315-583-3
- A Farm: Paintings from a Bygone Age ISBN 978-0-86315-630-4