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Två fullodiga verk av Nils Jakob Blommer: Angsalvor och ett makalost portratt
Titel:
Två fullodiga verk av Nils Jakob Blommer: Angsalvor och ett makalost portratt
Auteur:
Reutersward, Patrik
Verschenen in:
Konsthistorisk tidskrift
Paginering:
Jaargang 65 (1996) nr. 4 pagina's 207-216
Jaar:
1996
Inhoud:
During his last years, Nils Jakob Blommer (1816-53) devoted himself passionately to themes within the realm of Nordic saga. He died in Rome, where he had been sent by the Royal Academy in Stockholm with the express recommendation to refine his style by studying Raphael and the great masters of the Renaissance. The method may seem questionable for a painter who aimed at expressing a national Nordic sentiment. Most critics will agree that his mission had been fulfilled already in 1850 in Paris, where he created such works as the large Fairy Dance which is widely regarded as his master-piece (Fig. 1). Surely proceeding from some reproduction of Moritz von Schwind's Elfentanz im Erlenhain (1843— 44, Frankfurt a.m.), Blommer offers here a version which is totally different: where the former may seem noisy and restless, Blommer's alternative is inaudible and serene. Landscape and fairies are interwoven, yet clearly distinguished, and instead of action the viewer perceives the very state of being. At the horizon one notices the Gripsholm Castle and two horsemen who are to pass on what they now behold.. Inspired by this painting, August Malmstrom was later to present “his” version (Fig. 2), which attempts at “explaining” the fairies as materializations of the morning mist. To Blommer, however, such beings were rather to be treated as inexplicable realities in the same sense as angels are a fact to the religious mind. Before 1846, Blommer had thought of a career as a portrait painter. Mostly of modest size, his portraits deserve attention and this goes particularly for his only large portrait, dated 1844 and “long forgotten (Fig. 4). It represents the Portuguese charge d'affaires Antonio jose da Silva Loureiro (1790-1848), together with his daughter Anna; aged 6, and a formidable dog. Even if Loureiro remained unmarried, he was her father (the Swedish mother belonged to his household in Stockholm). The three protagonists of the picture form, together with the setting, a whole which is rather unique in Swedish painting of the period; equivalents are to be found in Denmark. As for the dog, one may say: perhaps the best dog in Swedish art (cf. Kenneth Clark's statement regarding the cat in Hogarth's The Graham Children: “perhaps the best cat in art”). Loureiro contributed to a customs treaty between Portugal and Sweden/Norway, and to the establishment in Stockholm of a Catholic cemetery, which was eventually to be his final resting place. Most of his letters to the Swedish Foreign Office concern his considerable duty-free imports (pour mon propre usage). At least by modern standards, he was quite an abuser of diplomatic privileges, which however need not inflict on our enjoyment of this portrait, but perhaps it does?
Uitgever:
Routledge
Bronbestand:
Elektronische Wetenschappelijke Tijdschriften
Details van artikel 145 van 149 gevonden artikelen
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