Larsson, American Colony Photo-Dept. Photographic Print, Hand-Tinted

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110639476-025 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Open Access. © 2021 Rachel Lev, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Fig. 24.1: Augusta Victoria Stiftung on Olivet, 1910–1914. Hol Lars (Lewis) Larsson, American Colony Photo-Dept. Photographic print, hand-tinted. Sven Hedin Foundation, Etnografiska Museet, Stockholm. Rachel Lev Chapter 24 Photography and Genius Loci: Hol Lars (Lewis) Larsson’s “Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Stiftung on Olivet” (1910–1914) This chapter examines Jerusalem’s genius loci, as communicated in the work of the American Colony Photo-Department (ACPD) active in Jerusalem between 1896 and 1934. The ACPD’s photographs were distributed in Scandinavia and worldwide, and early in the twentieth century they shaped the idea of Jerusalem in people’s minds. Narrowing my study from the wider Jerusalem (“The Jerusalem code”), to a specific place in Jerusalem (“Genius Loci”), I try to examine the encrypted data of one photograph taken by the Swede Hol Lars (Lewis) Larsson between 1910 to 1914: the “Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Stiftung on Olivet [Mount of Olives].” Whilereadingthephotographasa locus, a place, I rely on the Norwegian architect Thorvald Christian Norberg-Schulz’s (1926–2000) idea of the interconnectedness of natural and man-made qualities that, as a totality, constitute a pervading spirit of place or a genius loci. The chapter will examine the cultural setting of the American Colony in Jerusalem photographic collective (1896–1934) as well as the spatial dynamic that underlined their work. The notion genius loci, was developed by Norberg-Schulz in his influential publication, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture (1979), in which he inves- tigated the theory of organization of space and built form.1 His view was shaped by Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology of place: “A place is therefore a qualitative ‘total’ phenomenon which we cannot reduce to any of its properties such as spatial rela- tionships, without losing its concrete nature out of sight.”2 It is the dynamic inter- 1 Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1991). 2 Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci,7. Note: Thanks to Skans Victoria Airey for her translation of excerpts from the Sven Hedin Foundation archival materials; Håkan Wahlquist, Keeper of The Sven Hedin Foundation, the National Archive, Stockholm for his kind advise; Karolina Mikulska, Curator of Photograph Collections, Photograph Archive, Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm Rachel Lev, Photography Historian and Museum Exhibition Designer; Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (MA in Theory and Criticism of the Arts, in progress); and the American Colony Archive, Jerusalem 494 Rachel Lev connectedness of natural and man-made spatial qualities that constitutes a genius loci of a place. A Meeting in Jerusalem, August 1916 In August 1916, in the middle of WWI, the photographer Hol Lars (Lewis) Larsson (1881–1958)3 met the renowned Swedish explorer Sven Anders Hedin (1865–1952) who was visiting Jerusalem “not as an explorer,” but “as a pilgrim.”4 The meeting between Larsson and Hedin proved instrumental for both. Hedin brought back with him to Sweden a vast collection of art photographs created by Larsson and ACPD photographers, as well as dozens of his own drawings of ethnic types and Jerusalem views, all recollecting his visit. These were shortly thereafter published in Sweden, and later in Germany. Larsson’s photographs constitute the majority of Hedin’s book Till Jerusalem [To Jerusalem], published in Stockholm in 1917.5 The photograph “Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Stiftung on Olivet” [henceforth referred to as “Augusta Victoria Stiftung”], by Larsson, included in Hedin’s Till Jerusalem,isofparticularin- terest to this study of the notion of genius loci in photography.6 By the early 1900s, hand-painted biblical photographic images of Jerusalem and the Holy Land created by the ACPD were distributed to a wide clientele. When Sven Hedin amassed his own corpus of ACPD photographs, the collective’s work had already shaped the idea in people’s minds of a sacred Jerusalem. Unlike alle- gorical biblical photographs, the focus of “Augusta Victoria Stiftung” is a new ar- chitectural complex set amidst Jerusalem’s natural landscapes. This chapter explores the spatial visual language of the hand-tinted photograph “Augusta Victoria Stiftung,” and Larsson’s traditional, yet critical interpretation of the inter-connectedness of natural and the cultivated landscapes, furthermore, the newly-built monument, and the cultural context behind its creation. The early imagery that was created by Larsson and the ACPD was nourished by their social and po- litical awareness, their cultural and religious views, their extensive knowledge of the biblical history of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, but also by their clientele’s demand 3 Larsson was one of the 37 “Jerusalem Emigrants” of Nås, who settled in the American Colony (Jerusalem) in 1896. 4 Hedin 1915–1916. “Letters from Sven Hedin to his parents during his travels to the War Front and Orient, in 1915–1916, Volume XII.” Akt 136. The Sven Hedin Archive, The National Archive, Stockholm, Sweden. (Excerpts from Hedin’s Jerusalem’s visit were translated by Skans Victoria Airey, 2018). 5 Sven Anders Hedin, Till Jerusalem (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Forlag, 1917). 6 American Colony (Jerusalem). 1914: 12. The 1914 photographs sales catalogue published by Vester and Co., the American Colony Stores, lists the photograph for the first time. Box 20, page 12, item 273, G. Eric Matson and Edith Matson papers, 1908–1977, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Chapter 24 Photography and Genius Loci 495 for an ideal imagery of Jerusalem. It was etched into their art as a genius loci,convey- ing the idea of Jerusalem to the purchasers of these photographs. Integrating a politi- cal critical interpretation into a traditional biblical genre that was probably made to order, marks a transition in Larsson’s work. His independent voice will become more evident in the years to come. The Photographic Space Larsson’s hand-tinted photograph titled “Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Stiftung” (Fig. 24.1), was taken soon after the monumental German building complex on Jerusalem’shighest Mount Scopus range was completed (1910–1914).7 The photograph shows the building harmoniously embedded in Jerusalem’s natural landscape. The complex in the upper left middle ground of the photograph borders the natural terrain of Jerusalem’s Scopus mountain range and the pink- blue sky. The rough, sand-colored bossage walls of the building blend in with the surrounding hills, while the black-blue tiled roof plays off against the hazy blue backdrop of the northern Dead Sea and Moab (Jordan) mountain range. The sixty- five-meter high bell- and observation tower at the building’s right dominates the landscape, uniting earth and sky, rendering a sense of stability and serenity to the composition. The sacred sites within the walled city of Jerusalem to the southwest, were consciously left out of the photographic space, showing the photographer’s intention to turn the complex into the focal point of the work. The color palette, dominated by reddish brown tones of the earth and deep greens in the foreground, and lighter brown, off-white, pale blue, and pink hues in the upper background, follows the practice of the ACPD, which was perfected in their hand- tinted photographs. A grove of dark green olive trees interspersed with cypresses and fruit trees fills the foreground. At the lower right, a lone human figure dressed in white is visible in front of the grove’s low stone wall and gate. A paved white road stretches diagonally from the photograph’s mid-right in the direction of the monumental building complex, linking the grand new structure with the cultivated landscape. The pale pink and blue sky illuminating the top third of the composition bestows a spiritual ambience to the whole scene, with the single figure in white like a con- templative note. Clearly, the photographer, Hol Lars (Lewis) Larsson, had made a 7 Hedin 1916. Untitled [Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Stiftung on Olivet, 1914], hand-tinted mono- chrome photographic print, 24 x 30 cm., 0875.0004.A. Collection of Hol Lars (Lewis) Larsson and the ACPD photographs, 1900–1916. The Sven Hedin Collection, Photograph Archive, Ethnographic Museum, Stockholm. Despite the fact that the photograph was published in Hedin’s book in 1917, I refer here to the original hand-tinted photograph due to its unusual qualities in comparison to the published reproduction. 496 Rachel Lev study of the relationship between the new monument and the natural and cultivated landscapes long before he positioned his camera and took the photograph. Larsson’s photograph of the “Augusta Victoria Stiftung” was purchased by the Swedish explorer Hedin, in August 1916, from the Vester & Co., American Colony Stores, Jerusalem.8 At the time, Hedin was visiting Palestine as a guest of Ahmed Djemal Pasha (1872–1922), Commander of the Fourth Army in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria during World War I.9 Larsson, then aged thirty-five, and his twenty-five-year- old colleague Lars E. Lind (also a Swede) had been commissioned by the Turkish Commander to accompany Hedin during his Palestine visit. Both photographers had immigrated to Jerusalem with their families from the village of Nås, in Dalarna, Sweden in 1896, with the wave of immigration that inspired Selma Lagerlöf’s novel Jerusalem (1901) (Fig. 24.2).10 The bond between Larsson and Hedin, nourished by their mutual artistic sensitiv- ity and knowledge of the Holy Land, led in 1917 to several ACPD photograph-based publications in Sweden. Among them, Hedin’s Till Jerusalem, which was illustrated with photographs by Larsson and the ACPD photographers, as well as Hedin’s drawings. Another publication was Passover Celebrations of the Samaritans in Words and Pictures with text by John D.

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