BIRGER SANDZÉN IN PRÄRIEBLOMMAN

JAMES M. KAPLAN

Between the start of the new century and the outbreak of the First World War, the literary annual Prärieblomman offered an outlet for immigrant authors as well as a source of education and entertainment for Swedish-Americans all over the country.1 Since the publication was under the aegis of the Augustana Synod, it hewed to a moderate line, but its subject matter and contributors were surprisingly varied. Among the topics covered was art, and the publication's editor, Anders Schön, requested that the noted Lindsborg artist Birger Sandzén furnish articles on Swedish and Swedish-American art. Between 1902 and 1913 Sandzén published 9 articles in Prärieblomman. Together they form a book-length body of writings that give an ample view of Sandzén's thoughts on art, Swedish-America, and other subjects. Sandzén mentions Schön for the first time in a letter to his father on 16 November 1901. The editor was the artist's houseguest at that time, and his stay coincided with the twentieth anniversary celebra• tions of Bethany College.2 The two became good friends, and in the Augustana monthly Ungdomsvännen in May 1904 Schön would publish a highly laudatory biographic essay on the young immigrant artist.3 In Sandzén's correspondence with his family, his work for Prärieblomman is a recurring theme, and it was an important creative outlet for him. After this publication folded in 1914, he wrote only a very few articles on art, and those were mostly in English for "American" publications. These writings in Prärieblomman are virtually unknown and yet are a very interesting and important source of information on Sandzén and on the Swedish-American art world in the early years of the century. More broadly, they cast light on the views and attitudes of the mainstream of the "right thinking" patriotic, religious element of the Swedish-American intelligentsia, a small but disproportionately influential segment of the immigrant community. Because of the great length of the texts, we have selected excerpts to give a representative sample and translated them for the modern

94 reader. Ellipses are generally not used so as to avoid a patchwork effect. Commentary by the compiler and translator is in italics or footnotes. After each title we note in parentheses the issue of Prärieblomman in which the article appeared. The publication came out around the beginning of December of the year preceding the issue date.

"Grey Day in the Afternoon " by Birger Sandzén.

Swedish Art in America (1902)4

Swedish artists in America are in many cases just as unknown to their countrymen here as to those in Sweden.5 Most of them left the fatherland as youths, and since they have come here have mostly sold their creations to Americans, as our countrymen have not generally been able to purchase artworks. You have to get yourself the necessary before you can buy the superfluous.6 In my parents' home I constantly heard classical music, one day Beethoven and Bach, the next day Bach and Beethoven. One day when I was ten a school teacher visited us. When we asked him to play the piano he treated us to a series of marches and waltzes. A wild joy took hold of my heart. That was different stuff than the

95 unbearable old Bach and Beethoven! All afternoon my father was busy in his study, until the strange performance was over, and the school teacher said goodbye. Father, who finally was free, came in with a thunder cloud on his forehead and asked who it was who had "pounded out that trash all afternoon." We revealed the criminal's name. "Aha! It was he! That guy has no more music in him than my old boots." I was upset by the implacable judgment, but didn't dare say anything, for an inner voice told me that Father was right.7 Art is a friendship that is worth making. If many of our country• men here knew this friendship, they would probably feel themselves inspired to build a home for Swedish art here in this country.8 In southern Mexico I have seen poor Indians eat food that we wouldn't feed to our dogs, and they ate it out of pottery vessels so wonderfully beautiful that, once the Indian tribe died out, they would be the pride of any museum.9 Despite the steam power, electricity and all sorts of inventions of our time there are, nevertheless, a few things lacking... Why are real artists hired as designers at furniture, china, wallpaper, and carpet factories? Why are so many industrial design schools being established? People want art and industry to work hand in hand. People want art to come down and live among us, teach us, delight us, and become a healthful counter to the exclusively practical element in our hurrying, nervous machine age.10 Go to that poor artist, your countryman that you've heard about, the one who for long years faithfully studied and loved his art. Have him paint a fine portrait of your father or your young wife. Or buy that beautiful mood picture of your home valley, or that little canvas there in the corner of the studio, the canvas with the pretty birches and the sunshine. Don't you think it's beautiful? Weren't those the birches, wasn't that the sunshine you played in as a child? Or maybe you like that cornfield even more with the sunburned young farmer in the foreground? He almost looks like you. On a cornfield just like this one you have offered up a lot of sweat and labor. You can hardly not like the painting. It's so good that you buy it for the living room in the beautiful house you built last spring. . .11 Dear reader allow me now to rapidly introduce some Swedish- American artists: Olof Grafström was a contemporary of Zorn and Bergh at the Art Academy in .12 At a young age he gained a reputation as a competent artist, and his beautiful landscapes of Norrland easily found buyers at the Art Association in Stockholm. One of his canvases found its way into the king's private art collection. Graf-

96 ström's strongest suit is depicting Nordic nature in mild, pleasing colors. He understands and feels the mood in a summer night in the far North and renders it poetically and beautifully. During the ten years that Grafström has spent in America, he has won many friends both as an artist and as a man.13 Anyone who knows him personally can not help but like him, a loyal friend, good hearted, down to earth, one of the best. Since 1897 Grafström has taught at the art school at Augustana College. He has done a lot to increase the interest in art among our countrymen in America. Arvid Nyholm was born and brought up in Stockholm. After secondary school he became a pupil at the Art Academy. He and I studied together for a time during the fall of 1891 at the Artists' Union's newly founded painting school.14 We all were very fond of him. He was such a genuine artist type: gifted, down to earth, kind, and funny. You were never bored when he was around. How often we almost choked with laughter when Nyholm with incomparable dramatic talent told one of his hilarious stories. He left a big gap in our circle of friends when in late Autumn 1891 he left for America. He was known already then as a gifted artist, especially accomplished as a watercolorist, and in time his talent has come into full bloom. Henry Reuterdahl was born in Malmö in 1870.15 [He studied art in Stockholm.] He quickly gained a reputation as a good illustrator and was sent out by Svea to study and draw Swedish-Americans and the Chicago Exposition. He stayed in Chicago and was soon hired as an artist at Leslie's Weekly. In 1897, Reuterdahl moved to New York and found his calling there when Harper's Weekly and Truth sent him out as their artist-correspondent in the Spanish-American War. This was where he made a name for himself. He drew and painted seamen, boats, and fleet maneuvers with a surprising talent. Reuter¬ dahl's marine paintings have made quite a stir at various exhibitions. Recently Charles Hallberg's painting "Open Sea" created a sensation at the Chicago Art Institute's exhibit. The surprise was all the greater when people heard that it was painted by a poor janitor who never had taken an art lesson in his life. Hallberg was born in Göteborg, grew up in poverty, went to sea as a boy, worked as a seaman for many years, and ended up finally in America. In his spare time he has painted. After living poor and unnoticed for many years he has now, by accident, been discovered. Other artists discussed by Sandzén are Henning Rydén, Bror Julius Olson, Hugo von Hoffsten, Alfred Jansson, August Franzén, C.F. von Saltza, Thure de Thulstrup, Knut Åkerberg and Jean LeVeau.

97 "Two Pines" by Birger Sandzén.

In February 1894, I began painting for Aman-Jean who had an art school on Avenue de Saxe in Paris. The pupils were of 12 different nationalities. It was no fun being the only Swede. They laughed and told stories in all languages, but I didn't especially enjoy them. One day when I had been going to the studio for a whole month I read to my surprise the name Carl Lindin written large and clearly on the back of a newly stretched canvas. I asked my neighbor, an American, if he knew which one was Carl Lindin. He pointed out a broad-

98 shouldered athlete with coal black hair and a moustache. I soon realized that Carl Lindin was a great guy and a great painter. He was always lively, good humored, kind, and hard-working, even when the cupboard was bare. Since those days his paintings have gained acclaim in Sweden, America, and Paris. Oddly enough this big strong man who looked like a professional athlete seems to prefer mild, gentle mood pieces. How many times we went out together, by boat to Meudon, St. Cloud, and Charenton or went by train to Fontaine• bleau.

"Sentinel Pines" by Birger Sandzén.

One of the best-known young artists in the Montparnasse neighborhood of Paris in the first half of the 1890s was the Swede Charles Fribert. Already when he was a pupil at the Art Academy in Stockholm, Fribert was considered the most promising of the younger sculptors. It was a pleasure to watch him work. He was so complete• ly a master of his craft that he worked with seeming nonchalance whether it was in clay or marble. One time he made a portrait relief of me in an hour that was masterful. The news that Fribert was leaving for America created surprise and gloom in our circle of friends.

99 Among those who were at the farewell dinner for Charles Fribert was also the Swedish painter Carl Lotave. I have more common memories with Lotave than with any other Swedish-American artist. We came to Stockholm at the same time. We were among the eight painters who in the Fall of 1891 had the pleasure of painting for Zorn and drawing for Hasselberg in the little studio on Norra Smedje• gatan.16 What devotion to our work and what burning enthusiasm among the pupils in that unprepossessing studio! Soon Richard Bergh began to alternate with Zorn as teacher. Soon we became too many to fit in the studio, and the art school moved to its current spacious locale on Mäster Samuelsgatan. During the Stockholm years we shared the bitter and the sweet, Lotave and me. Just like me, Lotave swapped Stockholm for Paris when Zorn and Bergh stopped teaching at the Artists' Union School. In 1897, he came to America and taught for two years at Bethany College's Art School. On the Kansas prairies and hills my old friend and I have painted mood pieces and hunted rabbits and partridge, and just like in Stockholm we wore out paintbrushes and sidewalks together.17 When shall we get a handsome exhibit space and museum building? How can a wider interest in art be fostered? First we need a wealthy patron of the arts and a leader. *

Our Swedish American Art Schools (1903)18

Sandzén, using an extended metaphor, says that in a garden you don't have just utilitarian plants, but also flowers whose only function is to offer beauty. Swedish-American colleges likewise offer education in art that has no utilitarian outlet. In ancient Greece almost everybody had a well-developed sense of beauty. Everything was supposed to be beautiful, buildings, weapons, and household implements. They put a beautiful, elegant ornament where today you see large logos or trademarks. Then Rome stole much of Greece's art treasures; art became fashionable among the wealthy Romans as it usually is among rich people even in our time, but in Rome it was and continued to be something borrowed and foreign. Don't we nowadays take after Rome more than Greece? He then gives two examples of the crassness of American society, provides a history of the two then-existing art schools at Swedish-American colleges, Bethany and Augustana, and supplies a detailed synopsis of a typical course of art education.

100 At both Bethany and Augustana religious art is considered very important. We carry out commissions for altar paintings, draw plans for altars, for artistic frames in different styles, etc. The competition in this area between Augustana and Bethany, i.e. in practice between Prof. Grafström and myself, is as peaceful as you could hope for. The commissions that come to him, my old friend and colleague, I don't begrudge him, and the ones I get he doesn't begrudge me. On the other hand I think if s strange that our Swedish congregations sometimes turn to German or American cabinet makers to get themselves a so-called "high-altar" and pay many times too much for it. They get a price list and often choose a "high altar" in a style that doesn't in the least correspond with the churches. Sometimes after having palavered with an artist longer than the Boers did with Kitchener, they order an altar painting from an ordinary house painter. They don't get a better price, but they do get an inadequate piece of work. Sandzén then goes on to tell at length an oft-quoted story of the first art exhibit at Bethany College. It is certainly true that most people out here in the West still feel that the quickest way to make a home beautiful is with rugs, whether they be Belgian, Turkish, Greek, Persian, or Mesopotamian. If you only get more expensive rugs or rocking chairs than your neighbor, you then have a fancier home. In a small town in the West the visitor is often informed of the price of the rugs and the rocking chairs, and that they were purchased "back East." They don't mention how much the pictures in the house cost.

America's First Artist (1904)

Sandzén places art in a context of nationalism, patriotism, and power. He deplores the negative influence of money, fashion, and women in art. He calls for America to develop a truly national art. A fine beginning to a powerful national art has, however, started to appear. We're thinking of Remington, Taylor, Bull, and their associates. At long last artists are beginning to find subjects in their own country and to treat these subjects in a more independent way. The wondrous enchantment of the grandiose landscape of the West and the interesting way of life of its people are beginning to attract more and more artists westward. It is not enough to photograph what you see here, you have to try to feel and understand the ever-

101 changing, wonderful, mystical moods that are constantly appearing in deserts, mountains, and rivers. I can't help but think of Balzac's words: "It is the task of art to show us the soul in things."19 For this more than artisanal competence is needed, however developed it may be.

"Giant Cedars" by Birger Sandzén.

102 It can't be denied that especially in recent years America's Swedish artists have contributed significantly to improving the level of the arts in this country. If you take the trouble to learn about our countrymen's contributions to annual exhibits, you see that they are both substantial and valuable. In general you can say that they excel in the good qualities that have made Sweden's modern art famous. We believe that Swedes have a contribution to make to their new homeland in the area of art too. I remember what Prärieblomman's editor (Anders Schön) said once in these pages about our country• men's position here in America as well as about their baseless inferiority complex towards themselves and their respectful admira• tion for the native born American: "We Swedes have no need at all to apologize for coming here." It is well-known and recognized on this side of the Atlantic that Swedes have a respected place among America's artists. One thing that is probably unknown for most of our readers, however, is that America's first real artist was Swedish. Recent research in early American art led to that surprising discovery. Sandzén gives a detailed résumé of the current biographical knowledge on Gustaf Hesselius.20 A significant detail is that Hesselius, with his brother Andreas, was sent out in 1711 by Carl XII as a pastor to minister to the remaining Swedes from the New Sweden colony. His presence is linked, thus, to Sweden's early colonial presence in the New Land. Sandzén notes that in the early years of the eighteenth century a Swedish congregation was founded in Maryland. The church council ordered an altar painting from Hesselius. "This is, Sandzén observes, as far as is known, the first commission of its type in America. " It is curious to see how pervasive the notion of the "creation myth" is. Such commissions were (literally) the bread and butter of Swedish artists in America. By linking them to the New Sweden forebears Sandzén gives a sort of historical admonition and justification to giving this work to Swedish-American artists.

A Comrade (1905)21

A painting hangs on the wall opposite the desk in my studio that I was given several years ago by a comrade.22 It's really only a half- finished oil sketch, but it gives great pleasure to the connoisseur, for it is painted by a master's hand. It is quite simple in both line and color, as is often the case with true art. It is a mood piece and the air is gray and colorless except for a few thin, cold clouds painted in a

103 somewhat lighter hue. The background is a forest that fades from blue to grey with a few almost imperceptible touches of red here and there. A little patch of grey, cold water is barely visible at the right near the edge of the canvas. In front of the forest there is a bare yellowish-brown hillside with a couple of low, stunted trees in the middle with a few patches of stronger color closer in the foreground. Those poor trees still have some of their leaves left, but they are ravaged by the frost and tinged with red and yellow. You can almost see the leaves fall, silently, one after another at the foot of the tree, to die and return to the earth. A few red leaves have fallen in the foreground. They were not able to die in peace like the others; they mourned their short life, and with the red of consumption on their cheeks, and death in their hearts, they danced one last dance with the storm over the field. They dance with wild abandon and forget tuberculosis, but suddenly they slip out of the storm's powerful arms and flutter trembling to the earth. They glow red where they fell. The dance ended in a gush of blood. I put a broad black frame on the painting for I thought that black went well with the autumn colors. Now that my comrade is dead I feel that the frame dresses the painting in mourning, and several times I have wanted to exchange it for a matte gilded one which would go well with the colors. I don't like the mourning band around the painting, for in my thoughts my friend is still a lively, joyous, strong young artist. I met him for the first time up at Gerle's place; he had a studio way up on Regieringsgatan. There was something captivating in the virile though not handsome face with the lively dark eyes, the low, broad forehead, the powerful chin, and the straight nose. His hair was thick and dark brown and his jaunty mustache of the same color. He was of athletic build but of average height and very well, almost elegantly dressed. At first glance you might have taken him for a big city fop of the ordinary, dull sort. But when you looked more closely, you saw that he was more intelligent than any fop would be. After a few minutes of conversation on current events in general, we started in on the newly-opened art exhibit, and, since we all were interested, we soon began a lively exchange of ideas. Mr. Nelson, my new acquaintance, had a remarkable ability to express himself with short pithy statements. He was especially original in his opinions, clever, funny, and caustic in his criticism. His wry wit came calmly and quite unforced. Every now and then he laughed a brief, low laugh, obviously not at his own cleverness, but at the thought of

104 something he found funny. The number of students at the Artists' Union's painting school had grown to near forty. A little earlier we had moved into the large, splendid studio on Mäster Samuelsgatan. Zorn or Bergh taught in the mornings and Hasselberg helped us with drawing in the evenings. The work simmered with life and energy. Olof Nelson had decided to begin to paint in our studio. I remember well the morning when he was supposed to come. The model had taken his place, and some of the fellows had lit their pipes and started to work. One smoked a cigar and naturally was made fun of by those who only smoked a pipe. We had, as I said, gotten a good start, and it was relatively quiet in the studio. Finally my neighbor to the right said, 'There's a new boy who intends to begin here today." "Oh, really," said another. It was quiet for a few minutes and then someone asked what the new guy's name was. The name was given. "Has he any talent?" someone else asks. "I don't know, they say he paints in violent shades of heliotrope," my neighbor said. "Or rather a blue painter," someone else filled in. "Call him what you like," said G. who had his easel over by the window. 'Take it from me, you guys, that fellow has talent." A little while after that Nelson came in. He already knew some of us and soon got to know the rest. The guys in the group felt that his first model study had a little bit of a strange color to it, but the rhythm in the outline was excellent, and there was great sureness in the drawing. He didn't paint at the studio for very long. There were several clear beautiful days at the end of October, and he went out and painted landscape studies. One day he brought them to the studio to show us. We were unanimous in our opinion that they were extraordinarily beautiful with their simple, original color treatment. Shortly thereafter Nelson disappeared from the studio. I went to visit him in his room, but he wasn't home. When I was going down the stairs I met his cleaning woman, and she told me that he had moved, she didn't know where. Sometime afterwards on a cold winter morning I ran into him quite unexpectedly going down the Hamngatan hill. He was walking quickly and had no overcoat. He looked rather unpleasantly sur• prised at the meeting. We had indeed become very good friends and were not used to having any secrets from each other, but Nelson was a proud aristocratic personality and to be without an overcoat, gloves, and overshoes in such weather and to run into friends on the street, that didn't sit right with him. However, it wasn't at all the cold,

105 though it was bitter, that bothered him. "Where are you keeping yourself these days, Olle?" I asked, rubbing his hand. "I live at the end of the world, what else can I call it, way over on Östermalm where the farmland begins. I'll probably start coming to the studio again soon, I hope," he said haltingly. "What did you do with your new overcoat," I asked. "Oh, if s not so cold today," he said, "I didn't think I needed it." "Cut the nonsense now, Olle," I said. "What did you do with your overcoat?" He smiled and with a glint of his old gallows humor he answered, "Well, you see, my overcoat went the way of the little raindrop in the beautiful song, 'You can't see it, but if s still there.'" And, moreover, drawing himself up and laughing one of his short cheerful laughs. "Clothes don't make the man." "Here you are standing and spouting off right on the street," I said. "You've got the overcoat at the pawn shop, don't you, but which one?" "At the same old one on Bastugatan. It was a pretty fancy coat, as you remember, and I got 20 crowns for it." Olle wanted to say goodbye and promised to visit me later on in the day, but I was afraid he would disappear again, so I took him under my arm and dragged him along with me. "Now we'll try to get your overcoat back, and then we'll have a good dinner together." Olle still had a few crowns left of what he had gotten for the overcoat. I had a few and a chum we visited had maybe ten. Soon we had reconquered Olle's big overcoat, and he was warm and ready to face the world again. Along with two other friends that we picked up on the way, we triumphantly paraded in to the Phoenix. "If s a rotten job to be a painter when there's no one behind you to help you along. I mean if s fun sometimes, of course, when you've painted something that you're fairly pleased with, and when you have money. But all in all it's nothing to write home about. Anybody who wants to be an artist ought to either be financially independent or else come from the wrong side of the tracks, for then he'd be used to living like a dog and wouldn't expect anything else. But to come from a well-to-do family who've had it good and to have to struggle so after you've been used to the finer things in life, well, it's no fun. My parents died when the time was right for them, and a few of my brothers and sisters are dead too, moreover. Sure, I have some rich relatives, but you know how much they care about some poor guy who's only an artist. Isn't it strange, or, rather, pitiful that you can be born with love and talent for a trade that can't keep body and soul together? The least little musician, even if he's a lowly horn blower or drummer at the amusement park, has all he can eat.23 And then

106 they give such good advice, all these relatives and friends who care so much about your future. 'You ought to settle down with a real job, something that can put bread on the table and only have painting as a hobby.' Once, not long ago, I actually tried to 'settle down with a real job.' I didn't starve, but I was so miserable I felt like dying. Why couldn't they just help a poor guy a little or buy a painting instead of always singing the same sad songs. Just to give you an example, I have a distant relative up here on the North Side, a real clod who got rich on pants fabric, who once, a long time ago told me that maybe possibly he would like to buy one of my paintings. I went up to his place a while ago when I was having an awfully rough time of it. I showed him a couple of small studies and wondered if he perhaps remembered that he was so kind as to deign to possibly be willing to acquire one of my paintings. He was just like anyone else like him in such circumstances. He said to me that he had enormous expenses that week and had lost money, and if it had only been a few weeks earlier, he would have been able to pay what such a nice little painting was worth. But now if he could see his way clear to buy it, he could only pay a fraction of what it was worth, however hard he tried. But if I were willing to go along with letting him have it for a rock bottom price, maybe it wouldn't be impossible, broke though he was. He really liked the pieces, he said, especially one of them. I asked how much he'd be willing to pay for the one he liked. Guess what he offered me! Well, he offered 5 crowns!" Olle yelled and jumped up from the bed. "Five crowns, five crowns," he hissed angrily again and again and furiously kicked at a pair of boots that happened to be too close. "It was as though he knew that I hadn't eaten anything that day, the swine. I felt like beating him over the head with the paintings and telling him that I didn't need a tip, but I had to make the best of a bad situation, for I was hungry as a wolf. He, of course, couldn't care less about paintings, and it's a shame to sell one's work to someone who doesn't appreciate it. It's a pleasure to give them away to a poor comrade who understands and likes them. The paintings end up in good company at least. But isn't it painful that a painter should need to crawl in front of such a snotty lowlife. Shouldn't a pig like that be shot or hanged by his toes? "Yes, I understand what it feels like anyhow. Sometimes you paint with the real joy of painting; you feel that you've got it, that you're on to something that you've been seeking for a long time. You work in a blessed frenzy and in such moments you are attached to what you have painted as if it's your own child. It's hard to give up a

107 painting like that, even if if s only a little study and you want to see that it ends up in good hands, right?" Olle paused a moment to light up his pipe, which had gone out.24 Then he sat down on the bed again and continued, "I wonder whether I should try again to give up painting and get into some thing that'll put bread on the table as my dear relatives say. But it probably wouldn't work out. I'd soon begin to paint again, I know myself well enough. But I'm getting out of Stockholm for the time being, that much I know. When I made up my mind a few days ago to leave, I went—don't think I'm silly when I tell you this—up to the wholesaler who had bought the study and asked him if I could borrow it for a few days. He looked surprised but couldn't very well say no. That little one on the right is the one he gave me 5 crowns for. The one next to it I also borrowed from a rich collector. I intend to leave in a few days, and I wanted to see those studies one more time and say goodbye to them. They're almost the only things I've done that approach true art. I happen to own that one myself, and you can have it if you want. We've always been good buddies, you and me, and understood each other." Olle got up and went and lifted up and put down one after the other each of the studies. Oh, if only there had been someone rich who could have laid a hundred or thousand crown note on my artist friend's aching heart. I thanked him as well as I could for the study. With Olle's autumn mood piece under my arm I thought that it was an awful long way to go as I trudged slowly home through the wind and the snow.

* * *

It was over a year since I had left Stockholm. I had had good luck for a while, sold several landscapes and painted several portraits and intended to travel to Paris. I had just painted a portrait of the wealthy country squire Captain B. and had made a detour to Göteborg to get frames for a few pictures that I intended to exhibit. I had come on the morning train, checked in at the d'Angleterre and gotten cleaned up and ready to go out on the town. In the stairway whom did I meet to my immense surprise, but none other than Olle Nelson. Up in the room Olle told what he had been up to since we had last met. I had only gotten one little letter from him in more than a year's time, and I didn't know where he was or what he was doing.

108 He told how he had tried to work on friends and acquaintances in hopes of selling paintings, but it hadn't succeeded. He had almost decided again to give up on painting altogether and to get some sort of real job in order to make a living. Then quite unexpectedly an old farmer in Värmland, who once upon a time had rented one of his father's farms and had known Olle when he was little, invited him to come and visit, if "Mr. Nelson would be so kind as to do a poor farmer that honor." Since he wasn't doing anything in particular, he gladly accepted this Pär Matsson's invitation. Up there in Värmland's lovely forests Olle's soul caught fire anew with the joy of painting. "I became a painter again up there in Värmland," said Olle, "healthy both in mind and body. Pär Matsson became my guardian angel. He cheered me up and assured me from morning to night that I would become a famous painter. It couldn't be any other way, he felt. "We became good friends, Pär Matsson and me. He was a real decent man and did his best and never gave me advice to get a real job like my dear relatives. Instead he told me to paint whatever the canvas would hold. I'll never forget how sad the old man was when I was going to leave. A while before I was going to go on my way, the old man went down to the cellar and dug up a bottle of wine, probably the only one he had. He came and said he would be honored if I would have a little glass of wine with him before I left. I naturally thanked him for the kindness and went into the large living room with him. Pär Matsson brought out two glasses, pulled out a drawer and found two cigars and we sat down facing each other at a red-painted table. I can see that decent old man now with his fur coat and his metal-bound wooden shoes. We had a toast and smoked our two cigars, sooty and cheap as they were, but what did that matter when a man of honor like Pär Matsson was treating. He thanked me again and again that I had granted him, a poor old man, such an honor, and that I had been so kind as to stay so long in his humble home. I tried to get through to him that it was no great honor for his house to be visited by a poor painter like me, that it was I who was honored, but he didn't understand. At any rate if s Pär Matsson who made a man out of me again, or rather, a painter out of me again, because before I was sick to death with myself and with everything. And I told him that too when we toasted for the last time and got up from the red table. It was really hard to say goodbye to the old man. On the steps I took that good old man in my arms, hugged him close and promised to write to him. Then the old man cried and thanked me yet again for the honor. Quite an honor, right,

109 to take in a poor painter who comes and stays for months. What do you think of my canvases by the way?" The small paintings that I was looking at while Olle talked were painted in the way that only a painter with God's grace can paint. I shall never forget his "Farm in Värmland" or his wonderful little "Snowy Landscape" on which the snow glittered under the most splendid winter sun. It was certainly art at its best. In the evening Olle kept me company to the station where I took the express. When, some time later, I came back to Göteborg the exhibit was almost over. Olle had triumphed. Both artists and art patrons had been thrilled with his paintings. A well-known wealthy Göteborg collector had purchased the little snowy landscape for his magnificent collection and promised in his enthusiasm to provide Olle with whatever money he needed to be free from want and to continue to paint.25 A half hour after I came I met Olle in the hall at the hotel. He still lived in his old room. He was so happy to see me he flung himself on me, pounding my back and hugging me so I could hardly breathe. He was dizzy with joy, talking and laughing all at once. "Well, my friend, lady luck has finally smiled on me. Next week I'm going abroad to paint, just paint, do you understand me; no more starvation diet for me. This morning I got paid for the painting and I've just gone and paid my framer, who must have already heard that I was in the money, because he bowed so low he almost threw his back out. But let's go in to my room and talk." After a while Olle had calmed down again. It wasn't any wonder he was giddy with joy after his recent triumphs and that he wanted to tell his old comrade everything all at once. Good old Olle deserved to finally see things going his way. He had certainly earned it. We ate lunch in the glass veranda of the Hotel Kristiania and had the sort of unforgettable meal that the immortal gods are said to enjoy on Mount Olympus. I remember sometime later visiting Olle in his studio on Rue de Vaugirard in Paris. I remember our walk through the Louvre. I remember when he painted his wonderful "Violin Players," for which some of our friends sat as models. I remember our excursions to the art exhibits; I remember how we talked and dreamed the bright dreams of artists on my little balcony on the Rue de Rennes. I remember how we celebrated one triumph after the other. And I remember when we first started to notice that he looked sick. I remember when a friend told me that Olle probably had tuberculosis. "Are you out of your mind," I answered, "A big fellow

110 like that can't get tuberculosis." I remember,... but that would be a whole book if I told even half of the things I remember about Olle when I sit and look at his painting. I didn't mean to write a whole book, so I'll Just stop here.26 The day is drawing to a close. A beam of the setting sun shines in through the window, and casts its light on Olle's painting, where the autumn leaves, red as blood on the field, endlessly dance their frenzied reel, in silence.27

A Swedish Art Collection (1906)28

This article was written in the summer of 1905, based on a visit Sandzén had made to the Johnson Collection in June of that year. He was in New York at that time with his wife on the way to Europe for a sabbatical year. Sandzén starts off by expressing skepticism of the reported greatness of this collection, since so many times people exaggerate their qualities or posses• sions. He gives several examples of this sort of exaggeration in a folksy- comic style. Sandzén lists and briefly describes paintings in the Johnson collection by the Swedish artists O. Hermelin, A. Hjelm, M. Lindholm, Norrman, Alfred Bergström, Nils Lundström, E. Lindgren, and Paul Graf. There is a series of beautiful wash drawings by the Swedish- American painter and illustrator Reuterdahl. Who would have believed that he would become a first rate artist when a few years ago in Stockholm his drawings were in Svea and other illustrated newspapers. Now, however, there is power, verve, and elegance in his drawings and paintings. He lists many Danish and Norwegian artists represented in Johnson's collection. The art collection is made up almost exclusively of modern paintings and especially by Scandinavian artists. I lay my pen down for this time, wishing that as many as possible of my wealthy countrymen here in America as soon as possible get involved in collecting art. The buyer brings great happiness not only to himself but also to the artist from whom he buys. If he purchases the work of a living artist, he does just as good a deed as he who donates a large sum of money to hospitals, old age homes, and other charitable institutions. Most artists are very impractical and ordinarily incapable of obtaining or maintaining earthly goods. The artist would much rather sell his productions while he is alive. He doesn't get much

111 pleasure out of the hope of being "discovered" fifty years after Ms death. It doesn't matter to him a bit what his paintings will be worth in the distant future. With the money that is paid for his artworks now he can buy butter and bread and beefsteak and a lot of other things that an artist's stomach longs for and needs just like other stomachs. In the long run the artist can't live in castles in the air. They're too chilly in the winter.

"Trees and Hills" by Birger Sandzén.

Memories from Southern Europe (1908)

In June 1905 Sandzén and his wife left on a 15 month sabbatical, spent largely in Sweden. In the Fall of that year Sandzén left Sweden alone for a tour of central and southern Europe. He had arranged with four Swedish- American newspapers to furnish them with "travel letters." Because of Sandzén's illness and breakdown in late 1905, which lasted over two years, and probably because of lack of interest by the newspapers in America, he stopped his series of travel letters with the agreed-upon twenty-sixth letter which described Venice.29 In the ensuing years, however, there is a scattering of articles in Lindsborgs Posten about the continuation of his trip in Italy. There is also this substantial article about his 1905 visit to Naples in the

112 1908 Prärieblomman. It was apparently written in the summer of 1907 under the maple tree in the author's Lindsborg garden. In early December 1905, he is leaving Naples by boat to go to Gibraltar with a one-day stop in Genoa. The arrival of the boat is delayed, and he uses the time to visit Naples. From an artistic point of view it is enjoyable to study the picturesque, colorful street life in Italy. You see mostly bright, rich colors, movement, life, and joie de vivre. Even the suffering and vices are artistic, just as on the stage the ragamuffins play their role perfectly. But when you look a little more closely at the lovely fairy tale, with the beautiful tableaux you notice to your surprise that it's all real. Many well-fed professional beggars come your way playing their roles, but just as often real poverty. One night on the Corso, Rome's finest shopping street, I was met by a couple of well-fed street urchins hopping on one foot pointing to their mouths with their chubby fingers and begging with beaming eyes for a penny to buy bread with, for they hadn't eaten for three days. They didn't get anything from me... A disheveled young woman with a baby at her breast comes toward me and begs shyly, almost whispering.30 I've been in Rome long enough to be hardened and continue without even looking up. Then the young woman, in despair, throws herself right in my path and yells, "Signor, be merciful, I'm not lying. We're starving, give us something, for God's sake, Signor, Signor." I can still see as clear as day that beautiful face, as pale as death, with its anguished, staring eyes. That was not a street actress with a bor• rowed baby but a mother at her wits end. He then discusses at length Italy's economic situation and its modem art. Now the sun is going down and paints the air and the calm water with soft shades of cadmium yellow and emerald green with long brushstrokes of the purest pink. Vesuvius glows in purple; long soft shadows slowly rise up the walls of the houses there in the city and a couple of kind little stars peep out. A delicious coolness sinks down to earth. I sit quietly and savor the moment.31 He returns to the hotel and tries to sleep, but can't. He finds a boatman to row him out to the ship but finds that it has been further delayed. Finally, the next morning it departs. A long description of the good food and good company on board then follows. They stop for a day at Genoa and depart again. I stand at the rail and look out at the harbor. It's starting to get dark. Their work done, a group of stevedores who had loaded coal

113 on a steamer from Liverpool, climb down, black and sooty, into their boat to row back to land. They all take an oar, except for one muscular, broad-shouldered guy who stands in the middle of the boat with his hands in his pockets. The boat glides slowly forward. They're in no hurry now, for work is done for the day, and they've earned a good day's pay, and all is right with the world. They can take it a little easy before they go back to land. The guy with his hands in his pockets starts to sing, and the crew sings a soft ac• companiment. The boat comes slowly nearer and the song rings out ever stronger. It is one of those melodious, glowing love songs that you hear so often in Italy. The soloist turns toward our boat as if to show us that he really could sing. People gather at the rail. Oh, what a voice! A high, gentle, and resonant baritone of such rare beauty and power that I have seldom heard its like. Now the song ends on a high note and a crescendo so magnificent that Caruso himself could hardly do it better. My reader smiles and thinks perhaps that I'm overdoing it a little to make my humble narrative more interesting. Not at all. The poor stevedore in Genoa owned one of the most splendid voices I have ever heard. The first and last thing I heard in Italy was song.

Sweden's Modern Art (1909)32 I. Painting

Sandzén places art in a context of nationalism and patriotism. He uses military imagery to represent the struggles and victories of a nation's art and the service, duties, sacrifices, and triumphs of individual artists. He briefly gives a history of Swedish painting from the early eighteenth century on. Sandzén's discussion of his contemporaries is most interesting. One of the leading members of the rebels was the portrait and figure painter (1851-1906). A grand and original artist whose mighty palette is the delight of all connoisseurs, a happy union of the depth and passion of the old masters with the bold daring of the modems. . . . One of Josephson's most discussed and most controversial works is the "Water Sprite." A youth is sitting by a shimmering waterfall in dazzling sunlight playing a violin of gold, his head thrust back, and his eyes closed in primitive ecstasy. The picture is a brilliant expression of the artist's unsatisfied, titanic longing for beauty. This gripping work of art is in Prince Eugene's valuable

114 collection. It seems unthinkable for our time's notion of beauty that this painting was offered just a few years ago to the National Museum but was not accepted. Everything that Josephson created breathes life, seething emotion, and imagination. He is one of the great men of Swedish art. Carl Larsson (born 1855 in Stockholm) is a restlessly active, versatile artist who has the great advantage of being admired and beloved of both artists and the general public. And his witty, heartwarming, naively sincere and honest, and at the same time virtuoso art certainly has a completely unique charm. What most characterizes Larsson's work, the older as well as the more recent, the greater as the lesser, is its decorative quality. In his earlier period, he painted strictly realistic, colorful open-air pictures from Grez on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, with a very modern technique, but always stamped with Larsson's strongly personal and individual• istic artistic temperament. Gradually, he moves to a stylized, decorative pictorial art and expresses himself in lines and large unbroken color surfaces. Carl Larsson's entire character, his enormous imagination, his daring and energy, and the resulting mastery over his technique as well as his healthy view of life gives him the necessary qualifications for monumental decorative painting. The three murals in Göteborg's Museum depicting in bold allegories Renaissance, Rococo, and Contemporary Art are overflowing with life, color, and the joy of creation, typical of the artistic breakthroughs of his period of beamingly healthy, jubilant art. His giant frescoes in the National Museum showing episodes from the history of Swedish art are the grandest of their kind in our country. In the North Latin School, Larsson painted Korum at Ladugårdsgärdet, a group of school boys assembled for worship after a military exercise. A genuinely Swedish chord, as fresh as youth itself, swells from this beautiful painting right to the heart of the viewer. Anders Zorn (born 1860) Sandzén evokes Zorn's well-deserved fame and pays tribute to his versatility and technical prowess. Zorn goes about his business quickly and directly, paints or etches what he sees and doesn't enjoy improvising. Like all great virtuosos, both musicians and painters, he is considered by some of his fellow artists to have more outer form than content in his work... Zorn has certainly not always painted interesting models. Some have more money than soul and you can't paint what isn't there. . . In the National Museum in Stockholm, there is a complete collection of

115 Zorn's etchings. A few years ago I studied them thoroughly with ever-growing admiration. Since Zorn uses an extremely simple palette (only a few time-tested colors), Ms canvases hold their color better than most modern oil paintings. Not long ago I saw some of his early works. They looked as though they had been painted yesterday.33 Richard Bergh (bom 1858) is in many ways the opposite of Zorn. Beauty is at home in many forms. Both are splendid men. Bergh's voice doesn't lend itself to improvising. He searches, reflects, and analyzes for a long time before he begins to paint, and when he paints, he is merciless in his self-criticism. Behind every painting lies an enormous amount of thought. It isn't technique that is the problem; no, he masters technique like few others. He mixes his paint quickly and surely and lays it on in broad, clean, glowing tones. And when his palette gets full, it's not dirty, rather it sparkles like an opal. As a portraitist, Bergh is assured in his characterization and is completely unmatched in all of modern European art. What a wonderful artwork, for example, is his self portrait in the Uffizi Gallery [in Florence]. I want to stand with my hat in hand just thinking of that portrait. Three years ago when I studied the art treasures in the city of Dante, Michelangelo, and the Medicis, Bergh's portrait was the first painting I saw. It was also the last. When I had said farewell to the many masterworks and gone halfway down the long stairway, I turned around and went in quietly and reverently to commune with him. Sandzén also discusses Karl Nordstrom, , Prince Eugen, Carl Wilhelmson, and other contemporary Swedish artists.

Sweden's Modern Art (1910) II. Sculpture

Sandzén admits that Sweden has lesser accomplishments in sculpture than in painting. He pays tribute to the great genius of Rodin. He feels that American artists in general are technically competent but lack the uncom• promising boldness and astounding creativity of, say, Richard Bergh or Olof Sager-Nelson. He notes that American artists living in Europe participate in its seething cauldron of creativity and mentions Whistler in this regard. He gives a brief history of Swedish sculpture emphasizing the great works of Sergei (1710-1814). In passing he criticizes the Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen as "empty and banal." Sandzén continues with portraits of the nineteenth century Swedish sculptors Fogelberg, Göthe, Qvarnström, Molin,

116 Kjellberg, Börjesson, etc.. One of the most ardent rebels among the Swedes of Paris was Per Hasselberg (1850-1894). In his fine and soulful depiction of the beauty of the human body, he is the equal of the great French sculptors and without rival among his compatriots. As a person he was unusually sound, kind, and direct. By heroic sacrifices and devoted work he broke a trail for himself to a well-deserved place of honor in his fatherland's art. His powerful physique was weakened prematurely by overwork. His all too early death was an irreplaceable loss for our art Hasselberg taught drawing for a few years at the Artist Guild's Painting School in Stockholm. His pupils remember the unforgettable moments when, once that day's work was done, he would have heart to heart talks about the fine arts with them.34 He pays tribute to the sculptural works of Anders Zorn. A young artist who has already created many works of high attainment, from whom we can expect great things, if his promising beginning is not interrupted, is Carl Milles.35 His proposal for the Sten Sture Monument is something unique in Swedish art. When it was exhibited in 1902 in Uppsala along with other competing sketches, Professor [Nathan] Söderblom wrote that it triumphed with astonishing speed and power. In the presence of this work of art you feel a shiver run up your spine, your eyes open wide, you sense a warm breath on your heart. That's what I felt when I saw the first reproductions of Milles' proposal. It took my breath away, like the first time I saw Rodin's "Burghers of Calais." Sten Sture and a few of his men are standing on a simply and powerfully drawn high brick wall. In the middle, the young chieftain is riding on a tired and spavined horse, its head lowered. On either side he is surrounded with footsoldiers, rough, powerful farmers, long suffering, hardened, courageous heroes with heavy swords and crossbows. You'd have to be hard-hearted or blind or else stupid if you are not moved to your very soul by this wonderfully painted work of art. At long last this monument will now be erected at Tunås in Old Uppsala, a well- chosen place indeed. And then we have Charles Friberg (born 1868). I was about to forget him, my old honorary brother, not because he doesn't deserve a place in this overview, but quite simply because we still consider him a Swedish-American although he has lived in Sweden for four years. But we gladly relinquish him to old Sweden. He is in good hands. Friberg studied in Stockholm and Paris and lived in America for some years. In Paris he was especially known as an excellent

117 portrait sculptor. We remember how he made a name for himself with his project for the statue of Karl XV. Now the magnificent equestrian statue has been erected in a splendid place in Djurgården. He has perfectly rendered the king's cheerful, manly features and his spirited bearing.

"Sunshine Creek" by Birger Sandzén.

The Swedish-American Artists' Exhibit in Chicago 1912. (1913)36

The exhibit opened at the handsome Swedish Club in Chicago; 28 artists participated. Reuterdahl is very lucky to have a gift surprisingly rare among artists: a rich and spirited imagination, which he rarely tries to muzzle, and that's as it should be. For there are plenty of people who do cold, pale, and boring imitations of reality. Although Reuterdahl is a gifted draftsman and although his armored ships testify in every detail to his undeniable technical skill, judged both by the standards of the seaman and the artist, when Reuterdahl's passionate imagina• tion hurls them down on the canvas or the paper, they are trans• formed into nightmarish monsters. The funnels seem like fire- belching mountains. The waves rise up with titanic fury. The

118 cannons, good grief, what cannons, they stare at you with their ghastly Cyclops eyes, enough to put your heart in your mouth. The hulls are silhouetted against sulfur yellow or copper-colored clouds which cast a frightful reflection on boats and waves. This götter¬ dämmerung casts its infernal light on sailors crawling on the deck, repulsive furies in human shape, gushing life and movement in every square inch of the painting. Even when Reuterdahl has clear daylight calm down the waves with a caress and embrace, the floating behemoths, they seem like ghost ships wandering over the sea. Arvid Nyholm exhibited two genre paintings and four portraits and did himself honor. "A Family Circle" was wonderfully supple and neat in its composition and pure in its color and was justifiably awarded the first prize. As far as I was concerned, though, "An Amateur" was equally fine. It shows the interior of a studio with a woman, seated, leafing through a folder of etchings. The long, rhythmic lines in the figure and the resonant yellow hue of the dress were especially colorful. In his portraits, Nyholm has a gift for emphasizing the most characteristic in the model's exterior and interior being, and his interpretation appears, therefore, very apt. Nyholm did a portrait of John Ericsson, designer of the Civil War ship the Monitor. Nyholm's Ericsson is a powerful, energetic person, but not exactly the pioneer type you usually imagine, rather a well-dressed, rather aristocratic gentleman with a carefully knotted scarf and beautiful, well-cared for hands. At first, I was a little put off, since I had not imagined that you could depict him that way, but, thinking it over, I came to the conclusion that Nyholm had nevertheless brought out the essence of the great inventor's personality. John Ericsson was certainly a pioneer, but he had broken new ground, not with his hands, but with his mind. A certain dignified reserve is said to have been one of his characteristics. He was in no way "a good mixer." In closing, as regards my own studies from Kansas and Colorado, I would only like to point out that as a rule I do not try to achieve tones by depositing on the canvas "decomposed" or "prismatic" color. I feel that you ought to adjust both the composition and the color treatment according to the character of the landscape. Sandzén gives a rather detailed explanation of his technique for handling paint in his western motifs. The same ideas can be found in his articles "The Technique of Painting" in The Fine Arts Journal (January 1915) and "The Southwest as a Sketching Ground" in The Fine Arts Journal (August 1915).37 He discusses the chemistry of paint and how important it is for the

119 artist to take into account chemical changes in the paint over time and how the chemicals in different pigments interact with each other. The Dutchman Van Gogh and the Frenchman Cezanne and a few of their soul mates have painted touching pictures, since a charitable Providence gave them the eyes and hearts of children, but they have numerous followers, muddled moderns who fake naivete... Is there anything more repugnant than false naivete?38

NOTES

Introduction

* Italicized sections throughout this article denote the words of the editor and translator. 1. For a thorough study on Prärieblomman see Birgitta Svensson's excellent work, Den omplanterade Svenskheten, Skrifter utgivna av Litteraturvetenskapliga Institutionen vid Göteborgs Universitet, Göteborg, 1995. For a more general discussion of the role of literature in the immigrant community see Allen Swanson, Literature and the Immigrant Community (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990). 2. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Carl-Gustav Sandzén of Alingsås, Sweden for kindly according me access to the family archive held at Göteborgs Läns Arkiv (hereinafter abbreviated to GBGLA). I wish also to express my thanks to the Minnesota Humanities Commission, Moorhead State University, and the Swedish Institute, Stockholm for research support. 3. The essay was so laudatory, in fact, that Sandzén's brother Gustav, a Lutheran pastor in Sweden, complained quite sharply about inaccuracies in the article. See G.S. to B.S., 19 May 1904. Sandzén was quite chastened by his brother's criticism. See B.S. to G.S., 8 June 1904 and 5 September 1904. GBGLA.

1902

4. In a letter to his father dated 16 November 1901, Sandzén wrote, "Schön is the editor of the calendar Prärieblomman in which I have contributed an article this year. In the beginning of December I will send home a copy of Prärieblomman. In my article on Swedish art in America I try to persuade the compatriots here to strike a great blow for Swedish art, to encourage art by building a Swedish-American museum and exhibit hall, etc. as well as show how neglected the aesthetic domain is among us." (This correspondence is in Swedish.) (GBGLA). His patriotic vocabulary is typical of the rhetoric of the national romantic movement. 5. Sandzén puts his finger on the central dilemma of the Swedish-American artists. They were belittled as deserters in their Swedish homeland and ignored as foreigners in America. 6. Sandzén studied French at Lund University and taught it for many years at Bethany College. He is inspired here by a famous line from Voltaire's "Le Mondain": O Le Temps que ce siecle de fer! Le superflu, chose tres nécessaire... 7. The reader can see here one source of Sandzén's fundamental conservatism in his

120 upbringing but also in his temperament which repressed any revolt against the paternal judgment. 8. It is noteworthy that Sandzén's lifelong dream of building a Swedish-American art museum in Lindsborg, KS was expressed in print as early as 1901 when this article was written. It is appropriate that such a project was hatched in the home territory of the restlessly ambitious dreamer, Carl Swensson, President of Bethany College. 9. Sandzénfirs t visited Mexico in Summer 1899 and published a travel narrative on this shortly thereafter in Lindsborgs Posten. He would revise this for publication in his book Med pensel och penna (1905). In his trips to Mexico and the American Southwest Sandzén became fascinated with Indian pottery and developed a collection that is now on display at the Wallerstedt Library of Bethany College. 10. Here Sandzén expresses the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement which were taken up in Sweden by the slogan Vackrare Vardags Varor (more beautiful household goods). 11. Sandzén's use of the figure of speech apostrophe gives immediacy and vividness to his essay. 12. Grafström taught at Bethany from 1893-1897 and went on to become director of the Art School at Augustana College. Sandzén and Grafström were close friends and hiked in the countryside around Lindsborg on sketching and rabbit hunting excursions. See letter B.S. to G.S. 4/28 1895, GBGLA. See Brian Magnusson's excellent article on Grafström in Mary Em Kirn and Sherry Case Maurer. Härute (Rock Island, 1984). See also Sandzén's own paean to Grafström: "A Painter Knight," in My Church, 19, (Rock Island, 1933), 62-71. 13. Grafström arrived in America in 1886 and had, therefore, been here 15 years when Sandzén wrote this. 14. For a description of the founding, growth, and role of this important movement see Sixten Strömbom, Nationalromantik och radikalism: Konstnärsförbundets historia, 1891-1920 (Stockholm, 1965). 15. For further information on these artists see Mary Em Kirn and Sherry Case Maurer, and Mary Towley Swanson Elusive Images of Home (Stockholm, 1996). 16. Where Konstnärsförbundet had its first studio. 17. The syllepsis "wore out paintbrushes and sidewalks" is a good example of Sandzén's highly cultivated literary style.

1903

18. In a letter to his father Sandzén writes on 8 January 1903, "A few days ago I sent you a copy of the calendar Prärieblomman. I have an article in it about 'Our Art Schools.' The article is written in a light vein (kåseristil) so as not to be too dull." GBGLA. It is interesting to note Sandzén's consciousness of literary style and his ability to change styles according to the audience.

1904

19. It is noteworthy that Sandzén chooses a French author as the source of this idea rather than the more directly relevant Richard Bergh, whose lyrical symbolist was an important influence for the Lindsborg artist, especially in his earlier years. See Roald Nasgaard, The Mystic North (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 28-43. 20. For the latest scholarship on the role of Gustav Hesselius see Robert Hughes,

121 American Visions (Knopf, 1997), 64-65.

1905

21. See Axel Gauffin, Olof Sager-Nelson (Stockholm, 1945) for a thorough study of the life and work of this artist B.S. to G.S. 27 December 1904 GBGLA, "I sent you recently a copy of Prärieblomman for the year 1905. Part of my sketch "A Comrade" was written a year ago Christmas and part last summer. It contains some strong language here and there but nothing that I can see as incorrect even after close scrutiny. It gave me a lot of pleasure to write this simple memorial tribute to a so richlygifte d comrade whom I was so fond of." Sandzén's assurance that there is nothing incorrect in his article about Sager-Nelson is an allusion to his brother's recent complaints about the inaccuracies in an article by Schön. (See note 3.) "A Comrade" is that most august of literary genres, the tribute to a deceased friend. The most obvious antecedent is Montaigne's eulogy to his close friend Etienne de la Boétie. Sandzén also published a tribute to his friend Olof Grafström. (See note 12.) 22. Soon after Sager-Nelson's death in Algeria, Sandzén's brother Gustav writes to apprise him of the fact. Birger replies on 19 November 1896, "It was my comrade Nelson who died in Algeria. He was unusually gifted. Take care of that painting by him that I have in Hjärpås." GBGLA. 23. This is an idea that reappears in various of Sandzén's writings. 24. This little pause in the narrative is what Diderot called 'le petit fait vrai," the little realistic detail that contributes to its verisimilitude. See Denis Diderot, Le Neveu de Rameau, éd. Jean Fabre (Geneva: Droz, 1950), 85. 25. Pontus Furstenberg, the noted Jewish Mecenas whose collection would form the backbone of the Göteborg Art Museum. 26. The learned anaphora of "I remember" is a fitting rhetorical conclusion to Sandzén's tribute. 27. His narrative is gracefully framed by the evocation of the falling leaves of autumn, surely an example of what Balzac called showing "us the soul in things." (See note19 .) 28. The project of writing an article on this collection had been hanging fire for a long time. Already on 17 July 1903 Sandzén writes his father, "I have been asked by A. Schön, the editor of Prärieblomman, to write an article for next year's issue on a large private art collection in New York. The collection in question belongs to a very wealthy Swedish-American, A. E. Johnson. I get the trip free from Chicago, if I want to travel to New York for the above-mentioned project. I intend to take on the project and will leave in a few days." But on August 19 he writes that the trip didn't take place because of Johnson's absence.

1906

29. A more complete discussion of this will appear in a forthcoming article in the Quarterly by the author on Sandzén's "Pennteckningar från en Resa," (Sketches from a Trip). 30. Sandzén's astute use of the historical present shows his mastery of literary technique. 31. Sandzén's evocation of the end of day is very reminiscent of Camus. See Albert Camus, Noces, Folio 1959,21. "La terre soupirait lentement avant d'entrer dans l'ombre. Tout à l'heure, avec la première étoile, la nuit tombera sur la scène du monde. .." We

122 don't affirm that Camus had read Sandzén, but mat Sandzén, in the conscious stylization of his text, participates in the same litterarite as Camus.

1909

32. Cm 20 July 1908 B.S. writes to G.S. "I have been asked to write an article about contemporary Swedish art for Prärieblomman. I'll try to get the article ready before school starts if possible." GBGLA. 33. While Sandzén pays the expected tribute to Zorn's great accomplishments, we sense a certain reticence. Although Sandzén studied with the great artist in Stockholm and visited him in Paris, there is no record of them meeting in America, although Zorn spent a lot of time in this country and traveled widely. The two artists were perhaps a little bit oil and water, for the expansive Zorn traveled comfortably in the highest social circles, whereas Sandzén was content with his modest life in little Lindsborg.

1910

34. Sandzén was, of course, one of those pupils. 35. It is interesting to note Sandzén's great praise for Milles long before the two met in 1924 in Stockholm. They became close friends during Milles' years in America and left an extensive correspondence. The reference to Nathan Söderblom is significant. Sandzén had read thelatter' s article, "Carl Milles och Hans Sten Sture," Ord och Bild (1905), 1-16. The path of information from Stockholm to Lindsborg to Chicago to Swedish-America is a clear example of the close cultural contacts and influences between Sweden and Swedish-America.

1913

36. Mary T. Swanson gives interesting background to this article in her "Chicago and Swedish-American Artists" in Swedish-American Life in Chicago, ed. Philip Anderson. (Carbondale: University of Southern Illinois Press, 1992) 37. The Fine Arts Journal, (January 1915), 22-7 and (August 1915), 333-52. 38. The mention of Van Gogh is particularly interesting. Critics often said that Sandzén's art was influenced by Van Gogh. This analysis galled him, not to mention his daughter, Margaret, who bristled at the very suggestion of such an influence. Sandzén always maintained that he had not seen Van Gogh's work until 1924. It is possible, however, that he saw van Gogh in Copenhagen and Paris in 1894, in St. Louis in 1904 and Paris in 1906. At any rate he knew enough about Van Gogh to comment knowledgeably about his work in print as early as 1912. On the question of how well Van Gogh's work was known by Swedish painters at this time see Roald Nasgaard, 34- 5.

In Memory of Rose Laurel Kaplan

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