Ernst Josephson: Painting Poet and Poetic Painter
Magdalena Gram Director of Research, Archives and Art Library
Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm
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Ernst Josephson: Painting Poet and Poetic Painter
Magdalena Gram Director of Research, Archives and Art Library
qÜÉ k~íáçå~äãìëÉìãÛë Artists Archive has received as a gift some thirty documents originating from Ernst Josephson ( NURNÓ NVMS ), mostly letters and poems from differ - ent periods in the artist’s life. 1 A few frag - ments of this material are presented below. Josephson grew up in a Jewish family in Stockholm and became active in the cir - cle of artists who, in the NUUM s, made clear their opposition to the prevailing academ - ic norm. A contemporary witness recounts how he spoke at an art exhibition in Copenhagen in NUUP : “I cannot remem - ber a word of what he said, I just remem - ber the youth, the passion, the fever, the bright optimism and the rhetorical splen - dour of his speech, which filled the room with wonder and atmosphere and drove a wave of heat through the hearts of his lis - teners.” 2 Josephson’s success was fragile, however, and his career would be split into two periods, before and after his mental breakdown in NUUU . In NUUT , following a series of setbacks, Josephson had taken refuge on the Île de Bréhat on the north coast of Brittany. Dur - ing his stay there he took part in spiritualist experiments, and in NUUU he produced a series of notes and images with features of “automatic” writing. 3 In this “spiritual pro - tocol”, Josephson has dealings with spirits of various kinds, including that of the mys - tic Emanuel Swedenborg. On NM July Fig. “Dear Sisters”, letter by Ernst Josephson, . NUUU , he wrote to his sisters: N NUUU Nationalmuseum Archives.
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Fig. O “Tale of an Elf and a Snail”, poem by Ernst Josephson, NUTRK Fig. P “Christmas Eve”, poem by Ernst Josephson, NUTT ÓNUTVK Nationalmuseum Archives. Nationalmuseum Archives.
I am much changed since I last wrote to you. A to proclaim to me his will, and the meaning of I thank you for the shameless way in which you deep and solid piety has seized hold of me … I my task in life. 4 have thrown me into a lunatic asylum, pretend - have received the most wonderful revelations ing that I am mad, because you surely don’t expect through Svedenborg [sic], through the art of A few days after this letter came the col - me to imagine that you believe me to be mad. It is, drawing as well as through the art of writing lapse that brought Josephson back to I admit, a good way of getting rid of someone. But and the organ of hearing. Indeed, I can even Stockholm. His condition deteriorated, the three gentlemen who perpetrated this outrage of sense the spirits’ presence through the peculiar and after walking, in great confusion, the forcibly throwing a peaceable wanderer into prison odour. And I have been visited by all kinds of many tens of miles to Uppsala, he was – for a madhouse is a prison, and a dreadful one people, from the greatest to the lowliest, by both admitted to the city’s mental hospital. at that for someone who is sane – will soon no kings and moneylenders, and through all this From there, Josephson wrote to his sisters doubt get a taste of the policemen’s whip, if there is God has, in a simple and powerful way, sought (Fig. N): any law and justice at all in this country …
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He concludes:
I thank you for the parcels and odds and ends – I spend my time drawing figures and walking around whistling, and take the whole thing calmly – thinking about my old proposition that the sane are locked up – and the mad walk free.
After his time in hospital, Josephson re - turned in NUUV to Stockholm, where he was looked after at home. In February NUUU , unsure of his future as a visual artist, he had asked the writer Gustaf af Geijer - stam for help in getting his poems pub - lished. 5 In the autumn of the same year, Svarta rosor (Black Roses) was issued by the Bonniers publishing house. By the time a new selection of poetry entitled Gula rosor (Yellow Roses) appeared in NUVS , Joseph - son’s art had been shown at a retrospective exhibition in NUVP and his artistic creativity had entered a new, productive phase. 6 When Svarta rosor och gula (Roses Black and Yellow) was published in NVMN , in a luxury edition with a cover design by the artist Nils Kreuger, Josephson was acknowledged as a trailblazer in both visual and verbal art. 7 Josephson’s visual art came very much to reflect the introspective approach of a younger generation, and yet does not have the same obviously biographical character as his verbal art. There are, though, clear links between the figures in his poems and the subjects of some of his portraits. Joseph - son’s own childhood resurfaces in the song cycle “To Little Gelly when She Lay Ill”, dedicated to the daughter of the artist’s de - ceased favourite sister Gelly. 8 It was for her, too, that he wrote the poem “Tale of an Elf and a Snail”, in which the elf’s “bluish belt” is contrasted with the snail, which has at - tached its dwelling to the “mossy rock” by 9 the rushing water (Fig. O). To his sister Fig. Q “St John’s Eve”, poem by Ernst Josephson, NUTOK Hilma he dedicated a childhood memory Nationalmuseum Archives. 10 in sonnet form (Fig. P). This poem intro - duces the “paper-doll musician”, a symbolic figure that would recur in Josephson’s pic - torial world, including as the Water Sprite and the crucified Christ. 11 And for his nephew Carl he composed an unrhymed
RT Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP ~ÅèìáëáíáçåëLÉêåëí àçëÉéÜëçåW é~áåíáåÖ éçÉí ~åÇ éçÉíáÅ é~áåíÉê fairy tale in which Carl, in a dream, makes mentation of Ernst Josephson’s artistic ca - TK The combined volume was published by the following reflection: “How often does it reer. 16 Several of the texts have previously Gernandts förlag. not happen to us in this world that, though been published, but the original material, UK The poem was published in Gula rosor. From we faithfully remain inside the gate, our in the artist’s shifting handwriting, brings NUSR to NUSU , Gelly Josephson was married to dreams take us beyond the stars!” 12 us closer to the biographical context so es - Fredric Marcus. After her death in childbirth, Several poems testify to Josephson’s sential to an interpretation of his art. Marcus married her sister Hilma. The younger love of folk song and his reading of differ - Gelly Marcus is portrayed by Josephson in Girl in ent poets. During a visit to Norway in 1872, Notes: Blue (NUUP , Nationalmuseum, NM PNON ). he wrote a nature poem whose first stanza NK Nationalmuseum Archives, Ernst Josephson, VK This poem appeared in Gula rosor with the title runs (Fig. QF : Biographica, EJ: S. The material includes certain “The Elf and the Snail”. documents not in Josephson’s own hand, among NMK Published in Svarta rosor (Stockholm, NUUU ), St John’s Eve, floral feast of the North, them the poem “At Fredric Marcus’s grave, from under the heading “Two Sonnets”, and later in Lightest of light nights, a friend of his youth” and a list of material Svarta rosor och gula as “Christmas Eve”. Hilma When waterfalls roar from the fell, borrowed by the Josephson scholar Erik Marcus, née Josephson, is portrayed by Josephson And in the valley fiddles and dancing Blomberg from the estate of Josephson’s niece in Mrs Hilma Marcus (NUUR , Nationalmuseum, cast their spell. Gelly Marcus. NM NUTN ). OK Karl Wåhlin, Ernst Josephson: en minnesteckning, NNK Erik Blomberg, Ernst Josephson: hans liv The contrast motif of the final stanza re - d. O, NUTVÓNVMS , Stockholm NVNO , Sveriges [vol. Nz , Stockholm NVRN , p. SNS . calls Josephson’s painting The Water Sprite allmänna konstförenings publikation, p. UR . NOK Hilma Marcus’s son Carl is portrayed by (NUUQ ), in which a dipper – a bird associat - Wåhlin later worked as an art critic and editor, Josephson in Boy with a Wheelbarrow (NUVOI ed with streams and waterfalls – leans out and in NUVM was appointed to the staff of the Nationalmuseum, NM ONQQFK over the edge of the rock: Nationalmuseum. His encounter with Josephson NPK The poem was published in Gula rosor as in NUUP decisively shaped his approach as a “St John’s Eve”. In the material presented to The closed eye finally grasps critic. Wåhlin was also the author of the first the Nationalmuseum, it is titled simply: Some flowers, godparents of dreams, major monograph on Josephson. “To Fredrik and Hilma on their wedding day And a snow-white butterfly flutters PK Josephson’s “Spiritual Protocol” [or anniversary]”. Fredrik Marcus was Ernst Over the depths of the abyss – Good night ! 13 (“Andeprotokollen”), which is included in the Josephson’s brother-in-law, Hilma his sister. Nationalmuseum’s drawings collection, was Blomberg NVQRI pp. NV f. The musical quality of “St John’s Eve” re - published in NVUU under the title Vid himmelrikets NQK The poem “To the Newborn Child” was curs in several other poems, including the portar: andeprotokollen från Bréhat sommaren NUUU published in Gula rosor. Hanna Marcus is lullaby-like “To the Newborn Child” and (At the Gates of Heaven: The Spiritual Protocol portrayed in Josephson’s painting Mrs Hanna the musical manuscript Festive Cantata with from Bréhat, Summer NUUU ), with a foreword by Marcus (NUUM , Nationalmuseum, NM PNOM ). a Prayer, to be sung at the VM th birthday celebra - Peter Cornell. The connection between art and Josephson wrote several musical compositions of tion of Mrs Hanna Marcus (née Schlesinger), occultism was a phenomenon typical of this his own. An example of his boundary-crossing with words and music by Josephson. 14 period, and Josephson can be described as one creativity is the verse drama Peter Smed, which was Josephson’s poems have also attracted the of the pioneers of automatism. intended as an opera libretto. One part of it was interest of several composers, and among QK “Moneylenders” is Josephson’s term for his published in Karl Wåhlin’s journal Ord & Bild in the material given to the Nationalmuseum fellow Jews. NUVP , another in Gula rosor. is Henry Marcus’s setting of the title poem RK Erik Blomberg, [Företal] S varta rosor och gula: NRK The poem was also set to music by Jean “Black Roses”, published as sheet music in dikter av Ernst Josephson i urval av Erik Blomberg, Sibelius and Frederick Delius. Other composers 15 NVMT . The first stanza reads: illustrerade med författarens egna teckningar, drawn to Josephson’s lyric poetry include Hugo Stockholm NVQR , pp K T f. Alfvén, Emil Sjögren and Ture Rangström. Tell me, why are you so sad today, SK Gula rosor was published in parallel editions, NSK See, for example, Nationalmuseum Archives, You who are always so merry and gay? in NUVS , by Jacob Dybwads Forlag in Kristiania Ernst Josephson, Biographica, NÓR . No, I am no more sad today and the Stockholm publishers Wahlström & Than when I seemed to you merry and gay; Widstrand. A fly in the ointment of Josephson’s For grief has roses black as night. comeback as a visual artist was the National- museum’s decision to decline The Water Sprite The gift now received further enriches the (Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde), which it had Nationalmuseum’s already extensive docu - been offered by Prince Eugen.
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