Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History
ISSN: 0023-3609 (Print) 1651-2294 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/skon20
Drømmebilleder. Carl Gustaf Pilos portrætkunst
Merit Laine
To cite this article: Merit Laine (2018) Drømmebilleder. Carl Gustaf Pilos portrætkunst, Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, 87:2, 115-118, DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2018.1428223 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00233609.2018.1428223
© 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Published online: 25 Jan 2018.
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Charlotte Christensen. Drømmebilleder. Carl death by the Secretary of the Swedish Royal Gustaf Pilos portrætkunst, Copenhagen, Nyt Academy of Art, Thure Wennberg (– Nordisk Forlag, . pp, ill., ISBN - ), and published in . Wennberg --- knew Pilo, and his text is presumably to a large extent based on information from the ageing artist, though it is far from a complete In the eighteenth century, the study of the biography and remains unclear on several great masters was considered an indispensable points. Charlotte Christensen returns to part of an artist’s education. Had they Wennberg’s memorial throughout her book, searched for a specific artist to illustrate this using it as a structural core for her discussion tenet, the theorists of the day could hardly of the artist’s life and career. The author then have found a better example than Carl situates Pilo’s achievements in a wide histori- Gustaf Pilo (–), a Swedish artist cal, art historical and theoretical context. who became a successful portrait painter in Starting with the career of Pilo’s father, Olof the service of the Danish court and aristocracy. Pilo, she takes the reader from the artistic The pattern of Pilo’s artistic development and endeavours of late seventeenth-century the ups and downs of his career are also an Sweden to the poverty-stricken countryside unusually clear demonstration of how much of Pilo’s childhood, his difficult early years in the arts were part of the politics and power Stockholm, his rapid rise to success in Copen- struggles of the time. Pilo’s life and times are hagen and at the court of Frederik V, and his vividly described and analysed in Charlotte even more dramatic disgrace, caused by a Christensen’s beautifully illustrated book growing nationalism and court intrigues, and Drømmebilleder (Dream Images), the first finally back to Sweden and the artistic life of monograph on the artist to appear in over a the capital under the rule of Gustav III. century. Olof Pilo ( –) had worked as a dec- Very few documents by Pilo’s own hand orative painter at court, but was not able to survive, and none of these concerns his work find work during the hard times of the early as an artist. Apart from a few drawings, eighteenth century, and instead turned to made towards the end of his life, we find prac- farming. After receiving his first training tically no traces of his personal life in his art – from his father, Carl Gustaf Pilo was taken with the exception of a small portrait of his on as an apprentice by the master painter wife (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). The Christopher Christman the elder (d. )in most important source for Pilo’s life and . Christenson shows that he was still in career remains the memorial written after his the Christman household in , and he
© The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/./), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
ISSN 0023-3609 KONSTHISTORISK TIDSKRIFT/JOURNAL OF ART HISTORY 2018 Vol. 87, No. 2, 115– 124, https://doi.org/10.1080/00233609.2018.1428223 116 MERIT LAINE must thus also have been taught by the extensive Royal and private art collecting as younger Christman (d. ), who took over well as acquisitions of contemporary French his father’s workshop. Whether Wennberg decorative art, including paintings for refers to the elder or the younger Christman the palace of Christiansborg – and Pilo took (whose name he gives as Celsman) in the advantage of the situation. He never made a above-mentioned memorial is unclear, but in European study tour, but now contemporary either case, his claim that Pilo’s master had and earlier work of important artists from the most highly respected artist’s workshop several countries became available to him. in Stockholm at the time is hardly accurate. With access to collections, and with the pres- Pilo became a journeyman in .His ence of foreign and internationally active father had evidently not managed to maintain Danish painters in Copenhagen, Pilo now any contacts he may have had that might have became part of an international art scene. It helped his son in his early career, and the is evident that he strove to keep up with devel- young artist was not able to find sufficient opments on the continent. A concrete instance work or attract influential patronage on his of this is his attempts at wax painting, a tech- own. This did not only mean lack of income nique mentioned by Pliny the younger that and career opportunities, but also that he did was revived by French theorists and artists at not have access to works of sufficient quality the time. As a professor at the Academy, he to study in order to develop his art. Wennberg was also obliged to become more closely assumes that he attended the newly estab- acquainted with history painting; in a sense, lished Drawing Academy at the Royal Palace, while teaching his students, he also taught but Christensen demonstrates that this is himself. In this context, Christensen identifies very unlikely. In , when after a few specific examples of how acquisitions for the obscure years Pilo turned up in Scania, he Royal collections spurred Pilo to new ventures. had begun to work as a portrait painter, and As a result of this admirable effort at self- a drawing signed this year shows that he had instruction, Pilo rapidly developed into a vir- already begun to master his metier. By then tuoso portrait painter, merging his studies he had found influential patrons, but left for into a very individual style and technique, Denmark as the result of a broken promise which was especially exuberant during the of marriage. Through his future wife Charlotta s. Desmarées he gained the position of drawing During the reign of Frederik V, Pilo was teacher at the Landkadetakademiet (army Denmark’s leading portrait painter, and his cadet school), where he received the attention home in the palace of Christiansborg testified of the first of several important Danish to collecting interests and a modest wealth. patrons. In , he became a free-mason, Besides the execution of numerous portraits confirming that in only a few years, he had of the Royal family, he was also responsible gained a position in Danish society. The fol- for the Danish royal collections and for restor- lowing year he was given a post as Court ation work, tasks he shared with the other Painter, and in was named professor at court painters. His commissions from private the Royal Danish Academy of Art. patrons also varied, including overseeing Pilo’s early years in Denmark coincided work on Count Moltke’s palace in Copenha- with major undertakings in the arts and with gen, for which he did decorative paintings, LITERATURE 117 including a pair of wonderfully vivid paintings Drømmebilleder is the author’s close attention of birds and flowers on glass that are still in to, and understanding of the paintings as phys- place. Pilo’s achievements did not go unno- ical objects. She evocatively describes how the ticed in Sweden – when Gustav III instituted original (surviving intact in only a few the order of Vasa, Pilo was among the first instances) texture of Pilo’s paintings would recipients. The artist’s fall from this estab- have interplayed with the effects of changing lished position was dramatic – intrigues, inter- daylight or flickering candlelight, and reflec- national politics, changing fashions in art and tions from mirrors, gilding and shimmering a rising Danish nationalism led to a series of fabrics. The technique was chosen in antici- events that ended in his expulsion. Back in pation of such effects, and part of the success Sweden, he was at first again unable to find of Pilo, and any other portrait painter of the work or patronage, but eventually found time, depended on producing paintings that himself professor at the Swedish Royal were not only satisfactory in themselves, but Academy of Arts, part of a friendly circle of also functioned within an interior – if not a artists at Gustav III’s court, and entrusted specific room, then almost always for a particu- with perhaps the most prestigious commission lar kind of room. Pilo’s brushwork is defined as of his career – a huge depiction of the King’s decorative, not illusory, and thus in itself part of coronation. the ornamental elements of the interior where While the outlines of Pilo’s life are clear, the painting was displayed. It is easy to agree several points remain uncertain, and the with Christensen, that Pilo’s handling of the same can be said for his development and colours, both as shades and as a three-dimen- practices as an artist. Preliminary drawings sional material, and his joy in the painting and sketches are very rare, and no documen- process, is what makes his otherwise often con- tation of the working process in his studio ventional portraits so characteristic. The tech- exists, though the names of several of his nique was also instrumental in bringing about assistants are known. While the broad the dreamlike quality to which the title of the outline of his development in style and tech- book refers. This is especially evident in his nique can be discerned through an analysis paintings of royalty, and Christensen pays par- of his work, few of Pilo’s paintings are dated, ticular attention to the artist’s portraits of Fre- and some attributions from his early years in derik V and his consort Louise (versions, e.g. in Denmark are still uncertain. Among Christen- Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, and sen’s reattributions to Pilo is a portrait of an Valdemars slot), and his much later, unfinished oculist (Russian State Museum, St Petersburg), painting of the Coronation of Gustav III. These hitherto given to Francesco Fontebasso; also, images do not aim to depict reality, but transfer she convincingly identifies the sitter as Cheva- the subjects and occasions to another sphere, lier John Taylor, eye specialist and supreme outside of time and place. self-advertiser, who arrived in Denmark in The Coronation is one of the many images and left for Russia in the following year. Gustav III commissioned to document his Even in photographs, Pilo’s extraordinarily reign. It is interesting to compare Pilo’s huge vivid brushwork – especially in the works canvas ( × cm) to Elias Martin’s from the s – still comes across as breath- (–) depiction of the christening of taking. Not least among the qualities of Gustav III’s younger son, the Duke of 118 HANS HAYDEN
Småland ( × cm, both Nationalmu- Merit Laine seum, Stockholm). The two artists and Department of Art History, Uppsala Univer- friends worked simultaneously on these paint- sity, Uppsala, Sweden ings, and they both used lighting effects to give [email protected] an otherworldly aspect to royal ceremonies and the church interiors in which they took place. For Pilo’s painting, Christensen convin- Silja Rantanen. Out of the Brackets: Genre as cingly argues an influence from Jürgen Oven’s Compositional Pattern in Contemporary paintings of the marriage of Karl X Gustav and Art, Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts of the Hedvig Eleonora, dating from the s University of Fine Arts, . pp, ISBN (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), as well as his ----. studies of Rembrandt’s art, which began to have an impact on his painting from the s. Silja Rantanen is one of the most eminent Despite a few mistakes concerning Swedish Finnish artists of her generation, recognized history, the wide scope of Drømmebilleder for her conceptual paintings based on struc- means that it can also be read as an engaging tural patterns and architectural elements. She introduction to many aspects of the cultural has also greatly affected both the Swedish history of eighteenth-century Scandinavia. It and Finnish art scene as Acting Professor is especially interesting to note the many simi- at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm larities of the building projects, patronage and in the mid-s and Professor in painting collecting of the court and élite of Copenhagen at the Academy in Fine Arts/University of and Stockholm. Influences and competition the Arts in Helsinki (–Present). Parallel within the arts between the old arch-enemies to the professorship, she also enrolled in Denmark and Sweden – including the taking the Doctoral Studies Programme at the of war booty in the previous century – was a Academy in Fine Arts, which resulted in longstanding phenomenon, but its continu- the doctoral thesis Out of the Brackets. ation and development in the eighteenth Genre as Compositional Pattern in Contem- century deserve further study. porary Art (Helsinki ). Pilo’s joy in painting is reflected in Char- Rantanen’s thesis is unique in the field of lotte Christensen’s writing; her biography of artistic research in Finland, since it consists the artist is an enthusiastic labour of love, of exclusively of a theoretical monograph – Pilo, of the Danish eighteenth century, and with no involvement of artistic practice per of the painter’s craft. Drømmebilleder is thus se. On the other hand, it is obvious that her not only instructive, but great a pleasure to vast experience as a practising artist has read. informed not only her interpretations of singular works of art but also her theoretical stance and her field of interest. Note The thesis consists of three parts: “Compo- . Jan Brunius, “Stockholms målareämbete intill -talets sitional patterns derived from modern art”, mitt”, RIG årg. , häfte , , pp. –,p., with “Compositional patterns shared by various reference to the minutes of the Painter’s Guild in Stockholm. artists”, and “Compositional patterns seeking