New acquisition: Studio Interior by Nils Forsberg
The Nationalmuseum Sweden
has acquired a painting by
The subject is an unusual
one for this artist: a studio scene featuring his own son. In the foreground we
can glimpse a green urn, believed to be identical to the urn by Nils Barck that
is now in the museum’s collection.
Nationalmuseum has added an unusual studio scene by
Nils Forsberg to its painting collection. The subject is a young painter, the
artist’s son and namesake, sitting in front of an easel using an upside-down
sculpture as a platform. Forsberg’s painting follows a long tradition of
self-portraits and depictions of artists that vacillate between conceit and
reflection in the face of death. The painting has also been interpreted as a
contribution to the contemporary criticism of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine
Arts in Stockholm.
Nils Forsberg led a dramatic life. After running away
from home and taking an apprenticeship with a painter in Helsingborg, he
attended the college in Gothenburg run by the Swedish Society of Industrial
Design. In 1867 he arrived in Paris, and he did not return to Sweden until the
early 1900s. In Paris, Forsberg studied under Léon Bonnat, one of the greatest
French painters of the time. During the Franco-Prussian War, he enlisted as a
medical orderly. His war experiences inspired his most successful work, A Hero’s
Death, which is now in Nationalmuseum’s collection. This
large-scale painting won the gold medal at the 1888 Paris Salon.
Nationalmuseum’s latest acquisition is entirely
different in character. It is painted on a relatively small canvas using fairly
simple techniques. It has been interpreted as a veiled criticism of traditional
fine arts education in the late 19th century, as offered by institutions such
as the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. The young man, taken to
be the artist’s son, Nils Forsberg junior, is sitting ostentatiously on a
plaster replica of one of classical antiquity’s best-known artworks, the Venus
de Milo. The sculpture may represent the values that the art academies stood
for, while the artist’s son embodies the future.
Forsberg’s studio interior is at once simple and
ingenious in its composition, with two intersecting diagonals. One begins at
the subject’s skull and ends at a large vase. The other unites the young artist
with the sculpture. The same objects also delineate different levels in the
space, pointing in different directions.
The green urn in the
foreground not only serves as a repoussoir to add depth to the image, but may
also symbolize a new era. It is believed to be identical to a unique ceramic
artifact, now in Nationalmuseum’s collection (NMK 30/2005), by the Swedish
artist Count Nils Barck (1863–1930). Like Forsberg, Barck lived in Paris and
was noted for his innovative work with glazes. The urn, produced at the turn of
the 20th century, is a clue that the painting must have been produced around
the same time. This late dating means that Forsberg’s painting cannot be seen
primarily as a contribution to the anti-establishment movement of the 1880s,
but rather as a taunting, unconventional portrait of the artist’s son.(Text: National Museum Sweden)