Art Thoughts: The Scandinavian Mentality
Even in our globalized world, vision is culturally determined. I’m always amused when I speak about this painting by the vastly different audience reactions in North America and Scandinavia. When I ask Americans what they think is going on in this image, they invariably assume it’s a couple who has argued and are not speaking to one another. In other words, a hostile emotional vibe that contrasts dramatically with the peaceful nature that envelops the couple while angry thoughts swirl through their minds. In 1991, New York Timescolumnist Penelope Lively referred to it as a “Strindbergian outburst.” When I show this painting to Scandinavians and tell them what Americans think, they burst into laughter. Not because they think Americans are stupid, but because they unexpectedly realize that something that appears straightforward to them is interpreted contrarily elsewhere.
Richard Bergh was a Swede, so Scandinavians understand immediately his core idea: two individuals united in harmony with nature and each other on a summer evening in the Stockholm archipelago. No interpersonal conflict. In fact, just the opposite — a shared spiritual moment. Hence the chuckles of Scandinavian audiences.
In an essay about fellow painter Karl Nordström, Bergh asserted that “the landscape painter depicting nature embodies not only its spirit but also that of the age in which he lives.” The nature shown here is beneficent and tranquil. A nature that supplies berries, mushrooms, fish and game for food, plant fibers and animal skins for clothing, and stone, lumber, and sod for shelter. For peasants. For the ruling class, nature provides a site of contemplation and recreation, where they can read and row, swim and sail, picnic and party. More than anything, for Bergh and his contemporaries, nature provided a dramatic and therapeutic contrast to the city, to Stockholm circa 1900: quiet, not noisy; safe, not dangerous; sparsely populated, not congested. A refuge where one inhaled the aromatic perfumes of flowers, pine trees, and the sea instead of the dust of a city under construction, the fumes of factories in production, and the stench of a densely-packed urban environment without sewers.
The fact that this couple stands on the second story balcony of the main house of a country estate and not in the water, on the lawn, or in the woods suggests that they are ineluctably separated from the nature for which they yearn. The prominent, decorative balustrade emphasizes this separation, as does their elevation — they view nature from a magisterial perspective. Try as they might, the ability to experience oneness with nature has been socialized out of them. They can merge with it intellectually, imaginatively, but not actually, like the barefoot peasants they often envied. Their possibility of recuperating an unselfconsciously biomystical relationship with nature is no more possible than it is for adults to truly recapture the undifferentiated consciousness of childhood.
The pair who modeled for the painting were Prince Eugen, a painter-friend of Bergh and youngest son of the reigning king, and Karin Pyk, a Danish singer. They were merely friends of the artist and were never in a relationship. Together they stand in silence, their souls united in meditation on the tranquil nature surrounding them. Bergh spent a lot of time thinking about this composition and the relationship of the figures, as revealed by drawings he made in his sketchbooks. He considered several variations that situated the woman in an inferior position. In one, she leans against the man for support; in another she’s seated. Finally, Bergh, an ardent feminist and member of the intellectual circle led by Swedish feminist and socialist Ellen Key, decided on an arrangement where man and women were equals. They’re of similar height and comportment. The women is independent and strong. Beside one of his sketches for this painting Bergh scribbled: “Our feeling for life is truly experienced as long as we feel that our individuality develops uninterrupted.”
Bergh and the enlightened bourgeois cohort to which he belonged, fervently believed in the potential of socialism to improved society, ideas described by Ellen Key in her essay “Individualism and Socialism.” With the necessities of life assured by a prosperous society — food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, leisure time, and a fulfilling job — societal tensions would dissipate and individuals from all social classes could enjoy a sense of harmony, security, and contentedness. These values have led to all five Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden — to consistently rank among the top 10 happiest countries in the world, year after year.
Today, the owners of this idyllic estate enjoy exactly the same view. Despite modernization and seismic change in this late-to-industrialize nation, the core values celebrated by Bergh in Nordic Summer Eveninghave been internalized, guiding Sweden toward the egalitarian humanitarian society it is today.