The Painted Home as Heritage: Fanny Brate and the Home at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

Summary

This article brings attention to the Swedish painter Fanny Brate’s paintings of domestic and family scenes from the turn of the nineteenth century. Brate is an artist who has been both marginalised by art history writing and museum curating and the creator of a body of work that has engrained a Swedish psyche. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, her art has resurfaced on the art market and museum walls. Brate’s paintings capture a key moment in cultural history and heritage: the Swedish home with a light blond décor and blissful family life. In this article, Brate’s work and its reception over the twentieth century is compared to her contemporary Carl Larsson's related painterly themes, a comparison which unravels values and politics that have caused her relative marginalisation. What is of interest in this article is how representations of domestic environments have different receptions partly due to the gender of the artist and further, how this theme can cast some light on the complex relationship between canon formation and cultural heritage processes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Ingmar Bergman, Fanny och Alexander, Sweden, 1982.

2. Nils Edling, Det fosterländska Hemmet, Stockholm, 1996; and Ellen Key, Skönhet för alla, Stockholm, 1899.

3. See for example, Robert Shannan Peckham, Rethinking Heritage: Cultures and Politics in Europe, London, 2003, in particular Donald Preziosi, “The Museum of What you Shall Have Been”, pp. 169–181.

4. Judy Attfield and Pat Kirkham (eds.), A View from the Interior: Feminism, Women and Design, London, 1989.

5. Charlotte Bydler and Katarina Wadstein MacLeod, Kulturarv: Att skapa historia för framtiden, Stockholm, 2015.

6. There is a vast amount of books and research in Sweden and internationally on Carl and Larsson amongst which can be noted: Torsten Gunnarson, Carl Larsson, Stockholm, 1994; and Per I. Gedin, Jag, Stockholm, 2011. Apart from Sundborn, the home of Carl and Karin Larsson open to visitors are some noteworthy exhibitions: Carl and Karin Larsson Creators of the Swedish Style, at Victoria and Albert museum, London, 1997; Carl Larsson at Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm, 2009. The research on Karin Larsson has also emerged and to be noted are Lena Rydin’s Karin Larssons värld, Stockholm, 2011; and Per I. Gedin, Karin! Karin! Karin! Min engel! Brevväxlingen mellan Karin och Carl Larsson. Ett urval, Stockholm, 2013.

7. L. D, “Tio Konstnärinnors utställning”, Dagny, No 3, 1901, p. 72.

8. There is a wide range of literature defining cultural heritage, for example, Robin F. Rhodes (ed.), The Acquisition and Exhibition of Classical Antiquities: Professional, Legal and Ethical Perspectives, Notre Dame Ind., 2007; James Cuno (ed.), Whose culture? The Promise of Museums and the Debate over Antiquities, Princeton, 2009; Laurajane Smith, The Uses of Heritage, London and New York, 2006; Colin Long and Sophia Labadi (eds.), Heritage and globalisation, London and New York, 2010; Rodney Harrison, Heritage: Critical Approaches, London and New York, 2013; and Rodney Harrison (ed.), Understanding the politics of heritage, Manchester and Milton Keynes, 2010.

9. Peter Aronsson and Magdalena Hillström (eds.), Kulturarvens dynamik: Det institutionaliserade kulturarvets förändringar, Norrköping, 2005.

10. “1 § Äldre svenska och utländska kulturföremål som kan vara av stor betydelse för det nationella kulturarvet, får inte föras ut ur landet utan särskilt tillstånd. Lag (2000: 265)”, Kulturmiljölag (1988: 950) (changed (2000: 265) and (2013: 548) for a painting to be considered national cultural heritage it must be more than 100 years old, or have resided in Sweden for more than 100 years, and be valued to more than 50,000 SEK.

11. For the complexity of the concept ‘heritage making’ in relation to art history, see for example David A. Brewer, “Making Hogarth Heritage”, Representations, No 72, 2000, pp. 21–63.

12. David Lowenthal, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History, Cambridge, 1998.

13. David C. Harvey, “Heritage Pasts and Heritage Presents: Temporality, Meaning and the Scope of Heritage Studies”, International Journal of Heritage Studies, No 4, 2001, pp. 319–338.

14. Laurajane Smith, “Heritage, Gender and Identity”, in Brian Graham and Peter Howard (eds.) The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, Hampshire and Burlington, 2008, p. 160.

15. Smith, 2008; and Bruno Latour, “The Berlin Key or how to do words with things” (1993), Paul Graves-Brown (ed.), Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture, London and New York 2000, pp. 10–21.

16. See for example, Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museum, London and New York, 1995; and Nanette Salomon, “The Art Historical Canon: Sins of Omission”, (1991) in Donald Preziosi (ed.), The Art of Art History, Oxford and New York, 1998, pp. 344–355.

17. Gender Equality, Heritage and Creativity, UNESCO, 2014, www.unesco.org 2014 (accessed June 21, 2015).

18. Brate was since the 1880s an avid painter of nature studies in the Jules Bastien-Lepage and the Barbizon school style. She trained in Paris in 1887 and 1889 and travelled in Germany, Denmark, Norway, England, Austria and Italy and was since 1891 a member of the Swedish Artists Union (Svenska Konstnärers förening) and konstförbundet, G. J-n, “Nationalmuseum hyllar Fanny Brate”, Svenska Dagbladet 30/10 1943; and Gustaf Näsström, “Fanny Brates Minne: Fredagsvernissage i Nationalmuseum”, Stockholm tidning, 30/10 1943.

19. Michelle Facos, “The Ideal Swedish Home: Carl Larsson’s Lilla Hyttnäs”, pp. 81–91 in Reed 1996.

20. Mademoiselle, “Svenska konstnärinnors höstsamkväm”, Idun, No 50, 1912, Brate exhibited with 18 Swedish artists (amongst others Axel Törneman and Ivar Arosenius) at the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1906, Vibeke Röstorp, Le Mythe du Retour: Les artistes scandinaves en France de 1889 à 1908, Stockholm, 2013, pp. 274–276.

21. In 1998, Brate’s paintings were included in De drogo till Paris, Liljevalchs 6/8 – 6/11 1988, and have at times been on display in exhibitions in Nationalmuseum for example De fyra årstiderna, 21/6 2011– 27/5 2012.

22. For a discussion on the relationship between heritage practice and market value, see Katarina Wadstein MacLeod, “The Market Value of National Cultural Heritage”, Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, No 3, pp.139–152.

23. Examples of auction house sales for Brate: Nature study 1925, sold at Bukowskis 2010 for 4500 SEK; Net binder1932, for sale (unsold) at Bukowskis 2009; Playing children 1893, sold at Bukowskis 2007 for 80,000 SEK; Flower still life, (no year) sold at Vasa Konst, 5000 SEK (no year); The Young Farmhands 1898 sold at Christies London, 2000, £2800; Tulip (no year) sold at Bukowskis 2001 for 26,000 SEK; Girl Reading at a Window, 1899, sold at Bukowskis, 2007 for 725,000 SEK; Sleep well, baby in pushchair, 1889, sold at Stockholm Auktionshus 2007 for 20,000 SEK; Artist’s friends, 1985, sold at Bruno Rassmussen 1992 325,000 SEK, unsold Bukowskis 2012 opening price 1,500,000–2,000,000 SEK. As a comparison note sales of top ranking Swedish artists works: Anders Zorn’s painting Sommarnöjet is listed as Sweden’s most expensive painting, sold for 26 million SEK in 2010. Erica Treijs, “Zorns Sommarnöje såld för 26 miljoner[SEK]”, Svenska Dagbladet, 3/6 2010; Lennart Nilsson, “Zorns ’Sommarnöje’ blev Sveriges dyraste tavla”, Expressen, 4/6 2010. In 2013, Bruno Liljefors’ paintings reached record prices, Jorun Ingre, “Liljefors dyraste”, Konstvärlden, 11/6 2013.

24. Näsström 1943.

25. “Mammas namnsdag”, Jultomten, No 13, 1903, p. 8; Hemma i konsten, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 1987, pp. 149–151.

26. Torsten Palmér, “Fanny Brate”, Svenskt Konstnärslexikon, Johhny Roosval et al. (eds.), Malmö, 1952, p. 234 “Genom sin kärleksfulla inlevelse i den vardagliga miljön och genom sin klart realistiska tendenes äger B.s Konst inte minst ett betydande kulturhistoriskt värde: sekelskiftets kultiverat högborgerliga tidsmiljö har i denna fått en kongenial tolkning”; K. W-n (abbreviated signature), “Konst”, Ord och Bild, 1892, runeberg.org (accessed September 5, 2012).

27. Jultomten 1903.

28. Näsström 1943.

29. The signature G. J-n writes that the retrospective exhibition fits in with the Museum’s drive to uncover forgotten artists, mentioning an earlier exhibition where the work of Amanda Sidwall was ‘rediscovered’, G. J-n 1943.

30. As an example of a popular way of describing Brate as a painter like Larsson depicting her own home environments and as being surrounded in her work and life by her children, see Birgitta Höijer, “Fanny Brate”, Christina Lindeqvist (ed.), Järnladies. Bergslagen, 2011, p. 132–141

31. Ellen Key, Beauty in the Home (1899), Lucy Creagh, Helena Kåberg and Barbara Miller Lane (eds.), Modern Swedish Design: Three Founding Texts, New York, 2008, transl. Anne-Charlotte Harvey.

32. For a comment on Brate’s art, see e.g. Adolf Hellander, “Kvinnorna på utställningen, i Konsthallen”, Idun, No 29, 1897, pp. 230–231.

33. Key, 2008, p. 34.

34. Sidlauskas, 1996, pp. 78–79.

35. Motion 2009/10:Kr308: Kultur för lokal, regional och nationell utveckling, §16:1, riksdagen.se (accessed May 9, 2012). ‘Över landet finns en mängd platser som bär historiskt och kulturella värden, delar av vårt kulturarv. Det kan vara allt från konstnärshem som Carl Larsson-gården, fornlämningar eller gamla kyrkor’. Another example of the symbolic representation of homes from the turn of the nineteenth century is Karl-Erik Forsslund’s novel Storgården, 1900, a romantic view on life in the countryside amongst artists and free spirits away from the urban slum and industrialisation. Storgården is another home represented in fiction and media, just like Larsson’s Lilla Hyttnäs, that seeped into the public consciousness. Bo Sundin, “Ljus och jord! Natur och kultur på Storgården”, Tore Frängsmyr (ed.), Paradiset och vildmarken: Studier kring synen på naturen och naturresurserna, Stockholm, 1984, pp. 320–360.

36. Reed, 1996, p. 3.

37. Virginia Wolf, A Room of One’s Own (1928), London, 2004.

38. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949), London, 1997, pp. 467–469.

39. Jo Freeman, “Building the Gilded Cage” (1969), in Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone, Radical Feminism, New York, 1973.

40. On the situation for Brate and contemporaries see for example Beatrice Zade, “Fanny Brate – Familjelyckans konstnärinna”, Svenska Journalen, No 48, 1943, see for example, Agneta Pauli, “Marriage”, Cher Monsieur – Fatala Qvinna, exh. Cat. Stockholm, 2009, p. 55 and p. 68; Ingrid Ingelman, “Women Artists in Sweden: A Two Front Struggle”, Womens Art Journal, No 1, 1984, pp. 1–7.

41. Anonymous author(s), “Konsten att möblera ett hem 1”, Idun, No 16, 1897; “Konsten att möblera sitt hem II”, No 20, 1897, pp. 157–158, article continued in No 21, 1897, pp. 166–167; Isa, “Ett modernt hem”, Idun, No 45, 1897, pp. 359–360; and Ellen Key, “Skönhet i hemmen”, Idun, 1987, p. 4.

42. Linda Nochlin’s “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists”, (1971) Women Art and Power, New York, 1989, pp. 150–178, is one of the most cited art historical texts pointing towards the gendered conditions of producing art. The social consequences for production is centrefold for numerous analysis of women artists in Swedish art history, as in Margaretha Gynning, Det ambivalenta perspektivet: Eva Bonnier och Hanna Hirsch-Pauli i 1880- talets konstliv, Stockholm, 1999; and Anna Lena Lindberg, En Mamsell i Akademien: Ulrica Fredrica Pasch och 1700-talets Konstvärld, Stockholm, 2010.

43. Griselda Pollock, “Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity”, Visions of Difference: Femininity, Feminism and Histories of Art, London and New York, 1988, pp. 50–90.

44. Facos, 1996.

45. For example, Laura Lungar Knoppers, Politicizing Domesticity from Henrietta Maria to Milton’s Eve, Cambridge, 2011.

46. For examples of international contemporary reception of Larsson, see for example, Holmes Smith, “Modern Painting in Sweden”, Modern Art, No 4, Autumn, 1896, p. 108. See also Elisabeth Luther Cary, “Scandinavian Art”, Art and Progress, No 4 Feb., 1913, pp. 851–857; Brinton, “Two Swedish Artists”, Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, No 1, Jan., 1927, p. 11.

47. Anna Lena Lindberg, “Stå på piedestal - eller konkurrera”, Kvinnor som konstnärer, Stockholm, 1975, s. 106 see also Axel Friberg, Karin. En bok om Carl Larssons hustru, Stockholm, 1967; Gedin, 2013. For a view on how Larsson’s misogyny was perceived by his contemporary, the artist Eva Bonnier, see Cavalli-Björkman, Eva Bonnier – ett konstnärsliv, Stockholm, 2013.

48. See for example Mark B. Sandberg, Living Pictures, Missing Persons, Princeton and Oxford, 2003.

49. Jürgen Habermas, Borgerlig offentlighet, (1962), transl. Joachim Retzlaff, Lund, 1984.

50. Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors and Passages”, (1978) in Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays, London, 1997.

51. Joan B. Landes, “The Public and the Private Sphere: A Feminist Reconsideration”, in J Mehaan (ed.), Feminists Read Habermas: Gendering the Subject of Discourse, New York & London, 1995, p. 98.

52. Seyla Benhabib, “Feminist Theory and Hannah Arendt’s concept of public space”, History of the Human Sciences, No 6, 1993, p. 102.

53. Ronny Ambjörnsson, Ellen Key: En europeisk intellektuell, Stockholm, 2012, p. 440.

54. Ambjörnsson, 2012, p. 143 and pp. 166–167.

55. Anthea Callen, “Sexual Division of Labour in the Arts and Crafts Movement”, in .P Kirkham and J. Attfield (eds.), A View from the Interior: Feminism, Women and Design, Minnesota, 1989, p. 154, See also Joan Scott, “The woman worker”, in Geneviève Fraisse, ‪ (ed.) History of Women in the West, Volume IV: Emerging Feminism from Revolution to World War, Massachusetts 1993

56. Callen, 1989, p. 158.

57. Callen, 1989, p. 160.

58. Iris Marion Young, Intersecting voices: dilemmas of gender, political philosophy, and policy, Princeton, 1997. For a comment on this book see for example Christine Di Stefano, “Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy, and Policy, by Iris Marion Young”, Political Theory, 29, No 3, 2001, pp. 469–478.

59. Carl Larsson, Åt Solsidan: en bok om boningsrum, om barn, om dig, om blommor, om allt : taflor och prat, Stockholm, 1910, p. 3.

60. T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, in The Sacred Wood (1921), www.bartleby.com (accessed July 14, 2015).

61. See for example Michel Hunter (ed.), Preserving the Past: On the Rise of Heritage in Modern Britain, Stroud, 1996.

62. Walter Benjamin, “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century”, Reflections, translation Edmund Jephcott, New York, 1986, pp. 155–156.

63. Michel Foucault, “The Order of Discourse”, Robert Young (ed.), Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, Boston Massachusetts and London, pp. 51–78.

64. Bydler and MacLeod, 2015.

65. “Huvudparten av vårt kulturarv idag är producerat av män medan kvinnors insatser glömts bort. De senaste åren har kvinnor i och utanför kvinnorörelsen påbörjat arbetet att återskapa kvinnans historia, att ge kvinnorna en historisk identitet” Lindberg och Werkmäster, 1975, p. 7.

66. See for example, Smith, 2008; and Wera Grahn, “Intersectionality and the Construction of Cultural Heritage Management”, Archaeologies, No 1, 2011, pp. 222–250.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Stiftelsen för Kunskaps- och Kompetensutveckling.