Art in Skåne

Indoors - in St Mary's Church, built in the 12th century with unique frescos in which Christ is enthroned on a rainbow with the Earth as a footstool. Or in Äspö Church, dating from the 15th century, where a fresco depicts Adam ploughing. The wording that meanders above Adam, with a whip and two horses pulling the plough, reads: "Må var och en hushålla sig fram som bonde, så bad Adam, plöjde upp till två oxars värde." which might be translated as "May each and every person progress with thrift like a farmer, thus did Adam ask, ploughing to the value of two oxen."

Skåne as the land of farmers. - At the end of the 18th century, Carl August Ehrensvärd, admiral and artist, wrote the following about Skåne: "Never anything but seed, livestock and sun in summer. Rain, wind and crows in autumn..." it is Ehrensvärd who is responsible for the famous characterisation: "a person from Skåne is ruddy face, well wrapped up and eating". His watercolours of the district around Tosterup give the undulating flat landscape a surprisingly impressive character.

Travellers
Ehrensvärd was an eager traveller, above all to Italy, to the South. "Swedish boys" in his opinion, "cannot be artists. The weather, the climate makes them children for far too long."
This belief was disproved by Malmö boy, Alexander Roslin, one of the 18th century's most important portrait painters, with an international career. Via the courts of Bayreuth and Naples, he reached the court in Paris where he was a great success and was given a studio of his own within the royal palace of the Louvre. He made it through the French Revolution and died at the age of 75 in his studio in Paris. The Malmö Konstmuseum has a self-portrait of Roslin in which he, with a certain friendly, satisfied arrogance looks straight at the viewer.

Another traveller with big ideas was the historical painter, Nils Johan Blommér, from Blommeröd in Skåne. His paintings from classical history can also be seen at the Malmö Museum, but his best known painting hangs in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, "Älvadansen" [the Elf Dance], in which it is easy to image that the wreaths of mist are from Skåne. Blommér travelled on a scholarship from the Academy of Art to France and Italy, and was regarded as very promising, but he died young in 1863.
Ten years later, the young artist, Carl Fredrik Hill, went to Paris hoping to win success and a good reputation. He had grown up in an academic home in Lund and had gone to the Academy of Art in Stockholm. "Ambition drives me to overexert myself and give myself no peace" he says, but he did not find success.
His paintings were not accepted for the Salon in Paris, that great barometer of artistic value in Europe, and he painted at a feverish tempo before suffering a breakdown after four years. He ended up in a mental hospital. He was diagnosed with hallucinations and paranoia.

Friends helped him get home to Sweden where he gained sanctuary at home after a short period in the St Lars mental hospital in Lund. There he was cared for by his mother and a sister for 28 years until his death in 1911. During these years, he drew four drawings a day in a flow of imagination that has fascinated people ever since. "The prince of whispers ... where the world glows in a blood-red struggle" writes Gunnar Ekelöf in a poem to Hill. In Lund, there is a memorial, a sculpture by Arne Jones which takes its form from one of the fantastic animals that Hill often drew. A huge collection of Hill's drawings are held by Malmö Konstmuseum, as are his oil paintings, which belong to the most beautiful works of Swedish art history. In retrospect, there is nothing wrong with Carl Fredrik Hill's success. In the Lund Register of Deaths in 1911, he is listed as a "former landscape painter".

New currents
At the end of the 19th century, many painters from Skåne made their way to Germany to study, but after the turn of the century in 1900, several of them met up in Paris and took on the new artistic currents. Berlin, with its Der Sturm gallery, was an important source of inspiration. The artists came home as modernists and futurists and cubists and surrealists, and aroused great annoyance. It took some time before Gösta Adrian-Nilsson, who signed his work GAN, became recognised. But Skåne took many of them to its heart and, from 1924, the group called 'De tolv' (The Twelve) had several successful exhibitions with names such as Johan Johansson, Emil Olsson and Tora Vega Holmström. There are many pieces in the Malmö Konstmuseum, which collects pieces so eagerly.

Several of GAN's paintings are also to be found at the Kulturen museum in Lund, and at the Landskrona Museum there is a donation from the painter Nell Walden, a member of the German group, Der Sturm. The exhibition provides a fine portrayal of the period.

Outside these groupings, staying close to their own place on Earth, artists like Hans Billgren and Gerhard Wihlborg were working at Löderup in Österlen. Their pictures and many works by other painters from Skåne can be viewed at the Ystad Konstmuseum, which has a large, exciting collection.

Emil Johansson-Thor found room for his objective naïvism in Sireköpinge. Gustav Rudberg depicted Ven, and graphic artist Gunnar Norrman the low sea-shore meadows in Lomma Bay.

Contact with the world
But the world was pressing in. From his many journeys, CO Hulthén brought Africa back to Skåne. Sailor Gösta Werner returned from the sea to Österlen to tell the story of life at sea. Now there is a Gösta Werner Museum in Simrishamn. Gerhard Nordström created strongly charged political art during the period of the Vietnam War.

The USA came to constitute more and more of an influence. John- E. Franzén painted Hells Angels and American city landscapes before returning to the Skåne countryside in the 1990s. He aroused amazed acclaim when he was given the commission to paint the Swedish Royal family.

The artist Hans Billgren's son, Ola Billgren, did not inherit his father's obsession with colour but discovered a documentary, new-realist narrative form in the 1960s, in which, by cutting things out unexpectedly, he created a remarkable tension in everyday rooms. Ola Billgren was inspired by photography, film, advertising images, pop art. But at the end of the 1970s, colour began to dominate and his large landscape paintings gained a different, romantic intensity.

Installations
Time to link back to the Ale Stones installation. In the opposite corner of Skåne, in the northwest, there is an installation in the same spirit as postman Cheval's famous Palais Idéal at Hauterives in France - a building with no purpose other than being a building. "Art Brut".

Down on an inaccessible beach in the Kullabygden nature reserve, Lars Vilks has built a magnificent meandering timber structure that could lead one's thoughts to the timber strongholds in Japanese samurai films. Vilks began dragging fallen branches to his building project in 1980 and has, since then, carried out a lively struggle against the advocates of the nature reserve who have been wanting him to pull it down. So far, he has been successful and Nimis has become one of Skåne's major tourist attractions, to the annoyance of the community.

Anyone interested in sensational installations and remarkable sculptures in a more orderly format, is encouraged to make their way to the Wanås Sculpture Park. Wanås Castle, in the Göinge district north of Kristianstad, has a history of being rebuilt many times ever since the 15th century.

From 1987, these have been constant since the park and many of its buildings have been opened up for an annual art exhibition. Many of the artists live in the castle while they build their works and an exhibition opens each summer. Some artworks are removed when autumn arrives, others remain, and now there are multiple artistic experiences when you walk through the castle park. It is an international exhibition, but over the years many artists from Skåne have taken part, such as Barbro Bäckström, Staffan Nihlén, Carl Magnus and Truls Melin.

The Museum of sketches
It is also possible to view several of these works in the form of sketches - at The Museum of Sketches in Lund, which provides a unique opportunity to follow the way the visual artists think through their sketches and models right up to the finished artwork.
For example, there you can see the models for the Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd sculpture "Non Violence" - the huge revolver with a knot in the barrel. And read on one of the sketches that it was sorrow after the death of John Lennon in New York that sparked the creativity for the world-famous sculpture that now stands outside the UN building in New York. There are also models for the "Raoul Wallenberg Monument" in New York by Gustav Kraitz but also - in the sculpture park outside the museum - the portfolio in bronze that lends perspective to the monumental structure of the pillars.

The museum is devoted to public art from all over the world. Among the departments are interesting ones for Mexican and African art, but most space is given over to Nordic art - here for example you can see the original of Lund professor, Oscar Reutersvärd's "impossible figures". Or see a stylish example of the famous black stone, diabase from 'Stenriket' (the realm of stone) in northeastern Skåne: sculptor, Gert Marcus' "Body and surfaces".

And now?
How is young people's art developing in Skåne? - "Well," say many people. A video artist such as Magnus Wallin in Malmö has already won international acclaim. And there is a lot of humour and vitality in the free mix of painting, drawing, sculpture, video and installations that we can see in our galleries and art institutions today. Young artists like Anna Svensson, Lisa Jeannin and Sirous Namazi have already had several acclaimed exhibitions. David Svensson's play on the design concept and Anna Wessman's speaking squirrel have astonished and delighted the public. It is not impossible that the young artists of today will be able to bring an end to the lamentations of people who go to view art exhibitions about installations and difficult video art. It is high time that happened.

JAN HEMMEL

Jan Hemmel is an arts journalist and has worked in Swedish Television as a producer, reporter and programme host.