Severin Nilson

In the same way that Severin Nilson's famous "Den lille kungen i Oktorpsgården" (sold for 920,000 SEK at Bukowskis in spring 2005) represents the artist's foremost depiction of folk life, the painting in this auction is one of the artist's absolute finest portrayals of nature. Both works demonstrate what an outstanding painter Severin Nilson was at his best. In the auction's painting, the artist successfully combines the atmospheric richness of plein air painting with mood values more commonly associated with the national romantic art that would later come to dominate the Swedish art scene.

From a young age, Severin Nilson showed great artistic talent, which attracted attention in the impoverished environment of his upbringing in the rural Halland region. Thanks to the local dean arranging for patrons from Gothenburg, he was able to begin his studies at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm in 1865. During his academy years, Severin Nilson received numerous accolades and in 1870, he was awarded the royal medal. At the Academy, Severin met Ernst Josephson. Despite their very different backgrounds, they became very good friends and through Josephson, Severin Nilson gained a broader cultural education. Not only art, but also literature and music became regular elements in their fruitful discussions. Between 1869-71, the two friends spent summers together in Mariefred, where they had ample opportunities for both plein air painting and more frivolous pleasures with the local young ladies.

In the autumn of 1873, Severin Nilson and Ernst Josephson travelled together to Paris. Here, Severin became a student of Leon Bonnat for three years. This prominent French artist, who was a close friend of both Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet, had once studied under Eugène Delacroix. Bonnat preached not only naturalistic accuracy but also instilled in his Swedish pupil the importance of painting his subjects on location, a concept that at the time was far from self-evident for most artists.

That Severin would heed Bonnat's advice upon returning to Sweden is evident from the auction's painting. It is a work characterized by a strong sense of presence, while the seemingly modest subject is enhanced by the artist's sense for both mood values and composition. Through the central elements of the motif, in the form of the blushing sky, the fragile birches striving upwards, and the beck's softly suggestive movement towards the viewer, the painting is animated and becomes a symbol of Swedish nature and the Swedish soul. In this respect, it can be compared to distinctly national romantic works like Otto Hesselbom's "Vårt land", but where the latter is permeated by the national pathos of the turn of the century, Severin Nilson's work is instead marked by genuine natural lyricism. It is undeniably more Fröding than Heidenstam in Severin's depiction of Swedish nature.

Severin's flowing interpretation of the beck's movement patterns also brings to mind Ernst Josephson's Näcken motifs. Here we see evidence of the significance that the acquaintance with Josephson had for Severin's ability to deeply empathize with the innermost essence of nature, even though Josephson's view of the rushing water as nature's purification source for sinful man may not have been as relevant for the more harmoniously inclined Severin Nilson.