Marianne Ehrenström och hennes konsthistoria

Abstract

Summary Notices sur la Littérature et les Beaux‐Arts en Suède by Marianne Ehrenström née Pollet, was published in Stockholm in 1826. The book, written in French, is divided into three sections: literature, 157 pages; theatre and music, 79 pages; and finally painting and sculpture, 111 pages. The last section has been selected for attention in this paper. The authoress had a Swedish father and a German mother. In 1792 at the age of nineteen she came to Stockholm from Stralsund in order to be maid of honour to the queen dowager, Sofia Magdalena. Highly educated, she took an active part in the cultural life of Stockholm. In the course of events she became a pupil of the French landscape painter, Louis Bélanger, who came to the Swedish capital in 1798. She even exhibited some of her works at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where she was elected a member. Her contemporaries appreciated her talents and she was considered a rather gifted “dilettante” (cf. Joseph Acerbi. Travels through Sweden, Finland and Lapland to the North Cape I, London 1802, p. 167). When she first thought of writing about Swedish cultural personages it was only in order to provide a friend with information about Swedish poets and artists. But, according to the letter she herself wrote to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1826, she was encouraged by many interested notable persons to expand her work and to publish it. Marianne Ehrenström's book is not the first work gathering and binding together Swedish art as a whole. In 1817 Lorenzo Hammarsköld published a history of art, the last section of which is dedicated to art and artists in Sweden. His work, as well as articles and critiques in different publications were of great use and value to Marianne Ehrenström when she was searching for documentary support for Notices ... especially with reference to earlier Swedish art. However, interest in her work rests primarily in the fact that she presents many of the well‐known contemporary Swedish artists who are not mentioned in Hammarsköld's book. Her friendship with many artists as well as with their patrons enabled her to assemble facts and information, thus being able to give a rather good picture of how artists in the first decades of the 19th century were appreciated by most of the art lovers of their time. With great feeling and liveliness she describes many works of art thus compensating the reader for the lack of illustrations in her book. Generally she seems to be interested in the motif of a work of art, even if she occasionally tries to analyse her impressions and to give an observation of more technical nature. The Swedish contemporary criticism of Notices ... was in some cases rather severe; for instance, blaming the authoress for giving too much praise to everyone. The merits, however, were acknowledged in Sweden as well as abroad (cf. Revue Encyclopédique Tome XXXV, Paris 1827) where information on Swedish cultural life was not often mentioned. The book was also reviewed in Germany, in England, and as late as 1839 in Italy. In 1856 the French art historian, Charles‐Philippe de Chennevières, refers with delight to Notices ... (cf. Revue Universelle des Arts). There were other authors who did not openly refer to Marianne Ehrenström; still she was of great help to them in their own writings. The most flagrant example is given in J. P. Miller's Danish booklet, De skjönne Kunsters Tilstand i Sverrig published in 1831. A good part of the contents is borrowed word for word from Notices ... The French archaeologist, Philippe Le Bas, apparently consulted Marianne Ehrenström's book about Swedish artists and writers (cf. Suède et Norwège Paris, 1838), and Notices ... appears in the bibliographies of French books on art as late as in the 1920's and 1930's (cf. notes 169, 170). From then on and even today, naturally Swedish art historians also have cited or referred to Marianne Ehrenström's opinions on her own time and contemporary artists. This paper makes no pretense at being final or conclusive in regard to the enumeration and mention of authors of different nationalities who have found interest in Notices ... Nevertheless these references are perhaps sufficient to show that the living interest and enthusiasm that Marianne Ehrenström proved for Swedish art and Swedish artists a hundred and fifty years ago have finally imparted something of value to posterity. Apparently there was a great amount of work entailed and expended in the production of her book. It should be judged as the pioneer work it is, as an informative cultural document appropriate for its time, written during an epoch when literature on Swedish art still was very rare.