Good evening, Kibitzers! In keeping with my usual method of hunting diary content, I had a look through the internet listings for today’s date. A lot of times, I can’t pick only one thing, and end up with a bunch of YouTubes, but this time, I noticed that one of my favorite artists, Carl Larsson, was born on May 28, 1853. And since this year marks the centennial of his death in 1919, there’s even a certain amount of current interest surrounding his work.
I learned of Larsson from my mom. It’s not surprising she’d alert me to an artist. Larsson, however, is regarded as Arts and Crafts school, which wasn’t her favorite style. It’s one of my favorites, but Larsson is not run-of-the-mill Arts and Crafts either. He’s best known for watercolors of his family and their domestic life in the Swedish countryside. By good luck, his work is now in the public domain and I can share some of it here.
Carl Larsson had an unhappy childhood of severe poverty. He found an exit at 13 when a teacher recognized his talent and encouraged him to apply to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. He ultimately excelled, and was able to get work as an illustrator and caricaturist that paid enough for him to help his parents.
He moved to Paris in 1877, because he was an artist and those are the rules. However, he didn’t like Impressionism, and mostly associated with other Swedish artists. He turned a career corner when he moved to a Scandinavian artists’ colony in Grez-sur-Loing, met and married another Swedish artist, Karin Bergöö, and started to work in watercolor instead of oil. Karin also worked as an interior designer, and his paintings of her interiors, featuring their growing family, were very well received.
In 1888, her father gave them a small house in Sundborn, Sweden, called “Lilla Hyttnäs” (“Little Hyttnäs”), which they furnished and decorated in their characteristic style. Because of his copious depictions of the house, it became one of the world’s best known artist’s homes, and its style was very influential. The house, now called Carl Larsson-gården, is still owned by the Larsson family, and is open for guided tours. I encourage you to look through the house’s website if you like his work — there are many photographs of the house and garden that will look familiar to fans of the paintings.
It was hard to pare down the list, so you get a lot of paintings to look at if you like. (Where painting titles are links in the captions, the link goes to this site, where you can click on the painting and enlarge it as much as you like. A few aren’t found there, so have no link.)
My Kibitzers, my weather forecast is nowhere near as scary at that of folks to my west, but I see (late Monday night) that “large hail” and “locally damaging winds” have potentially crept in there for Tuesday afternoon and evening. So, fair warning, I am scheduling this diary, but if I fail to show up, that will most likely indicate the now-usual power outage rather than a quick trip to Oz without leaving home. Carry on, and I will be here when I can!
If you are in the New York City area, why not join us for DK’s Ian Reifowitz’s book-launch event on June 5th? Barnes & Noble Union Square, 33 E 17th St, New York, NY. (Between Broadway and Park Ave. South). More detail here.
Yet a third hurricane season starts June 1, and Puerto Rico is still struggling to recover.
It is Day 615 since Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico.
PLEASE FOLLOW Denise Oliver Velez and the SOS Puerto Rico group for the latest news about developments in Puerto Rico and the USVI (new diary here regarding the start of another hurricane season). Denise generally collects resonant tweets at the top of her comment threads, as well, and in the APR’s thread most mornings, to make it easy to retweet. If you tweet or FB, please share something about Puerto Rico and USVI regularly.
PUERTO RICO and USVI DISASTER RELIEF DONATION LINKS
The Daily Kos community has its own project: Puerto Rico resident Bobby Neary (newpioneer) leads a small team dedicated to helping a specific rural elder who was left by the storms without power, water, a roof, or any belongings but a moldy mattress. If you like to see concrete results, this is the project for you. See newpioneer’s diaries for ways to help. See this one in particular, and this comment with photos. See also his lovely and heartbreaking poem, and his recent tribute to the island.
(🌅 = most recently recommended by Denise)
|