Page 32 - Studio International - February 1971

Strindberg and The Crucified c. 1896
Edvard Munch
the Arts Oil on canvas
8o x 12o cm.
Coll: Kommunes Kunstsamlinger, Oslo
2 August Strindberg
Tore Hakansson The Weeping Boy 1891-2
Clay
Height 21
Coil: Fru Hanna Palme von Born, Sjösa

This essay appeared originally as an introduction
to Strindberg's 'How to become an art connoisseur
in sixty minutes', published in Sweden in 1966 and
in translation in the October 1970 issue of Studio
International. The essay is published here in a
revised version.
Today, nearly 6o years after his death,
Strindberg's relentless confessions and
dissections of himself are truly representative
of the dilemma of modern man. It is no
exaggeration to say that the whole world is
involved today in an 'Inferno' crisis of the kind
Strindberg portrayed.
Modern psychology, based on biology and
ethnology, throws new light on the conflicting
instinctual and behaviour patterns which
Strindberg was expressing in the drama of
his own life, in his writing and in his art. This
is also true of his friends, Munch and Gauguin.
All three went through Inferno, created their
Golgotha paintings, symbols for the stresses
and the mental convulsions which are brought
about by our technological and cultural
development. We deal here with Strindberg
the artist and the art critic, from the point of
Strindberg's first meeting with Gauguin in discussions, guitar and piano music, and singing. the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists,
December 1894, when both were in Paris. Gauguin read aloud from his manuscripts for as well as providing a survey of what he saw
Noa-Noa and amused himself by dressing up as during his four visits to Paris. We can even
The divorce from his second wife, Frida Uhl, a cannibal chieftain from the South Seas. But identify some of the paintings he mentions;
had worsened Strindberg's mental condition, he soon used up his money. He received no `The Crowd on a Jetty' refers to the Steamer at
his 'Inferno'. His play The Father had just sympathy from the critics, and had his leg Folkestone by Manet, 'The Express Train' is by
received its premiere in Paris; The Defense of a broken in a fight. He decided to return to the Sisley, and 'The Wheels on the Street' refers to
Madman was in print, and he was much talked South Seas, and tried to sell his paintings to a painting by Manet. He also mentions Manet's
about in Paris. In the autobiography of Gerda make enough money for the journey. exhibition in 1885.
Kjellberg, the famous Swedish doctor and With the help of Strindberg's letters we can His opinions have not changed much since
pioneer of the suffragette movement, we get a reconstruct the following events : January II, his reports to the Swedish press on his first
good picture of the meetings between 1895, Strindberg is admitted to the Saint Louis visit to Paris in 1876, when he wrote, 'Six
Strindberg and Gauguin. hospital in Paris to have his hands treated for a landscapes, thin, red, blue, miserable, all the
The following describes Gauguin's studio, skin disease, and also perhaps for damage from same... I would like to introduce the word
which Strindberg often visited: two rooms with his experiments at making gold. He was "albino" in some form'.
chrome-yellow walls; a smaller bedroom and a discharged on January 31 and spent the evening I would like to emphasize that in spite of his
larger room furnished with old chairs, a sofa, a with Gauguin, who played the mandolin and long experience as an art critic, in spite of his
table made from packing cases with a cover, and guitar. Gauguin asked Strindberg for an well-developed capacity for judgment and his
a piano. The walls were covered with introduction to his exhibition catalogue and knowledge, in spite of his own experiences as a
reproductions of Cranach, Holbein, Botticelli, insisted upon getting it. The next day, painter in a naturalistic/expressionistic style,
Puvis de Chavannes, Manet and Degas, February 1, Strindberg visited the Musée de and in spite of his personal friendship with so
together with Gauguin's paintings from Tahiti. Luxembourg to look at the paintings of Puvis many artists of that time—in spite of all these
In addition there were a few original paintings de Chavannes, after being haunted by the qualifications Strindberg reacted only negatively
which Gauguin valued highly—and I consider it paintings of Gauguin in his dreams the previous and critically when he was confronted with
important to mention them : two sunflower night. The same day he wrote a long and paintings by Gauguin, Van Gogh, Redon, etc.
paintings, a landscape in magenta, and a self remarkable letter to Gauguin refusing to write `I can't understand your art and I do not like
portrait by Van Gogh, apples by Cezanne and an the introduction which Gauguin had requested. it... I have tried and I have made the most
Odilon Redon. Here in this studio Gauguin Gauguin replied to this letter on February 5 and sincere attempts ... but all in vain.' It is strange
held open house every Wednesday, and many then printed both letters in his exhibition that this visionary and revolutionary should be
poets, painters and musicians visited him. Tea catalogue in place of the proposed introduction.1 so convervative and conventional in his visual
and cakes were served, there were endless They represent Strindberg's reaction to both perception, so unsuspecting of Gauguin's and
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