Page 33 - Studio International - February 1971

Van Gogh's imminent breakthrough. It is also the tuning pegs arbitrarily until I found a found in his writing: intense expressions of his
in contradiction to Strindberg's own paintings, harmony which gave me an impression of personality, his view of life, his sentiments, but
which placed him a generation before his time something very bizarre ... I have known a without querulous speeches of defence and
so that today he is included among the musician who amused himself by tuning his pleadings.... An artist told me that if Strindberg
`moderns' as a pioneer. This is evidenced by piano completely at random. Then he played the painter is more interesting than many
his own words in The Son of a Servant (1884): Beethoven's Sonata Pathétique. It was an professionals it is because he is more exposed.
`One should paint from within, and not draw incredible pleasure to hear how this old piece This is of course correct, especially if one
trees and stones which are meaningless in became rejuvenated.... Here I have an idea considers that the ability to spend oneself
themselves and only acquire form through which I offer to the manufacturers of the recklessly is unusual and more significant than,
submergence in the melting pot of perceptions modern pianola. Make holes in the perforated
and feelings. Therefore no studies in the open paper here and there, at random, and you get a
air, but in the studio, from memory, and with musical kaleidoscope.'
fantasy.' Compare this with the words of In the same essay he writes about 'happenings'
Gauguin : 'Don't paint too much after nature. in sculpture: ... One day I had the idea of
Art is an abstraction. Discern it in nature by modelling a praying youth in the classical style.
dreaming in front of it and think first of all of As he stood there in front of me with arms
the coming creation.' upraised I began to dislike him and in a fit of
The Swedish critic, Gotthard Johanson, despair I let my hand fall on the head of the
writes in the catalogue to the Strindberg miserable clay. And look! A metamorphosis
exhibition in the National Museum in which Ovid could not have dreamed of. The
Stockholm, 1949 : 'Modern surrealism blow has compressed the Greek chevelyren to a
essentially established an artistic equivalent for Scottish tam o' shanter which covers the face,
the dream-play technique of Strindberg. the head and the neck sunk between the
Thomas Mann is right when he describes shoulders, the arms have slid down until the
Strindberg as the first surrealist in every sense. hands are level with the eyes and the tam
As such he is in the European avant garde.' o' shanter. The legs are bent, and the knees are
Another Swedish art critic, Gunnel Sylwan, touching. The whole thing has been
writes in the same catalogue: 'His name should transformed into a nine-year-old boy who is
come under the heading, "Pioneers of weeping and hides his tears with his hands. A
Expressionism".' She also shows how Gauguin few retouches and the statuette is perfect...
influenced Strindberg's painting during the sometime later I extemporised in the studio to
years of his third marriage : 'After that, my friends about automatic art ...'
Strindberg's palette becomes dark again'. Strindberg's photographic experiments and
Göran Söderstrom (1962) writes, 'Possibly the `celestographics' 2 and his work with crystal
contact with Gauguin, who himself denied all formations also reveal his capacity for
intellectual symbolism in his paintings, helped spontaneity and new creativity in colour and
to free Strindberg's paintings of his Paris period form. Finally accidental formations in nature
from the last remnants of literary content.' itself are seen as creative art; the head of Christ
But Strindberg went still further, as is in a rock, faces in flowers, pieces of coal in the
evident from his Vivisections first published in fireplace, 'masterpieces of a primitive form of
Sweden in 1958-46 years after his death! It sculpture'.
was written in 1894, just before the meeting Strindberg has been described as a naturalist,
with Gauguin, and was edited and printed in an expressionist, a romantic, an impressionist,
Paris in November the same year. One essay is a surrealist, an abstract painter, an automatist,
called 'New Art Forms, or Chance in Artistic and, one could add, creator of random art. He
Creation'. Here Strindberg anticipates what we was a pioneer in so many ways—but in spite of
call 'happenings' in both painting, sculpture this, when in the letter to Gauguin he refuses
and music : to write a foreword to his exhibition catalogue,
`The Painters call it the scrape of the palette, the only painter he can discuss is Puvis de
meaning that when the artist has finished his Chavannes and his painting, The Poor for example, maintaining a light palette...
work he takes what is left of the colours and if Fisherman: Strindberg's painting... allows us to feel the
he so desires makes some kind of random project `It was to Puvis de Chavannes my thoughts violence of his temperament and the intensity
or design... a charming mixture of conscious went yesterday evening when ... I looked at the of his sensitivity, so that we forget to look upon
and unconscious ...What results is natural art, walls in your studio with its confusion of sunny it as painting. In this context it may be of
because the artist works like capricious nature, paintings which pursued me last night in my interest to quote Picasso (in conversation with
without any fixed goal.' In a letter of the same sleep.' But we know that Strindberg also saw Zervos, Cahiers d'Art, 1935): "Academic
year he writes about his new art: 'The pictures Van Gogh's sunflowers, Cezanne's apples and education in aesthetics is a deceit. We are
are painted in a semi-darkened room and should the Odilon Redon—and yet, he has seen nothing. cheated, and cheated so completely that we can
not be seen in full light, but ideally by torchlight What was to come was as hidden (or concealed) hardly uncover the truth.... Art does not
or in a semi-darkened room. All pictures from him as much as from other art critics at employ a canon of aesthetics; art is what instinct
painted only with knife and unmixed colours that time. One is tempted to quote his own and brain can grasp beyond any canon... The
and a composition left mainly to chance, as the words in his essay, New Artforms: 'And now important thing is not what the artist does, but
whole motif...' tell me that art exists as a thing in itself!' what he is... What compels our interest is the
Here is his description of a 'happening' in However, it is in the 189os that Strindberg's restlessness of Cezanne; that is the teaching of
music. 'I tried to find a melody for a one-act own painting reaches its highest level. Knut Cezanne ! And the sufferings of Van Gogh, they
play, Samum, which takes place in Arabia. I Jaenson wrote in the Swedish Konstrevy, 1949: are the real drama of the man! All the rest is a
therefore tuned my guitar at random, I loosened `His paintings provide something rarely deceit."'
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