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Between Nationalism and Scandinavism: Swedishness and Swedish Identity as Central Themes in the Visual Arts of the 19th Century and the Turn of the 20th Century

100%

Konopka E.

Studia Europejskie-Studies in European Affairs

2025

vol. 29

issue 2

229-250

In the mid-19th century, “Swedishness” and its representations became signiﬁcant themes in Swedish art. Owing to socio-cultural changes and political developments in 19th-century and early 20th-century Europe, artists were compelled to respond to the growing demand for the construction of national identities. This led to a search for “truly national” motifs rooted in history, folklore, and the Romantic tradition. In the case of Sweden, the “national” was derived from a shared Nordic heritage – not only from Viking history and medieval literature, but also from traditional customs and folklore (Facos, 1998). This Swedish–Nordic artistic identity emerged from the Romantic idea of Scandinavism (or, more broadly, Nordism) and was reinforced by the New Romantic or National Romantic painting movement at the turn of the 20th century, as Nordic characteristics were more readily recognised in this form by foreign critics (Parkinson, 2017). This article presents key ﬁgures in Swedish art and the creation of that of a Swedish national style in the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on landscape and genre painters. Special attention is given to artists interested in the regionalism of Dalarna, such as Carl Larsson and Anders Zorn. The aim is to examine how the concept of “Swedishness” evolved within a broader, contemporary context. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of Swedish national art from the 19th century to the early 20th century. The approach adopted in this article is the result of interdisciplinary research spanning art history, cultural history, anthropology (including studies on mythology), and Scandinavian literary studies. It draws upon established conclusions regarding national art in Scandinavia, as well as recent perspectives that reﬂect contemporary attitudes towards the representation of Indigenous peoples in the Nordic countries.

Nacjonalistyczna Szwecja

75%

Arnstberg K.-O.

Przegląd Humanistyczny

2018

vol. 62(2 (461))

61-68

Karl-Olov Arnstberg in the text Swedish Patriotism discusses the issue of identity and national consciousness in Sweden. The starting point for his reflections is the interview he had the opportunity to conduct with a doctor from Sri Lanka. He approached him as if he was a Swede, they both had a similar worldview, but his approach changed when the subject of conversation became the history of Sri Lanka. Arnstberg felt as if his interlocutor was so rooted in the past that the past, not the present created who he is now. The author of the text notices a parallel linking this situation with how the national consciousness of the Swedes was described at the beginning of the previous century by Selma Lagerlöf and Verner von Heidenstam. However, he notices certain regularity that “when the history of Sweden is written in a scientific and objective way, with a keen pursuit of truth, it is not only the history of Sweden that loses its social grounding, but it is also much harder to build a national identity on it”. What affects most the nation are fantastic heroes and fantastic events. Arnstberg emphasizes that he does not need his country’s history to build his identity. He refers to Peter Englund, a member of the Swedish Academy, who on the one hand wrote that ignorance of history may cause a lack of sense and identity, and on the other hand, he believed that historical events and heroes should not be used as justification for nationalism. His interpretation of Englund’s words includes two approaches to history. The first – modernist, which does not look at history in the identity context, and the second – nationalist, according to which knowledge of history is important for a sense of community with the rest of the nation. Further, the author of the text analyzes the concept of Swedishness, referring to the articles of other researchers. The examples he gives more blur the term than allow us to understand what it really means. He demonstrates, on the basis of nationalism, the paradoxes of Swedishness and even undermines its existence.

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1 Przegląd Humanistyczny

1 Studia Europejskie-Studies in European Affairs

1 Arnstberg K.-O.

1 Konopka E.

1 2025

1 2018

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Between Nationalism and Scandinavism: Swedishness and Swedish Identity as Central Themes in the Visual Arts of the 19th Century and the Turn of the 20th Century

Nacjonalistyczna Szwecja