Johan Krouthén

In the painting "Ljungen," Krouthén's light painting has been replaced by the twilight painting of the turn of the century, inspired by Böcklin and Heidenstam's literary symbolism. One cannot help but think of the latter's poem "From the Thoughts of Solitude" when contemplating the current work:

"I long to go home, after eight long years.
In my very sleep, I have felt longing.
I long to go home. I long wherever I go
- but not to people. I long for the ground, I long for the stones where as a child I played."

Many of the artists who resided primarily in France during the 1880s truly longed for home. The artists sought to return to their roots and wanted to capture the specific character of their own landscape and give it a deeper symbolic meaning.

Provincialism became predominant in Swedish art.
When standing before Johan Krouthén's panoramic view of an Östgöta forest landscape, one is struck by its vastness. One can almost smell the pine and damp moss; the landscape becomes a symbolic image of the entire homeland. And that was precisely what the national romantics of the turn of the century sought to achieve. They wanted to move away from French influences and create a new landscape art on Swedish ground. The pine did not only grow on Swedish soil, unlike, for example, the southern pine; the pine also represented the Swedish character; the straightness of its growth, in will and character. The viewer should feel their smallness in the face of nature but also their connection to it. For the landscape symbolised the grand, the simple, and the relentless that rose before and above humanity and that would outlast her.

Humankind was no longer the centre of the world. But by being a part of nature, she became greater through nature's grandeur and power.

(from Procordias konst : ett urval av den svenska samlingen, text by Margareta Tamm, Stockholm, 1992)