Gustaf Fjaestad

Few artists have, like Gustaf Fjaestad, managed to depict the beauty of the winter-clad Swedish landscape. In his paintings, the artist expressed an almost transcendental interpretation of the untouched Swedish nature's aesthetic qualities and values of beauty. One of Fjaestad's biographers, Agneta Fjaestad Nordmark, speaks of "a sense of intimacy", "as if this very place were 'one's own' private spot". It is easy to agree with this statement when observing the current painting at auction. Somewhere at the intersection of nature lyricism and symbolism, the Värmland forest motifs are portrayed with artistic clarity and richness of detail. After Fjaestad's death in 1948, the signature "Felix" wrote in Arvika Nyheter: "With his exquisite masterpieces, he had brought joy throughout his long life. He discovered the beauty of winter, and all his art filled with genuine atmosphere has enchanted us." This quote aptly summarises the inherent qualities of Fjaestad's artistry. Gustaf Fjaestad painted his and his countrymen's love for the cold for the rest of the world, and he could do it like no one else. In a letter to his wife Maja, he describes his deep inspiration on a winter's day: "the snow lies so beautifully on the ground, and Good Lord, how beautiful the forest is." In L'Art Decoratif, a critic described Fjaestad's winter motifs in the following way: "Here we have the recurring Swedish winter in a very limited area, the winter that one endures daily and does not merely observe from a sleigh. The winter that is as passionately loved as the sun is cherished by the southerner and that tempers both body and soul just as Fjaestad himself has been tempered. Is this not the essence of Sweden?"