Helmer Osslund

In the 1890s, Swedish artists returned to their homeland after spending time primarily in France. The artistic climate abroad had hardened, and they longed to return to their own countryside, to their own nature, which they considered an expression of the Swedish national spirit. Anders Zorn drew his motifs from Dalarna, Carl Wilhelmson from the West Coast, and Prince Eugen from the Stockholm area.

Helmer Osslund returned to the landscapes of his childhood by the Indals River. He would depict the grand northern nature throughout his life. With broad, expressive brushstrokes and a saturated colour palette of blue/green and terracotta/orange, Osslund constructs his landscape. The entire colour planes are delineated by horizontal or diagonal, undulating Art Nouveau curves. The horizon line is high, as is the viewpoint. This is the language of synthetism, which Osslund had become acquainted with as early as 1894, when he briefly worked in Paul Gauguin's studio. He had also practiced the technique of painting with oil on grease-proof paper during his early study years in Paris. It was inexpensive, easy to apply, and gave the paint a special luminosity.

Osslund never became a friend of exclusive painting materials. Throughout his life, he would use grease-proof paper, glued onto cardboard or linen canvas. Often, the canvas was an old sheet from home, and the glue was cooked by his wife Dagmar. If the composition needed to be expanded, he would simply glue on a new piece of paper. This gave the image an extra ruggedness and enhanced the experience of the stark, northern Swedish landscape, with its desolate expanses, vast untouched forests, wide rivers, and dramatic mountain skies.

He gathered his painting tools, along with whatever else was needed for life's necessities, in a sack, and with this on his back, he would hike up the mountain. "Some free fantasies painted from so-called memory must absolutely not occur. The motif must be in front of you, whatever you paint," he said.

In the painting "Autumn by the Indals River," the right side is vertically interrupted by a tall, gnarled tree in an S-curve. This expressionistic stylistic device is typical of Helmer Osslund and recurs in many works. The surface effect of the pine needles enhances the impression of the deeply situated river landscape. Similarly, the slope to the left, in a classical manner, increases the sense of depth. Unusually, Osslund has included a small building in the lower centre of this painting. The cast shadow falls long and desolate against the autumnal slope.

Stylistically, Helmer Osslund stood between the members of the Swedish Artists' Association and the more radical Matisse students. However, his sense of form and colour became significant for later Swedish landscape painters, among them Leander Engström and Kalle Hedberg.

Text: Margareta Tamm for Procordia's art collection