Neoclassicism In The North

by Hakan Groth

When Crown Prince Gustaf returned from Versailles in 1771 to ascend the throne of Sweden, he was determined to give his country a leading place in Europe culturally as well as politically. The style he fostered -- Neoclassicism -- was itself an international movement; there are echos in the interiors displayed here of the Louis XVI and Empire modes. Pieces of furniture may reflect French, English, or German influences, or be copied from objects discovered at Pompeii -- but all are suffused by a distinctively Swedish freshness and the northern light.From royal salons to modest spatter-painted Biedermeier halls, Hakan Groth and Fritz von der Schulenburg open the doors on an astonishing sequence of interiors; some, intensely private, are little known even in Sweden. The evocative photographs, all specially taken for this book, present in detail the decoration and furnishings of twenty houses and apartments. The text traces the evolution of the Neoclassical style in Sweden, placing it in its wider European context, and explores each of the buildings and its history. Plans, and original drawings by the architects and designers, complete the picture.These beautiful interiors are of unique value today not only as treasure houses of superb craftsmanship but also as a stimulus to contemporary decorators, and as a reminder that an international language can be spoken in a delightfully personal way.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 1990

Reviews

[Dwayne Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theodore Dalrymple recently said (in correction of Sartre) that hell is other people's taste. We might allow an exception for Gustav III of Sweden, who brought Neoclassicism to Sweden and kicked off about a century of exquisitely refined royal, aristocratic, and upper-bourgeois interiors.

You can take this book for its subject - these interiors - or for its content, which is workmanlike prose in the style of a museum catalogue. Groth references a huge body of Swedish, French, and English sources to provide facts with minimal opinion or commentary. He's writing as a curator, not a critic, which is too bad (but perhaps appropriate to the aim and audience of these Rizzoli books.) The photos make up for the dry copy.

Paging through excellent photos of these salons produces a strange melancholy and loneliness. This entire class of people, to the extent that they were defined not only by their taste but also their place in time, is dead and gone. Their buildings are empty mausoleums for their desires, courtly dramas, and temporal power and aspirations. They were flawed humans, perhaps more given to vanity, egotism, lust, greed, and folly than others before or since. But in refined taste they were gods among men.

I'm glad they lived, yes, with all their selfish wealth and cultivated inclinations. These spaces-as-objets d'art are an inheritance for all of us, even if we can only access them through books and dreams and museum visits.

[Michael Heath-Caldwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous book looking at the development of the Neo-Classical style in Scandinavian countries.