Oregon Humanities Fall/Winter 2007

Cover of Oregon Humanities Fall/Winter 2007
Kathleen Holt
EDITOR
Jennifer Viviano
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Leigh van der Werff
PUBLICATIONS ASSISTANT
Allison Dubinsky
COPY EDITOR
Editorial Advisory Board
Tom Booth
Brian Doyle
Debra Gwartney
Julia Heydon
Marianne Keddington-Lang
Guy Maynard
Win McCormack
Camela Raymond
Kate Sage
Linny Stovall
Rich Wandschneider
Curt Yehnert

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Reading Houses: Sundborn

In contrast to the dark grandeur of Zorngarden, on the other side of the Swedish province of Dalarna lies a different kind of house, one that sparkles with light, love, and creative joy. This house, too, began as a family cottage: a small, ugly building in the village of Sundborn that the nineteenth-century Swedish painter Carl Larsson and his wife, Karin, turned into a beautiful home. A look at the crafts room beyond a sliding door in the entrance hall tells us how: "This is a house of people who make art."

Here, we can tell, children were loved. In one room stands a wooden sculpture of Jishu, the children's god. In another, a long counter in a sunny bay provides a good study area. Carl Larsson painted portraits of his children in every available nook: Brita in Nightdress on the door of an old linen-press; Kersti Carrying a Bread-basket on the inside of a staircase door; Esbjorn on another door; Suzanne, Ulf, Pontus, and Lisbeth in The Day Before Christmas on one wall, Pontus on another.

The family often spent evenings in the library, reading aloud around the tiled stove, made locally in 1732. Larsson called the library a sanctuary. "I can almost say," he wrote, "that everything the human spirit has achieved may quite simply be taken down from these bookshelves."

Many of Larsson's paintings and sketches decorate the house, of course, but ego was not the point. A large sketch on one wall, for a mural at a local school, reveals portraits of family and friends who served as models. The numerous paintings and statues from artist friends are exuberant indications of warmth and friendship. Brief epigrams painted around the house suggest the good life: "Tell you what--be good and cheerful"; "Love each other, children, for love is all"; "Welcome, dear friend, to the house/Of Carl Larsson and his spouse."

Karin, also an artist, used her considerable talent for domestic enhancement. Among her weavings is the Sundborn blanket on her husband's bed. A Flemish tapestry of Pegasus that she wove from Carl's design hangs between their two bedrooms. Nineteenth-century spouses commonly had separate bedrooms, but this tapestry symbolizes connection, not division.

Standing in the light pouring through the wide windows of the drawing room, we can easily read in this vibrant house the happiness of its family.

--Diana Coogle

Published in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Oregon Humanities.

© 2007 Oregon Council for the Humanities