Jaget och världen speglade i förra sekelskiftets nordiska måleri: Bildkonstens människoskildring i en övergångsperiod

Summary The Representation of Self and the World in Scandinavian Painting Around 1900 While landscape painting in Scandinavian Realism and Symbolism has been widely discussed, paintings depicting human beings in the decades around the year 1900 have not received the same attention, although the differences in perception of life between the two periods are more clearly revealed in this kind of painting. In order to get a grip of the vast material and investigate the transition from Realist to Symbolist art, several strategies could be followed. One is to look at how man is depicted in relation to the elements, fire, air, water, earth. This study concentrates, to begin with, on how fire is represented during the two periods. In realistic paintings fire is almost always domesticated in the hearth, especially in cast iron fireplaces, i.e. represented as a utility and commodity. In Symbolism the fire is usually a log‐fire, functioning as a catalyst of emotions, of inward, melancholic moods. Another strategy wh...