Midvinterblot by Carl Larsson 1915 (Huge mural!)

April 20, 2020

Midvinterblot by Carl Larsson 1915 (Huge mural!)

"Before the final decision, both the board and Carl Larsson knew that the Minister of Education (at the time called Minister of Religious Affairs) was favourable towards the new painting. However, a majority of the board, including the former director Looström and his successor Richard Bergh, was against it, and only two were in favour. Instead, the board asked Larsson to make a different painting. Larsson did not answer initially, but he declared in the press that he still considered Midvinterblot to be among the greatest and most beautiful works he had ever made.

A book published by Nationalmuseum in 1992 on Carl Larsson claims that the most immediate and natural explanation for the ultimate rejection of the painting was the fact that time had rendered the painting unfashionable. Because of the long debate, the painting became a survivor from a time past and it could not meet the modernist ideals of the new century.

The final version was exhibited where it was intended to be in June 1915. In the following year, it was shown at the art gallery Liljevalchs konsthall as its first exhibit was dedicated to Carl Larsson, Bruno Liljefors and Anders Zorn. It was tentatively shown again in Nationalmuseum during the period 1925–1933. In 1942, the painting was stored at the Archive for Public Decorative Art (now renamed the Museum of Sketches) in Lund, where it was prominently on show for forty years.

According to the book by Nationalmuseum, the controversy concerned Carl Larsson's personal prestige and the ideals that he stood for, but his contemporaries would turn more and more indifferent to these ideals. The events embittered his last years and he declared in his autobiography that the controversy broke him down and that he admitted it with anger. It is clear that he began to identify himself with the work and it is possible that he also identified himself with the sacrificed king, as he primarily saw conspiracies and bad intentions behind the opposition. This identification was made apparent in his self-portrait, in 1916, where he presented himself as king Domalde, and which he donated to Sundborn parish where he lived.

During 1983–1984, the painting was exhibited at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm, and after this exhibit an art dealer offered to donate or sell the painting to Nationalmuseum. The board rejected the offer with the statement that the Old Norse motif was more appropriate for the Museum of National Antiquities, which at the time still shared the same building as Nationalmuseum. When the Museum of National Antiquities had been moved to a building of its own, the painting should be moved there too.

After this rejection, the painting was sold to a Swedish art collector who offered to sell it to the Museum of National Antiquities for 12 million Swedish kronor. This offer caused a controversy in which people debated if the painting belonged to Nationalmuseum or the Museum of National Antiquities. In this debate where there were exaggerations in both directions, people claimed that the painting was both an unsurpassed masterpiece of Swedish art and a work of suspect morality. In 1987, it was sold by Sotheby's in London to a Japanese art collector.

In 1992, Nationalmuseum celebrated its bicentennial anniversary and dedicated the exhibit to Carl Larsson. The Japanese owner lent the painting to the museum and when the 300,000 visitors of the late 20th century could see the work for the first time in the hall where it was intended to be, the general opinion changed.

In 1997, Nationalmuseum bought the painting from the collector ordered a frame for stretching the canvas from Per Målare, a carpenter in Gagnef, Dalarna, and installed it permanently where Carl Larsson had intended it to be.

-taken from Wikipedia