201. GUSTAF FJÆSTAD (1868-1948). Sparkling lake.

Oil on panel, 69,5 x 73 cm. Signed and dated G Fjaestad 1944.

The cold bites into the cheeks and the air is fresh to breathe. The sun's meeting with the snow creates a sparkling blue-white color spectrum and the rolling snowdrifts covering the hill and rock make the landscape soft. The view is framed by twigs balancing small drifts on their thin crooked arms. In peaceful rest, the forest land lies under the protective mantle of winter, but in the stillness at the same time there is a devotional wait. A wait for the first leap that will leave traces in the snow, and for the sound of a branch breaking. The man who has stopped will gently glide by on his skis, grateful to have witnessed a perishable, almost secret part of nature's strange beauty.

This year Stockholms Auktionsverk has the honour of selling three magnificent winter motifs from Gustaf Fjaestad's production, “Sparkling Lake”, “Snow Landscape” and “Birches in Early Spring”. In the three works, with their respective mood and composition, Fjaestad has stretched his bow and demonstrated his ability to create a visual experience through technique and feeling. We are invited to see and experience enchanting views, as if we were there.

Rimfrost's master, the artist Gustaf Fjaestad, was born in Stockholm in 1868, as the son of Christina and Peder Fjaestad, both trained in the shoemaking profession. Peder became successful after being in Paris and had to supply Stockholm's upper layer with shoes. Christina contributed as much as she had time- the children's household was large with three sons and two daughters.

Love of nature and a longing to depict it, drew Fjaestad to painting. At the Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied between 1891-1892, however, he did not come into his own. Instead, he found courage in the ongoing National Romanticism in which landscape depictions were a central theme. In close contact with two of the Association of Artists's greatest representatives, Carl Larsson and Bruno Liljefors, he was able to see and learn from their freer landscape painting. Liljefors had Fjaestad assist in the work on the murals in the Biological Museum and Carl Larsson, likewise, in his work on them in the foyer of the National Museum.

Another side of Fjaestad's personality is that as an athlete. He was both a high level cyclist, skater and skier, and in many ways personified the strong outdoor movement prevailing in the era at the turn of the 20th century. In a healthy way, one would stay, discover and exercise in nature. The attitude is closely related to vitalism, which would also make Fjaestad's way of life and philosophy contemporary. Staying in nature and getting close to it contributed to creative power and a sense of a shared cycle.

In the 1890s, Fjaestad had primarily sought to visit Värmland for the sake of skiing, and then found the motif that would become his trademark, the forest in winter scrub. In his “snow painting” he often adhered to a picture room with a close-range plane and center zone. As a viewer, one thus gets close to nature, which makes it all the more captivating. He was careful with the contours of the snow and other elements, which corresponded well with the smooth lines of the Art Nouveau style.

About twenty winter motifs Fjaestad had had time for Stockholm's proud Art and Industry Exhibition in 1897. In this environment, where the latest in art and industry would be displayed, Carl Larsson presented Fjaestad to the young artist Maja Hallén, who after studying in Landskrona attended the Artists' Association's School of Painting. She exhibited textile art at the exhibition and the two, perhaps through their versatility and craze for nature, quickly took a liking to each other. The following year there was a wedding in Skåne, after which they headed up to Arvika where an invitation to stay was waiting from their friend, sculptor Christian Eriksson. In Arvikas they were met with a flourishing artisan spirit and would grow there as artists. Gustaf and Maja soon built their own house, Kampudden, and received a lot of visits from family and artist friends, many of whom decided to stay. Soon an artists' colony sprang up on the shores of Lake Racken, the Rackstad Group.

Fjaestad's decorative and at the same time monumental depictions of nature developed throughout his long career, but he still maintained his expression while representing his time through philosophy, lifestyle and aesthetics. In conclusion, the painting did not surprisingly impress an international audience. As early as 1912, by which time the organic Art Nouveau language had entered both pictorial space and architecture, the painting was described in the French journal, “L'art decoratif” no 168: “The brushwork is not an Impressionist brushwork, round or spotless. It always takes the shape of snow, the hundred varieties./.../The result is fabulously beautiful”.