Lars Holberg
Lars Holberg, born in Skara, Sweden May 25th, 1884 and died 1936 in Målilla, Sweden at the age of 52, was a pharmacist. It was not until he passed away that he revealed his surrealist side. He had lived in two worlds; taken care of his daily responsibilities with pleasure and interest, mixing with his closest circle as the lovable and thoughtful gentleman, but when time allowed he went within himself, in his own fortressed world, where no one was allowed to follow him, closed the doors behind him, and spent time on his dearest occupation: to sort out his thoughts about people, life and death with form, paint, and words. Here he lived a life unknown to all others.
During his younger years in Gothenburg, Sweden he traveled in the Valand Society and probably could not avoid taking to Ivar Arosenius’ art, but he was too independent and different to be an epigone. He gave of himself and his deep thoughts.
He painted portraits and landscapes, beautiful things praised by others, and he also drew funny caricatures and every now and then a weird painting, but he was afraid that somebody might see them and never wanted to talk of his motives or in general about the problems he was wrestling with. Holberg never had any true friends; his introspective, individualistic nature would not allow that to happen. He loved the flowers at the market; saw in nature a picture of eternity, of pride and a godlike power.
He decorated his home with artistic taste, collecting beautiful antiques as much as he could afford and exposed in all an artistic being. Even after all this he did not want to go the artistic route, no matter how clearly his nature was pointing him down that road, and it is remarkable that he never had as much as one hour of lessons in drawing or color handling.
On the back of most of the papers Holberg wrote philosophical reflections and aphorisms, which more or less outline an explanation of the picture. For example, one picture shows an ethereal female character in yellow and dark red, gliding over flowering meadows, which are cut through by a deep blue river. A bridge runs over the river to a land, where red heart flowers dream. The other side reads: “The alphabet starts with A, probably for the sake of Adam, but I believe it starts with Å ("stream"). Imagine the stream and further ahead the island ([...]’s island). Strictly speaking we die as we were born, and are born as we died. The answer to the mystery is always death. Maybe it is because there is an Ö in death (döden), in any case it is hidden by a D. All are born to die. It is attention-grabbing that there is an Ö even in born (födas). Let us discard the D and the F in both notions. All that is left is destroy (ödas) – destruction (förödas). If you want to live, search for the deserted island”.
Accompanying the picture “Deaths embrace” he writes: “You death. You have enveloped them all in your embrace. If your embrace is warm or cold I do not know. One thing I know – You have picked them all, black as well as white”.
Another reflection reads: “I have sought’ but not found. I have felt like a coin, which was dropped, but never missed. When it is found, it is no longer valid. On the last picture, painted when he had the feeling the end was not to far away, he writes: “Futilities futility. All is futile. Fleetings fleetingness. All is fleeting”.
Holberg associates mostly with grotesque human types, that depicts suffering, angriness, greediness, resignation, distorted features, and oversized bodies, but the colors are always bright and warm. He was not lacking in colorfulness.
Professor Ragnar Josephson (1891-1966), professor of the History and Theory of Art at Lund University studied the Holberg artworks with great interest. And even he found them utterly remarkable. He summarized his impressions with the following statement: “According to what the relatives say, in his work and daily life pharmacist Holberg was a fully normal person. But the 100’s of watercolour and the many notes that he left behind bear witness of a fantasy life, which psychiatrists surely recognize from their clients. But if a sickness undeniably flows through his creations, this has though an interest of not only projecting itself to the sickly. In addition, there is one thing that should be observed: Holberg made copies from color photos of famous masters and in these he follows the pictures in a completely natural way, the copies bear witness that his eye and hand could function fully normal.
The original compositions on the other hand open an utterly strange and very macabre fantasy world. It is, one could say, a series of philosophical tablets, put forth in a colourful theatrical colour scale. The notes on the backside of the watercolours prove that the subject often was some thought about life or death that he wanted to give a viewable form. The meaning continues in most cases to not be understandable, but the pages sometimes posses an expressiveness that is so intensive, it fascinates. Holberg’s ability with body movement and mimic characterization can be strong and can make you forget the diligent handling, which of course is present. But first and foremost he shows himself as the artist in his best colour fantasies, which in all their disorganization still have a collected wholeness, which clearly can make you think of middle-aged illumination art. It is probably likely that Holberg mostly taught himself from illustrations and colour prints of different types, maybe English illustration art or John Bauer and Ivar Arosenius. A mix of something fairytale like and satire saturate his scenes. In the meantime he surely did not know of what we now call modern surrealism and that is why it is attention-grabbing to see the closeness that several of his pages show with surrealisms attempt to hold on to hallucinations and dream pictures.”
References
This article is based on a newspaper article published in unknown Swedish newspaper with no date.