Tusen år i Småland, IX (Ydre härad) (Thousand Years in Småland, IX [Ydre hundred])

A list of international artists, from the Middle Ages to the present day, who have been inspired by trees in general or fir trees more specifically could be endless. Böttcher is a recent addition whose work in the field has brought her fame and recognition. Born in Bruzaholm, deep in the densely forested parts of the county of Småland, she is aware of the mesmerizing beauty that can be found in the fir trees.

The aesthetic evaluation, and appreciation, of the untamed, wild landscape has been very varied over the centuries. This shows that the experience of nature is culturally conditioned and that humans can appreciate only what they are mentally prepared for. This also explains why some landscape types have lacked aesthetic relevance at certain times, but at other times have been considered new discoveries of great beauty.

Perhaps the clearest example of this is the wilderness landscape, which in the early 1800s, for the first time, came to occupy a significant place in Swedish and Nordic painting. An important reason for the popularity of the wilderness landscape was that during the Romantic period it acquired a clear national dimension as a symbol of Nordic strength and power. According to the nationalist philosophy of the times: the barren and harsh climate of the North had hardened its inhabitants to both physical and mental strength. This way of thinking, obviously, was intended to counteract the traditionally superior culture of southern Europe, which had been immensely idealized in Sweden during the late 18thcentury.

One famous example of the above can be found in the writings of naval officer, painter, author and neo-classical architect Count Carl August Ehrensvärd (Sweden, 1745 – 1800), a lover of Italian cypresses and hater of fir trees. One of Ehrensvärd’s illustrated letters (written when he was crossing the densely forested parts of the county of Småland), compared the rock formations of the regional landscape to human backsides. Ehrensvärd also famously, drew comparisons between these “rock bottoms” and the “unsophisticated” local peasants.

Before the 1700s, the wilderness had been considered ugly. Beauty was instead associated with the kind of nature that was useful to man: the sight of cultivated fields and gardens aroused pleasure in the beholder, while spruce-covered, untamed landscapes were associated with toil, discomfort and danger. When wild nature eventually was increasingly seen as a source of inspiration, foundations were laid for an aesthetic re-evaluation of the wilderness. This romantically tinged view began on the continent, as early as in the first half of the 18th century and was initially focused on the Alps. Frightening but also breathtakingly beautiful, the Alps embodied the notion of the sublime, an aesthetic category that had been introduced by the English philosopher Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797) in the work A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, 1757.

Ann Böttcher’s drawings are part of this unbroken chain which relates to the human experience of the sublime in the landscape and stretches back, at least, to the late 18th century.

The title of the work, Thousand Years in Småland, IX (Ydre hundred), appears cryptic and mysterious. What could be said, however, is that Ydre härad was a so-called “hundred” (an administrative district) in the county of Östergötland. The district corresponds to the current Ydre municipality (named after the district). The area historically measured 781 square kilometres, with a population (in 1920) of 7,464 people and covered an area between Lake Sommen and the border with northern Småland. Ydre is recorded, as far back as, in 1279 and the name probably derives from the old Swedish word “ydher”, which means “yew”. The name would then mean “the area where yew grows”, which makes perfect sense when you look at Böttcher’s drawing.

Provenance
Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm.
Firestorm Foundation.

Exhibitions
Liljevalchs konsthall (Liljevalchs Public Art Gallery), Stockholm, Market Art Fair, 17 – 19 May 2024.

Copyright Firestorm Foundation