En bonadsmålare och hans värld. Johannes Nilsson i Breared
(2000)- Abstract
- The aim of this dissertation is to find relationships between folk art, an artist's personal life and influential factors originating in the context. Christmas wall hangings by the peasant painter Johannes Nilsson (17571827) are the focus of the study. The fact that he had a special approach to the painting tradition raises two questions: Why did he paint the way he did? How can his hangings be interpreted? Theoretically, the hangings are treated as communicative. In the peasant environment, motif could be interpreted without the restraints of the iconography of fine arts. I regard the hangings as texts whose interpretation depends on the readers¹ background with respect to tradition, knowledge, context, ideology, and world view. In... (More)
- The aim of this dissertation is to find relationships between folk art, an artist's personal life and influential factors originating in the context. Christmas wall hangings by the peasant painter Johannes Nilsson (17571827) are the focus of the study. The fact that he had a special approach to the painting tradition raises two questions: Why did he paint the way he did? How can his hangings be interpreted? Theoretically, the hangings are treated as communicative. In the peasant environment, motif could be interpreted without the restraints of the iconography of fine arts. I regard the hangings as texts whose interpretation depends on the readers¹ background with respect to tradition, knowledge, context, ideology, and world view. In interpreting the originator's intention several perspectives are used: a biographical one involving his personal life, a contextual one involving tradition, religious ideas and world views of the time, and a genre perspective involving the art. Sources of information for historical reconstruction are added to the information found in the structure and style of the hangings.Being a man belonging to the class of peasants, Johannes Nilsson¹s personal records are brief. All the same, it has been possible to create a close-up view of his life. His professional development came late in his life, although he was very talented. He never married and he was perhaps the only person to make his living solely by producing wall hangings. Accounting for these incompatibilities is the fact that he suffered from epilepsy. He never learnt to read well enough to be a registered reader in the records, although he had great knowledge of the Gospel and knew how to write simple texts. The physical world around Johannes Nilsson was the parish of Breared in the province of Halland and the wide area where his hangings were in demand. Traces of the Breared context are found in his paintings. It was not a community of readers as many of the parishioners were illiterate like Johannes Nilsson. Therefore they preferred feast motifs and unsophisticated narratives of oral character. However, although Johannes Nilsson painted many of this kind of hangings, these were not the type of motifs that he himself preferred. His mental world was occupied with religious problems and he was influenced by revivalist ideas. The logic in his hangings points to the existence of of groups where these ideas could be spread, although there are no traces of such groups in th e material.Thus Johannes Nilsson used a traditional picture genre for preaching and edification in order to make people better prepared for eternal life. An analysis of the genre demonstrates that he made use of its inherent interpretive structures (the syntax) and that he made his main changes in the style of the hangings (the morphology). In so doing, he used the genre as a language to formulate new texts. (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Popular Abstract in Swedish
Studien behandlar den sydsvenske bonadsmålaren Johannes Nilssons måleri. Denne produktive målare levde och verkade i Breareds socken i södra Halland 17571827. En analys av hans bonader visar att han i många stycken frångick sina föregångares traditionella, imiterande framställning och begränsade motivkrets. Den övergripande frågan i avhandlingen är: varför målade Johannes Nilsson som han gjorde? Utgångspunkt för analysen är att Johannes Nilsson kom med något nytt, både vad beträffar motivval och gestaltning. Han hade något att berätta som måste uttryckas på ett nytt sätt. Vad det var han berättade och hur han berättade detta utgör fokus i avhandlingen. Kombinationen av Johannes Nilssons bonader... (More) - Popular Abstract in Swedish
Studien behandlar den sydsvenske bonadsmålaren Johannes Nilssons måleri. Denne produktive målare levde och verkade i Breareds socken i södra Halland 17571827. En analys av hans bonader visar att han i många stycken frångick sina föregångares traditionella, imiterande framställning och begränsade motivkrets. Den övergripande frågan i avhandlingen är: varför målade Johannes Nilsson som han gjorde? Utgångspunkt för analysen är att Johannes Nilsson kom med något nytt, både vad beträffar motivval och gestaltning. Han hade något att berätta som måste uttryckas på ett nytt sätt. Vad det var han berättade och hur han berättade detta utgör fokus i avhandlingen. Kombinationen av Johannes Nilssons bonader med olika källor (som kyrkliga och juridiska arkivalier, muntlig tradition, uppteckningar m.m.) med ger Johannes Nilsson liv och verksamhet en tydlig kontur. Vi vet att hans konstnärliga utveckling kom sent i livet, fastän han var mycket begåvad. Han var dessutom en av de få som enbart levde av sitt måleri. Avhandlingen kan visa att en anledning till dessa ovanliga förhållanden var att han led av livslång epilepsi. Det var en sjukdom som påverkade hans sätt att måla och sannolikt också hela hans livsinställning. Han var en from man, som i de kyrliga längderna var betecknad som analfabet och mindre kunnig i katekesen. Trots detta visar hans måleri att han väl behärskade både det skrivna ordet och evangelierna. En förklaring till denna paradox är att han måste ha blivit påverkad av den tidiga pietistiska väckelsen, kanske också av herrnhutismen. Sannolikt deltog han i en grupp av väckta. Hans måleri var till största delen religiöst. Men han målade inte bara för själen utan också för sitt bröd och gick i detta avseende sina beställares önskemål till mötes. Analysen av den samtida kontexten visar nämligen att bonaderna inte bara speglar upphovsmannens liv och tankar utan också berättar om hans samtid och det sociala sammanhang som han var del av. I hans egen socken beställdes många festbonader som har avsedda för att demonstrera status, något som av skilda skäl var speciellt viktigt i Breared vid tiden för Johannes Nilssons omvandling av bonadsgenren. Brearedskontexten medverkade därigenom till att skapa hans speciella stil, som utmärks av olika typer av sociala rangtecken och särskilt välmående gestalter. Tonvikten vid analysen av bonaderna ligger på motivens karaktär och bonadernas språkliga uppbyggnad, d.v.s. stilen och strukturen. Johannes Nilsson gestaltade människor och deras miljö på ett annorlunda sätt än tidigare målare gjort. Han omvandlade dekoren, så att den fick annan betydelse. Således var det genom förändring i stilen (främst estetisering) som han kunde ge sina bonader nya betydelser. Den meningsbärande strukturen i bonaderna rörde han däremot inte. Studien visar således hur en traditionell bildgenre kan förändras, vilka begränsningar som finns därvidlag och vilka överskridanden som är möjliga. Det står klart att Johannes Nilsson omskapade bonadsgenren efter sitt eget huvud och i syfte att predika om bättring. Han berättade därigenom om sig själv, sin tro och religiösa övertygelse, men också om sina i anden fattiga medmänniskor. Genom sin följsamhet mot sina beställare berättade han också om deras önskningar och deras sociala situation. Han var öppen för impulser från olika håll och kunde därför skapa nya berättelser som handlade om den dynamiska tid han levde i. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/19614
- author
- Berglin, Elisabeth LU
- supervisor
- opponent
-
- Ph D. Londos, Eva, Jönköpings Läns Museum
- organization
- alternative title
- A Peasant Painter and his World. Johannes Nilsson of Breared
- publishing date
- 2000
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- painted wall hangings, folk art, imitation, change, hermeneutics, historical reconstruction, biographical method, contextualization, social memory, illiteracy, narratives, genre analysis, revivalist ideas, Kulturantropologi, text, etnologi, ethnology, Cultural anthropology
- pages
- 286 pages
- publisher
- Elisabeth Berglin, Etnologiska institutionen med Folklivsarkivet, Finngatan 8, S223 62 LUND,
- defense location
- N/A
- defense date
- 2000-02-11 10:15:00
- external identifiers
-
- other:ISRN: LUHFDA/HFET--00/1037--SE+288
- ISBN
- 91-628-3830-X
- language
- Swedish
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c6ecff41-648d-4b21-a154-3de401ac9f38 (old id 19614)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-04 11:15:45
- date last changed
- 2018-11-21 21:03:42
@phdthesis{c6ecff41-648d-4b21-a154-3de401ac9f38,
abstract = {{The aim of this dissertation is to find relationships between folk art, an artist's personal life and influential factors originating in the context. Christmas wall hangings by the peasant painter Johannes Nilsson (17571827) are the focus of the study. The fact that he had a special approach to the painting tradition raises two questions: Why did he paint the way he did? How can his hangings be interpreted? Theoretically, the hangings are treated as communicative. In the peasant environment, motif could be interpreted without the restraints of the iconography of fine arts. I regard the hangings as texts whose interpretation depends on the readers¹ background with respect to tradition, knowledge, context, ideology, and world view. In interpreting the originator's intention several perspectives are used: a biographical one involving his personal life, a contextual one involving tradition, religious ideas and world views of the time, and a genre perspective involving the art. Sources of information for historical reconstruction are added to the information found in the structure and style of the hangings.Being a man belonging to the class of peasants, Johannes Nilsson¹s personal records are brief. All the same, it has been possible to create a close-up view of his life. His professional development came late in his life, although he was very talented. He never married and he was perhaps the only person to make his living solely by producing wall hangings. Accounting for these incompatibilities is the fact that he suffered from epilepsy. He never learnt to read well enough to be a registered reader in the records, although he had great knowledge of the Gospel and knew how to write simple texts. The physical world around Johannes Nilsson was the parish of Breared in the province of Halland and the wide area where his hangings were in demand. Traces of the Breared context are found in his paintings. It was not a community of readers as many of the parishioners were illiterate like Johannes Nilsson. Therefore they preferred feast motifs and unsophisticated narratives of oral character. However, although Johannes Nilsson painted many of this kind of hangings, these were not the type of motifs that he himself preferred. His mental world was occupied with religious problems and he was influenced by revivalist ideas. The logic in his hangings points to the existence of of groups where these ideas could be spread, although there are no traces of such groups in th e material.Thus Johannes Nilsson used a traditional picture genre for preaching and edification in order to make people better prepared for eternal life. An analysis of the genre demonstrates that he made use of its inherent interpretive structures (the syntax) and that he made his main changes in the style of the hangings (the morphology). In so doing, he used the genre as a language to formulate new texts.}},
author = {{Berglin, Elisabeth}},
isbn = {{91-628-3830-X}},
keywords = {{painted wall hangings; folk art; imitation; change; hermeneutics; historical reconstruction; biographical method; contextualization; social memory; illiteracy; narratives; genre analysis; revivalist ideas; Kulturantropologi; text; etnologi; ethnology; Cultural anthropology}},
language = {{swe}},
publisher = {{Elisabeth Berglin, Etnologiska institutionen med Folklivsarkivet, Finngatan 8, S223 62 LUND,}},
school = {{Lund University}},
title = {{En bonadsmålare och hans värld. Johannes Nilsson i Breared}},
year = {{2000}},
}