John Bauer (Swedish painter and illustrator) 1882 - 1918
The Princess in the Forest, s.d.
gouache on paper
35.5 x 40 cm. (14 x 15.75 in.)
signed JOHN BAUER (lower left)
private collection
Catalogue Note Sotheby's
Swedish artist John Bauer was influenced early in his career by the work of Albert Engström and Carl Larsson--and by his extensive travel through Lapland, where he recorded its unique flora and fauna and, later, Italy, where he completed sketches after Renaissance art. Between 1907 and 1915, Bauer's illustrations for a Christmas annual of fairytales, Bland tomtar och troll (Among elves and trolls) reached readers throughout Sweden and abroad, securing his reputation for highly imaginative works based in the region's narrative traditions. Bauer continued to translate fairy stories into many artistic media from large frescoes, to stage plays, and a libretto for the ballet Bergakungen (The Mountain King). The present work may have been inspired by Bauer's time spent in the Småland forest, though this highly stylized depiction of silvery trees, a glassy pond, and a sylvan maiden seems less botanical study than a fantastical, decorative vision. Indeed, the picture's uniformly receding perspective lines, from water to trees to mossy banks, create a stage-like setting for the maiden, perhaps the Princess Tuystarr, who appears in other gouaches by Bauer, and for whom his wife Esther served as model. The artist's theatrical compositions inspired several notable composers, dramatists, and the famous Ballet Russe choreographer Michel Fokin (1880-1942). In 1918, after a jealous dispute with Sergei Diaghilev over the increasingly significant influence held by Vaslay Nijnsky at the Ballet Russe, Fokin moved to Sweden, where he met the artist and became a connoisseur of Bauer's work which may have inspired future ballets of princesses, goblins, and other magical creatures and elaborate stage sets of deep forests, mysterious caves, and mountain realms.
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John Bauer is known in Sweden for his beautiful, mysterious and evocative fairy tale illustrations. Best known is the tale of the princess Tuvstarr and Skutt the Moose. The Moose takes the princess from the Dream Castle meadow to the great forest. There she meets elves who take her crown away from her. Then the witch of the woods steals her silk dress and in the end the deep tarn takes her golden heart. The princess does not want to leave the pond, but stays with her ??heart and lose because of that both mind and memory.
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