Rain, rain…Easter Rain. But inside, indoors – there is much to be seen and contemplated this week of exhibitions and art work. And good food, and good thoughts. I will be spending this week with my children and plan to visit some nice exhibitions as well. In fact, some of my photos will be up too. Exciting…
More reportings from the exhibitions later…
Wishing you all a Happy Easter!
For Ailsa’s Travel theme this week – Colours!
In the header, the tunnel of film story in Sweden.
Lhasa, Tibet…
…and Spring of course!
Our little town is right now the lucky host of the only exhibition of Carl Larsson’s art outside Dalarna and Sundborn. A visit to this tiny, but exquisite, exhibition was on the menue today. Our 39th wedding anniversary.
Carl Larsson (28 May 1853 – 22 January 1919) was a Swedish painter representative of the Arts and Crafts Movement. His many paintings include oils, watercolours, and frescoes. But, when we think of Carl Larsson – we first of all think of his watercolours of his wife, children and home at Little Hyttnäs, Dalarna.
He considered his finest work to be Midvinterblot (Midwinter Sacrifice), a large (6-by-14-metre oil painting completed in 1915) painting now displayed inside the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts.However, this great work was at first rejected by the board of the museum, and later sold to Japan. The fresco depicts the blót of King Domalde at the Temple of Uppsala. Decades later, the painting was purchased and placed in the National Museum, on the wall it once was intended for.
Carl Larsson was born on 28 May 1853 in the old town of Stockholm, at 78 Prästgatan. His parents were extremely poor, and his childhood was not happy. His father told the young boy that he ”cursed the day he was born”. A younger brother of Carls´ was the much loved son, but he died at an early age. Throughout his life, CL could never forget his father’s words…and…
…with him was forever the wish for being loved. Much loved.
And he found his great love in another young artist, Karin Bergöö, whom he soon married. Together they worked in perfect harmony – he painting and she designing and working mostly with textiles. She bore him 8 children.
Through their paintings and books, Little Hyttnäs has become one of the most famous artist’s homes in the world. The artistic taste and harmony of its creators made it a major line in Swedish interior design. Despite its controversialness to the style of the time. The descendants of Carl and Karin Larsson now keep the house open for tourists each summer from May until October.
My favourite Scottish horses – the Kelpies at Helix Park. For more views, click the link.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: View from the Back, Bottom or Underneath
From Cheri this week’s challenge – Atop
…I really felt I was, and my daughter too – in New Zealand and in Norway
.
Imagine a lady dog barking at my best friend…and he doesn’t say a word against her. Does not answer. Just keeps playing along in the wild game…Maybe Totti is a bit like the giant flower terrier in Bilbao – a cool beauty.
In Umeå, where my daughter is studying, there is a 170 meter long glass wall in the railway tunnel (2012) decorated with some 30 quotes from the works of author Sara Lidman (1923-2004)- Lev!(Live)
She was born in the village Missenträsk and raised in the Västerbotten region of northern Sweden. She studied at the University of Uppsala when she contracted tuberculosis. She achieved her first great successes with the novel Tjärdalen (The Tar Still) and the novel Hjortronlandet, where she depicts themes such as alienation and loneliness.
Sara Lidman is one of the most important writers of the Swedish language in the twentieth century. Especially because of her innovative language and imagery, Biblical but also integrating the worldly and the spiritual. She also wrote extensively on political subjects, always with a strong feeling for the poor, against war and colonialism, pornography and the misuse of our natural environment. She engaged in protest against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.
Picture provided by and thanks to Wikipedia.
Kiruna is the northernmost town in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland in Norrbotten County. Inhabitants – about 20 000.
Esrange Space Center was established in Kiruna in the 1960s, and they also have the Institute of Space Physics.
The re-development of Kiruna is a reconstruction project, as the Kirunavaara mine, run by LKAB, undermines the current town center. Several buildings, including Sweden´s most beautiful church and the famous Town Hall, are to be moved or demolished. The whole town center is to be moved 3 kilometers to the east.
The ground deformations became apparent in 2003, and the redevelopment started in 2007. The moving of the town was started in 2014 and is expected to be finished by 2100. According to the plan, there will be a denser city centre with a greater focus on sustainability, green and blue infrastructure, pedestrians and public transport rather than automobiles.
Walking the empty streets at night, the snowy silence is almost visible, touchable, embedding you in cotton cold. I wonder how the people here really feel…knowing most of them will have to leave their homes and their familiar surroundings for something they have not chosen themselves. A great piece of history will be lost, and I guess a piece of Lapland´s soul as well.
”Jokkmokk’s Market has a long history and is considered to have a four hundred-year unbroken tradition. Permanent marketplaces near the Sámi’s winter settlements were established by the Swedish crown at the beginning of the 17th century in all the Sámi Lappish territories on both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia. The purpose was to strengthen the state’s control of the population in the north as well as to collect taxes, hold legal court and spread the Word of God. Planning a market in the Lappish territories during the coldest time of the year had several advantages. The Sámi were gathered in their winter settlements in the forest area with winter grazing for their reindeer and the frozen waterways constituted magnificent roads for the merchants, state officials and men of the church.”
http://www.jokkmokksmarknad.se/visitors/history/
”Renrajden” is every year led by Per Kuhmunen and his family. It takes at least a year to tame the reindeer as much as needed to follow their leaders through the market place and let people touch them. At the Snow Scene in the middle of the market place, they sometimes let themselves be interviewed and photographed in the traditional Gákti. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A1kti
The Sámi people have always led a harsh life, and today they also have problems with the global warming that hits hard up north. As the weather wavers between warm and cold, the ground will get icy and the reindeer cannot find food enough. Last year some 30000 reindeer starved to death in northern Russia.
Per Kuhmunen and his family comes back every year to Jokkmokk’s Market. Today they are met by film cameras and ordinary cameras, radio and TV. But they seem to enjoy it.
Between Old and New.
Leya 
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