Carin Wastberg and the Swedish Arts & Crafts Movement

Carin Wastberg The Sun Goes Down 1902

In the late nineteenth century, Carin Wastberg was a forceful proponent of her native Sweden taking its major art and craft themes and ideas from the British Arts & Crafts movement, rather than continue with the dependence that Sweden placed in the traditions of German art and craft work.

Part of the shift away from Germany, was the re-awakening of a national interest in the historical traditions of Sweden, particularly within craft work. The movement towards a British style Arts & Crafts discipline within Sweden, triggered a revival of traditional techniques, particularly within furniture, textile and architecture design.

Wastberg helped to re-align textile art and design along British lines, but without a sense of dependence or borrowing of design styles from the British. She, along with other Swedish artists, designers and crafts people, tried to interweave the traditions of their own native culture and that of the larger Scandinavian regional culture, with the basic philosophies of the British Arts & Crafts movement. She also encouraged the exploration of nature, with particular emphasis on native flora and fauna, while at the same time introducing a much more contemporary, personal, and individualistic expression towards work.

Her 1902 embroidery hanging The Sun Goes Down, pictured above, is a case in point. It represents a frozen image of a very personal view of an evening sky, as experienced by Wastberg herself. The tradition of adding personal elements to textile work has always been fairly common, but to place the personal experience of the maker as the main narrative theme, was something fairly new, particularly within the tradition of applied arts.

Naturally enough, the criticism of the style propagated by Wastberg was fairly strong, and this piece in particular, found many critics struggling to make sense of what they saw as a bewildering and incomprehensible style, with very little in the way of traditional markers in which to comment.

However, there were supporters as well as critics, and this style of personal exploration within a medium, whether that be fine art or textiles, has now become commonplace and we are to thank artists like Wastberg, for both paving the way towards a more open and understanding appreciation of all forms of expression within the applied arts world, while at the same time helping to open up a whole new range of traditional Swedish crafts to the contemporary world. Those crafts became the foundation on which the the success of the modern Swedish style was based.

Reference:
Nordiska Museet, Stockholm
Karen Livingstone & Linda Parry (eds):- International Arts & Crafts (V&A 2005)