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ARCHITECTURE.
409
9. the fine arts.
A national conception rather early made itself known in our
country within the precincts of Architecture and of Industrial art, but it
was not until the 18th century that Sculpture and, in a still higher
degree, Painting began to shake off the bands of a prevailing foreign
influence. It is from this time that Swedish national art derives its
origin. The originality of Swedish Music is, in some departments at
least, incontestable, and vocal music has in our country attained a high
degree of perfection.
Architecture.
The history of Swedish architecture begins with the establishment of
Christianity in the country during the 11th century. The primitive architecture, of
whose productions we find examples in the small country churches of
Vestergötland, experienced its first tendency to elevation at the erection of cloisters in
various parts of the country by the Cistercian order. The church of Varnhem
(illustr, p. 73) in Vestergötland — preserved from one of those foundations —
is the chief memorial of Romanesque art in Sweden and is secondary only to the
splendid cathedral of Lund (illustr, p. 266), a construction from the twelfth century,
comparable to the Rhenish cathedrals.
Most plentifully, however, the creations of Swedish medieval art are to be
found in Gotland. A whole-cast monument of this art is the city of Visby with
its mighty town-wall (illustr, p. 72) — still in good repair — its streets, its houses,
and its many churches, which latter, with one exception, certainly are fallen into
ruins but yet can be seen in a state of preservation complete enough to make clear
what once they were. These churches, belonging to the eleventh and following
centuries, the fourteenth inclusive, and representing all the phases of medieval
architecture except the låte gothic style — are each of interest by their original
composition. The oldest is the Helgeand Church, a peculiar central construction;
the most beautiful is considered to be St. Catherine (illustr, p. 410), built in
the early gothic style. In its rural districts, Gotland possesses quite a treasure
of churches, in perfectly good repair, from the same ages. Unpretentious in size,
they excite your surprise by their original designs, their well calculated
proportions, and their rich and characteristic details. The typical ones are independent
variations of the romanesque basilica and of the gothic hall-church with columns.
The most beautiful churches date from the thirteenth century and represent a
transitional style uniting the imaginativeness and elasticity of the gothic with the
calm plasticity of the romanesque style — a style of architecture so original and so
artistically put into effect that it is entitled to a name of its own: the Gotland style.
Among the works of gothic architecture on the mainland ought to be
mentioned: the splendid Cathedral of Linköping — begun during the romanesque
time but completed as a gothic hall-church, in the details of which Gotland
prototypes have been traced *; further, the Skara Cathedral and the Church of St.
Bridget’s nunnery at Vadstena (illustr, p. 75 and 264) — these, like all the other
edifices mentioned above, built of cut stone. A romanesque brick church will
certainly be found here and there in Skåne, but it was only with the gothic style
* Cf. G. Likboben’s History of Swedish architecture in the >Book of Inventions».
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