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IV. EDUCATION AND MENTAL CULTURE IN SWEDEN.
prognostics from being experienced during the 18th century — the natal time
of criticism. As a teacher of good taste Olof v. Dalin (1708/63) appeared
already in 1736 with his »Thoughts about criticisms», and in his »Short
observances on Swedish art of poetry in our days» he laid down rules for the forms of
poetry. J. H. Kellgren (1751/95) towards the end of the century exercised a
still greater influence through his criticism in the »Stockholm Post» (from 1778),
about whom it became a saying that »he was the national wit and worked like
it». He emanated from Voltaire, whereas K. G. af Leopold (1756/1829), his
contemporary and brother in poetry, kept to the Englishman Locke, but in his
esthetic speculations he is weaker than in his quality as a mere philosopher.
Tomas Thorild (1759/1808) — the antagonist of both — was the arousing
game-cock of the new time. He emanated from Rousseau and adored Nature; he
opened new prospects for polite literature and gave utterance to truths proving
him to have stepped in advance of his time. His principal work in this respect
was »A Criticism on criticisms» (1791), where he is grand in views and brilliant
in style but also violent in self-sufficiency and in slighting his antagonists. The
neo-antique tendency (that of Sergei) had its esthetic, too: K. A. Ehrensvärd
(1745/1800), who in »The Philosophy of Arts» and »Travels in Italy» sets np
antiquity as the only actual ideal.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the philosopher Benj. Höijer (1761 /
1812) made his appearance; even earlier than the German Solger, who is
generally considered to have been the first, he had arranged an esthetic system of
note, with an exposition of the esthetic ideas, which is still of validity in onr
days. P. D. A. Atterbom (1790/1855), in standing up for the rights of
imagination and feeling within the precincts of poetry and art, and as the chief man
of the »New School», excercised a great influence on the remodeling of the
esthe-tical ideas. His opinions he laid down in his criticisms and in »Seers and Bardi>
(1841/55). L. Hammarsköld, mentioned above, has worked in the same
direction, mostly by criticism. A contemporary of Atterbom was the philosopher
S. Grubbe in Uppsala (1786/1853), who has written lectures on »The Philosophy
of the beautiful and of art», distinguished for a sound perception and a clear
style. The successor of Atterbom at Uppsala, B. E. Malmström (1816/65),
worked as a teacher principally in the department of history of literature, but
in his posthumous »Esthetic treatises» he places himself chiefly on the standpoint
of Hegel, and as a model he put the classical ideal highest. His colleague in
Lund, G. Ljunggren (born 1823), has also devoted himself chiefly to history
of literature, but his »Comparison between Ehrensvärd and Winckelmann as
philosophers of art» and his »Exposition of the principal esthetic systems», which for
many years has served as a text-book in Lund and Uppsala, entitle him to a
place here too. Likewise Viktor Rydberg (1828/95), who during his lectures at the
Private University of Stockholm (from 1889) went through the theory of art, its
origin and development, and who, besides, has often sprinkled his writings with
deep and well expressed thoughts about the beautiful and its manifestations in
poetry and art. C. R. Nyblom (born 1832) has published »Contents and form
of Art», a critical dissertation, »Principal ideas of the doctrine about the beautiful»,
an attempt at empirical esthetics, and — in the Encyclopedia Nordisk
Familjebok — the articles on »Humor» and »Irony», »Comic» and »Tragic». At the side
of him may be mentioned the Uppsala men: D. Klockhoff (1840/67), who wrote
»About pantheistic esthetics» (1864) and »About the tragical» (1865); I. H.
Solander (1843/82): »Theistic esthetics in Germany» (1866); K. A. Melin (born
1849): »Guilt in tragedy» (1875); F. v. Schéele (born 1858): »The doctrine of
Grubbe on the beautiful»; and E. Petrini (born 1856): »Zimmermann’s theory
about the general forms of esthetics» (1889).
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