Ernst Josephson was born into a middle-class Jewish Stockholm family on April 16, 1851. He died in 1906. By the age of 35 he had, in a traditional realistic form, created a body of the nineteenth century's most powerful works of art. Two years later, in 1888, he had burst the bounds of this form so radically that what he created after this point still seems more original than almost everything a later era has produced in its chase after new modes of expression. Picasso and Matisse became acquainted with a number of his drawings from this period relatively early, the latter through Isaac Grünewald; and thus Ernst Josephson's work achieved a general European influence whose effects are incalculable.

This relationship is amazingly little known outside Sweden; Josephson tends to be regarded as a local Swedish personality, who of course deserves all respect, but hardly occupying a central position in art history. This doubtless relates to the fact that only a few of his greater works have found their way into collections outside Sweden, and that it takes a very thorough study of his whole production to perceive that it really is at a level which makes such an influence possible. And if within the foreseeable future it were possible to get the loan of material for a larger Josephson exhibition, in this country for example, not only would the Norwegian public get a chance to make the acquaintance of one of history's finest and most remarkable artists, but one of the most valuable impulses from our neighboring country's artistic life could find fertile soil here, and thereby receive the admiration and devotion it deserves.

The most salient reason why Josephson's later production has such a decided anti-naturalistic quality is an outbreak of mental illness which took place in 1888. After spending some time in an asylum he was again able take care of himself, but the illness changed both him and his form of expression for the rest of his life. Normal enough, yes, in part calmer and more harmonious than ever before; he had quite simply become entirely different person. All the things which had previously engaged him — his strong sympathies and antipathies, his passion for a series of "causes," his loathing for the Royal Academy and his enthusiasm for the new "Oppositionists' league" — were as if blown away. Yes, even his years-long struggle to satisfy the demands of classicism and realism in painting ceased, and what folk might think of his pictures was a matter of complete indifference to him. In his dealings with people he was as cordial as could be, but for the most part utterly conventional; he rarely said more than a hearty "good day" or "thank you so much". Above all he wanted to have an unproblematical and conciliatory relationship with all, and went so far as to seek out old enemies to ask forgiveness for words spoken in past disputes.

For those who knew the adversary and warrior of old, his new Olympic serenity must have been utterly confusing. A vistor usually found him clad in tropical dress and a red fez. At such times he took care to maintain courtesy and good form, but showed no other interests than a transfigured and serene continuation of his old love of all classical art and literature. If he thought someone deserved it, he would sing Bellman's songs or read Shakespeare to them. When he went out in public he moved with dignity, smiling quietly like a disguised king who is enjoying not being recognized by his grateful people. And should he chance to be shown some works of a colleague, the once so critical master always found them "very good." All in all, it was clear that Josephson was no longer of this world.

In the long run his old friends, finding him difficult to approach, withdrew; and after a while he was so forgotten that when his work from the years before his illness finally gained recognition as unique in Swedish art, he was widely thought to be dead. He himself hoped only to earn a "bit of bread" from the opportunity, and continued in every respect to behave like a nice and patient child.

In reality his sights were fixed on something else altogether, and what went on when the gracious gentleman closed his door behind him would have astonished not only Stockholm, but the whole world. In the deepest loneliness and without models, he created an art so new that it anticipated the development of a whole generation.

With his sickness there had opened for Josephson a door to another world; here he got the content, and surely also the form, of countless drawings and paintings. Very soon he began to recreate those visions in his art: first a long series of drawings, in part executed with thin and supersensitive contours, and partly in a strange technique with thousands of small dots -- and later also in paintings of all techniques. Now he was experimenting without inhibition. Proportions and colors from outward sense impressions no longer played any role; figures and objects had the sole task of being expressive; oil paints were applied helter-skelter to copper, paper, wood and canvas. Josephson managed to elicit the most incredible effects from his material, always with the same sureness and sensitivity; and every time the result was a revelation of new and unexpected beauty.

It is as if all the previous years' constraint and self-discipline — the hardships, defeats, training and new studies, new disappointments, and always, always new exertions — were suddenly transformed into freedom. The old academic-aesthetic demands which he knew so painfully well, he no longer gave a thought to; at last he had acquired the courage and recklessness to purely and simply be himself!

One of the most peculiar things about Ernst Josephson's fate is that these qualities which after his illness took up residence in his art, had earlier been present in his life — and vice versa: What formerly had lived most strongly in his art, had now become an external life style. A striking lyrical sensitivity, paired with savagery and violence, a reckless sincerity and a wholly unconventional and "geniuslike" behavior were qualities which were typical for him until 1888. After the onset of his illness, one finds that the same features characterize his painting. On the other hand: The salient traits of his conduct in later life — the respect for tradition, the will to make everything the way it "should" be, a highly developed self-discipline, and an unbroken striving for the harmonic, the classical — were precisely what had been most characteristic of his earlier painting.

If one observes the part of Ernst Josephson's life and work from the period before the outbreak of illness, one will soon discover that it is neither more ordinary nor less interesting than the later work; it is merely, viewed superficially, less conspicuous. And a deeper understanding of his "expressionist" oeuvre is only thinkable if based on a knowledge of his "classical" period. It was the work of those years which made possible his later sovereign freedom; from his classical labors he acquired the maturity of taste and the formal mastery which gave him the confidence to rely wholly on himself.

He began at the Academy in Stockholm in 1868, at the age of 17; precocious as he was, he worked methodically from the very first hour to achieve his goal: to become "Sweden's Rembrandt." He must quickly have become clear about his unusual ability, but did not develop any kind of arrogance. On the contrary, he regarded it as a completely binding loan from the Creator, to be treated with a sense of responsibility, and which he would one day certainly be called to account for. From such a view only one conclusion can be drawn, and Josephson drew it: The next twenty years were filled with restless activity.

But it was not only painting which occupied him. Over the years he published three collections of poetry and wrote a number of articles. He was very well-read and broadly educated, which surely helped to form and ennoble his personality. Yet that is not the essential thing in the picture of his development. The essence was his insight into art's true mystery, and the fact that he took this mystery at its word in what it had to say to him. Josephson's life and work is proof that what matters is for the artist to give himself wholly — to stretch himself to the utmost at every stage of his development. He knew that he could not give more then what he had, and therefore it was important to give this fully and wholly. In practice he never let go of a picture before he had driven it up into perfect identity with himself, to the extent that he stood consciously responsible for every brush stroke. When he couldn't go on, well — then it was not the picture which was finished, but quite simply he himself who couldn't manage more. It was not in the picture, but in himself that the boundaries lay, and these boundaries he worked for twenty years to burst. He could work for months to knead the details into the right place in the totality, and in the right color relation to it. He toiled unto hopelessness and despair, and when he finally released the work, the surface of the picture looked like a mosaic of rough, lovely jewels.

I know no other pictures which speak so clearly of sacrifice as Ernst Josephson's. They are not paintings, but fragments of the very essence of painting. And they seldom seem quite finished; it is as if the goal he has set himself cannot be reached by human hands. Yes, as if even a titan must fail at it!

In addition to this struggle with the abyss, Ernst Josephson had to go through a series of external circumstances which finally forced him to his knees. Ignored, passed by, slandered, and finally lacking money for his daily bread, for the most basic necessities, the string finally snapped which had kept his attention fixed on earth and human beings;. During a stay on the island of Bréhat in France the sickness broke out. Sick, mistrustful and helpless he was brought home to Sweden, where he later found the strength to complete his work.

As a child in relation to people, but in the deepest harmony with the powers he felt himself accountable to, he wielded a brush just as masterfully as Cézanne, but more freely and joyfully.

The last thing heard from his mouth was neither words nor ordered sentences, just a couple of verses from a Swedish children's song. That was on November 22, 1906.

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Bibliographical references about Ernst Josephson:

John M. MacGregor, The Discovery of the Art of the Insane (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 226-231.

Bjørneboe's Moment of Freedom (158f) contains a discussion of Josephson's La Joie de Vivre (1887), painted shortly before the onset of his mental illness. The painting is in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.

This page added July 2001