#stringberg

[art-gazer]

Cy TWOMBLY, Untitled (Bassano in Teverina series) (1985), 

Cy Twombly Foundation © Cy Twombly Foundation, courtesy Archives Nicola Del Roscio

                                    VERSUS

August STRINDBERG 

Sturm in den Schären (1892) / Statens museum for Kunst (Copenhagen)

Wonderland (1894) / Nationalmuseum Sweden

Mysingen (1892) / (Location ?)

In the years ranging from 1892 to 1894, a period of intense pictorial activity spent between Berlin, Dornach and Paris, Strindberg also developed a theory of art related to his painting that prefigured both the surrealism and abstract expressionism of the twentieth century, of which his central text remains Of Chance in Artistic Production. When planning a picture, Strindberg gave way to chance. The canvas becomes a place of surprise and unexpected encounters such as in The Country of Marvels painted in 1894 in Dornach, where the forest landscape by the sea turns into a subterranean grotto. 

Source : Musée d’Orsay / Exhibition [August Strindberg (1849-1912). Painter and Photographer] held in 2001

Few outside of Sweden know that the playwright August Strindberg had periods of intense engagement with painting and photography in the 1890s, when his literary creativity had reached a deadlock. In an essay from 1894 called “Chance in Artistic Creation,” he describes the methods that he employs, speaking about his wish to “imitate […] nature’s way of creating.” [Strindberg’s text was written in French and printed in the Paris journal Revue des Revues under the title “Du hasard dans la production artistique.”] This text is strangely prophetic, foreboding the automatic techniques of the twentieth century. His method is to start more or less at random, trusting nature’s inherent desire for form (what he calls “matter’s drive towards representation”) to eventually make the picture develop out of the paint, almost by itself.

Source : Cabinetmagazine.org 

[stufflarssays]

I cannot but feel strongly about his very black-and-white dramas about the sexes, like Inferno or Miss Julie. I also like his delusions of grandeur, like when he added the prefix 'Rex' to his name. It's a kind of romantic megalomania that I approve of.

LvT on Stringberg, 2009 - Sight & Sound

[stufflarssays]

Probably I'm a feminist. But I don't want to be... I have problems with women. I'm terrible. It has also been very difficult to have relationships with women. When I was a boy I read a lot of Stringberg and I loved this struggle between men and women [...] I'm fighting my feminism a little bit because it is difficult to be weak and not a real man and to have to interact with strong women. However what is interesting is that I became such a relatively good director of female actors. While in your ordinary life there are so many feelings and you can get easily irritated etc., it is different in a situation in which you are really focused on what you obtain by doing the film.

LvT, 2009 - Dekalog: On Dogville