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Scandinavian Crafts Rampant
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14653 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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11 / 1988 |
2,395 Words |
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Katherine S. Clark
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Good, clean design. Haunting, brooding images. Fairy-tale whimsy. Craft for art's sake. Scandinavian Craft Today, an exhibition of nearly one hundred eighty works from thirty-five artists, ranging from books to jewelry to textiles, conjures up all these impressions.
Although five separate nations (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland) make up what we know as Scandinavia, they do share a common heritage, embracing disparate and even contradictory aesthetic impulses. Many Nordic craftsmakers carry on the tradition of "good, clean design" that we have come to expect from Scandinavia, making objects that are spared and elegant. Others draw on their folk art heritage, making works of whimsy and celebration as well as pieces that look farther back to the mythic roots of these northern peoples.
Intimate Predilection
Another group deals with more formal questions and makes what Barbara Mayer in her new book defines as "craft art": nonfunctional two-and three-dimensional objects made with materials traditionally used by craftsmakers (glass, clay, wood, fiber, etc.). Scandinavian artists and craftspeople also share "a predilection for the intimate rather than the monumental as well as a respect for natural materials and the tradition-steeped skill of working with them," according to design critic Ulf Hard as Segerstad. Despite these shared concerns, each of the artists represented in this exhibition pursues a personal vision.
A celebration of materials and craft, Scandinavian Craft Today updates America's view of Nordic design and crafts, last seen on this scale in the 1982 exhibition Scandinavian Modern Design: 1880-1980. The interface between craft and design in Scandinavia is strong, leading Tapio Periainen, director of the Finnish Society of Crafts and Design, to say that "handicrafts and design are one and the same thing." The earlier exhibition focused primarily on objects designed and produced by industry in editions, although unique objects were also included in both exhibitions, often showing works of remarkable similarity.
Respect for Materials
Much of Scandinavian design derives from the northern craft traditions of respect for materials and crafts; this design aesthetic, in turn, is now influencing contemporary craft expressions. In the 1950s, Scandinavian design became a part of the vernacular in the United States with Danish modern furniture joining French provincial and Early American as options for the middle-class buyer. The words Scandinavian design elicit images of unfussy objects, meticulously executed in unadulterated materials. Scandinavian design was not just a fashion. It was intended to be a revolution in life-style. At the beginning of this century, there was a desire, seen in the work of John Ruskin and William Morris in England and the Arts and crafts movement in the United States, to improve the quality of life for everyone, to make beautiful objects available to all, regardless of economic means.
In Sweden, the writer Ellen Key in 1899 coined the phrase "Beauty for All" as a title for her book extolling the virtues of good, affordable design. Her ideas were expressed in the 1917 Home Exhibition in Stockholm, organized by the Swedish Society of Crafts and Design, and elaborated two years later
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