As promised, here is a short presentation of Jenny Nyström. She is the Queen of the Swedish tomte, the gnome that delivers the Christmas presents and just slightly resembles the Anglo-American Santa Claus. When Nyström created this character she was influenced by the folklore house gnome, that took care of a household if the family treated him nice — otherwise, things turned bad. This figure was grey, almost invisible and quite moody, if not plain angry. Nyström infused him with the Santa Clauses of Germany, Netherlands and Britain, and also with porcelain garden gnomes from Germany and Italy. So, on Christmas Eve it is this small, colorful and cheerful tomte that delivers presents to Swedish kids of all ages. He loves animals of all kinds, plays with children and help with the decorations. He works with many other tomtar, as they live together in large (mostly male) communities.

Jenny Nyström's tomte became popular nationwide since her illustrations were common in the new media of Christmas magazines for children at the turn of the century 1900. She did about 250 covers of different magazines. Today she is most famous for her Christmas cards, and from her first originals in 1898 until her death in 1946 she is believed to have made c. 3000 original paintings for these postcards. No wonder she made us believe!

In the next issue of RIG (2013:4) due in mid-January, you can read more about visual representations of Christmas celebrations in my peer-reviewed (Swedish) article: "Julfirandets ideologi och genus i svensk bildkonst från sekelskiftet 1900: Elsa Beskow, Carl Larsson och Jenny Nyström"(Ideology and gender of Christmas celebrations in Swedish art from turn of the century 1900).

With that I wish you all a Mary Christmas with a Nativity scene from the baptismal font of Grötlingbo church in Gotland. I will be back with new posts in the new year.

I quite enjoy December, even if it is dark and (occasionally) cold. Decorations and lights brightens up my day and I simply cannot resist the kitschiness of Christmas. It is also a season for annual public lectures, and I have two versions that I keep returning to since a couple of years. One is connected to the Imitatio Mariae-project and concerns images of the Nativity and the Three Magi. It focusses on the development of the visual representations of the Christmas story and its various contents and characters. But this year that particular lecture is hibernating.

My other public lecture in the December collection concerns visual representations of Swedish Christmas celebrations. At first it was a lecture I held with a colleague from literary studies under the title The Man in Red, where we used gender perspectives in the analysis of Christmas and Santa Claus in art, film and literature. Now I have dropped the title for two reasons: 1) there are not that many Santas (or tomtar as this figures is called in Swedish) in artworks, and 2) our witty intention caused some confusion as the audience did not seem to know about The Man in Black: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRmJyIyJbM&noredirect=1.

The visual representations of Christmas celebrations are a vital part of celebration itself and particularly illustrations from the turn of the century 1900 is crucial in creating our understanding of "a real Swedish Christmas". It is a commercial, modern, aesthetic, nationalistic and urban understanding of a rural past, where the patriarchal father figure is compared with the farmer as the superior provider of all material goods for his family. Basically it is dad's money that makes Christmas possible, and mom's hard labour with food preparations, cleaning and decorating the house is kept in the dark.

The above image is an illustration from the book Spadarvet (1905), that was also the name of a small farm owned by the artist Carl Larsson. In the book one can follow the life on the farm during a year, and it ends with the feast of Christmas Eve. You can see a decorated Christmas tree in the background, but it is the laid table with food and particularly all the silver ware that are in focus. A veritable triumph of the farm and farmer (born an urban man). He really does not need a Santa Claus to satisfy his family!

Hopefully I can tell you the story of the Swedish tomte and its creator, Jenny Nyström, in a blog post before Christmas...

Today (in Sweden at least) we celebrate Saint Anna (or Anne), mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ, so I post a quick post of this particular figure. Her story became popular during the Middle Ages with the increase interest of the Virgin when stories of Mary´s family was invented. This sculpture from the parish church of Skellefteå is an example of a common depiction of Anna. It is called Anna-själv-tredje in Swedish from the German Anna selbdritt (also known as Metterza in Italian), but I actually do not know if there is an English name for it. Please tell me if you know.

It shows Saint Anna holding both the crowned Virgin and baby Jesus in her arms. In this particular model mother and son is holding hands over Anna's chest, almost creating a heart-shaped form. If it is a heart it should be read as the love of God and the Salvation made possible through all three. There are variations in the Anna-själv-tredje, but this type can also be found in other regions of Sweden.

Saint Anna is patron saint for unmarried women, housewives, women in labour, grandmothers and more. She is celebrated in the Western church also at 26 July. But Anna-day, 9 December, is also part of folklore traditions concerning Christmas celebrations in Sweden. This is the day when the Christmas beer should be ready and when a particular fish dish (lutfisk) is starting to be prepared.

One of my research interests is on how women are represented in art, the Imitatio Mariae-project is part of this since it involves the question of ideals. On Sunday 24 November a column in the newspaper Aftonbladet written by Katrine Kielos discussed how women now often are judged by different parts of their bodies (http://www.aftonbladet.se/ledare/ledarkronika/katrinekielos/article17899906.ab). Only this morning I could read articles in the very same paper on how some woman totally have lost her curves, another is showing a nice cleavage, the next has perfect skin, and yet another apparently does everything to hide her pregnancy. Most of the time these small notices are scornful as the woman in question has not showed enough style or discipline, or she might be complimented for being perfect in her looks. Her profession does not matter; the same measures are used on models, actresses, politicians, etc. since they first and foremost are women in this particular way of judging.

As I was looking for images to use in this post, I noticed how when googling "body parts" all anatomical imagery was of the male body (and this was also the majority of the hits I got), while the photos of women most often were from the above kind of articles. It is quite depressing, so I chose a totally different image — in itself also an ideal image — the name of the Virgin.

 I have been reading medieval Marian prayers lately, and one category concerns the different limbs of the Virgin that are worthy of praise. This might make you think it involves the same practice as in the contemporary examples above, but it is kind of the opposite. The Virgin's arms, knees, mouth, breasts, eyes, etc. are worshipped because of her actions. How she used her body in the worship of God, how she cared and showed love of her Son, and this is what makes the body parts of the Virgin Mary beautiful. She is also praised for being chaste and pure, of course, which adds to her physically magnificence. This ideal is not the easiest to copy, but it does not reflect the same scorn for us sinners as the stories of todays newspaper.

Last week i finished the new graphic book by Nanna Johansson, Hur man botar en feminist [How to cure a feminist], and it fun, political and visually explorative. In this book she presents single images, collages, and longer text based stories. She investigates social media (Facebook and net dating) and interacts with commercial companies and authorities (her job applications are quite special). Basically she uncovers social norms, criticize patriarchal hierarchies and manages to make inclusive images. Nanna Johansson is just one of many fantastic Swedish artist who makes graphic books (other favorites of mine are Sara Granér, Nina Hemmingson and Liv Strömqvist), women who are feminists and well articulated both visually and in writing. They make you laugh, they make you think and they make you work a little bit harder. 

Medieval wooden sculpture is naturally marked by age and (as is often the case in Sweden) hundreds of years of neglect. They are broken, have lost both most of their color and are placed outside their original framing. In the northern parts, however, this material is at least protected from the problems of wood worms and therefor not full of the characteristic little holes these creatures makes.

Last week Art History and Umeå Group of Premodern Studies had an invited guest, professor Lena Liepe from the University of Oslo. We took the opportunity to make a trip north to Skellefteå and the collection of medieval sculpture in the parish church. This enthroned madonna from c. 1200 is a true master piece, with fine carved details even though it originally was covered with paint. The sculpture is missing the baby Jesus that was sitting frontally towards the spectator in her lap (also quite common among medieval Madonnas in Sweden). The Virgin is a young girl, crowned as the Queen of Heaven, depicted as both the Throne of Wisdom and Mother of Christ. This well preserved majestic madonna alone is worth a visit to Skellefteå!

While you wait for your chance to travel to Skellefteå, you can pop over to a new stunning homepage. Cecilia Lindhé have been working on the homepage for the Imitatio Mariae-project that I am part of, and its is also well worth the visit: http://imitatiomariae.wordpress.com

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I went to the movies during the week and saw Gravity, and left it with headache due to lack of oxygen and a stiff neck due to the tension. It is a film that is not exactly based on a grand story, but on the experience of being lost in space - and that is very strong to a sensitive, easily scared person like myself. And it is totally clear that space is not a solution to the problems we have on earth; no one can hear you scream!

This movie made me think of medieval visions of space, googled a bit and found this nice little "UFO". It is a detail from a mural painting of the Crucifixion in Visoki Decani Monastery in Metohija (Kosovo) from 1350. It is placed to the right of Jesus above the head of Saint John and I would guess that it is a representation of a comet. The cosmos in medieval thought was a more controlled space than it is today, but it was probably as scary.

Celestial space in the Christian art is often associated with Heaven, especially when painted in gold (as was noted in my last blogpost). But of course it is more complicated than that. During the summer I read Dante's Divina Commedia in order to get some idea of the world view of the medieval culture. But I also needed aid from Margaret Wertheim's study The pearly gates of cyberspace: A history of space from Dante to the Internet (1999) to better understand the very concepts of the medieval cosmos. It was not as overwhelmingly infinite as it is today, since it was symmetrically centered around the earth and also connected to ideas of man and soul. Wertheim says that "Dante's Divine Comedy is the ultimate map over Christian soul-space." This soul-space was divided into three kingdoms: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, and visuals trying to recreate the "geography" Dante's story shows this cosmos either i spherical or spiral form.

All his descriptions of the different kingdoms are very realistic and material, it is muddy, hot and stinky in Hell and the souls are often being painfully punished. Hell is placed under the earth, and Dante has to climb downwards to reach its darkest centre. Heaven is placed outside the realm of planets and stars. It is a space full of light and not as materially described as Hell and Purgatory, which is perhaps typical of human imagination. It is very hard to invent a place where there is no pain, no boundaries and where everybody is totally satisfied and content forever and ever, since it is not what we have experienced as human beings more than momentarily. Just take a look in any Christian artwork visualizing Heaven and Hell, I bet that the artist have been far more creative on the parts describing Hell. But Heaven is the goal for Christians and during the Middle Ages your soul was your ticket, and depending on your character, it might be quite a bumpy ride.