Magical Fairy Tale Worlds and Old Norse Mythology: The Lasting Legacy of John Bauer

By Gustė Matulionytė

John Bauer (1882-1918), Swedish painter and illustrator, is best known for his illustrations for the anthologies of Swedish fairy tales Among Gnomes and Trolls (Bland tomtar och troll). His secretive woodland settings and playful fantastical creatures garnered him recognition and high praise during his lifetime. Bauer was a prolific artist whose capabilities stretched from page-sized watercolours to massive frescoes. His true passion, however, seems to have been oil painting, and he constantly searched for opportunities to undertake projects in oil. Unfortunately, due to his life being cut tragically short at the age of 36, he was not able to fulfil many of his bigger artistic ambitions. Bauer’s capability to work effortlessly work in a variety of media echoed his approach to inartistic influences – he seamlessly drew from a variety of sources, including Norse mythology, Italian Renaissance art, and the culture of Sami people.

Bauer was born in Jönköping in the south of Sweden to a Bavarian father and a Swedish mother. He moved to Stockholm at the age of 16 to pursue a career as an artist. In 1900, at the age of 18, Bauer was admitted to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts. In 1904 Bauer travelled to Lapland, which at the time was part of Swedish territory, and produced watercolours illustrating the mountain Sami people and their way of life. The engagement with Sami culture later came to influence Bauer’s illustrative choices. Another big source of inspiration for Bauer were his travels in 1909: Bauer travelled to Italy and Germany, visiting museums, studying the local art and architecture, and drawing inspiration from antique, medieval, and Renaissance sources. Other that travelling, Norse mythology was one of the biggest influences for Bauer in terms of subject matter throughout his entire career.

John Bauer, The Fairy Princess, 1904, oil sketch

John Bauer, Freja, 1905, oil sketch

During the early years of his career, Bauer worked on major fresco and oil commissions: inspired by his travels to Italy he painted large fresco murals in Nyköping and produced large oil paintings, most of which were inspired by Old Norse mythology. Ester Ellqvist, a fellow student at the Academy and Bauer’s future wife, served as a muse for several paintings by Bauer. Such was the case for his largest commission, the oil painting Freja that Bauer produced for the Karlskrona School for Girls. The figure of Freyja, the Old Norse goddess of love, beauty and magic, was inspired by Ellqvist who posed for the painting nude. Bauer shows Freyja as a sensuous semi-nude figure with luminous golden hair, dominating the bleak northern seascape in the background.

John Bauer, She wandered alone for hours, from Among Gnomes and Trolls, 1908, watercolour

In 1907 Bauer received a commission to illustrate the newly founded series Among Gnomes and Trolls that featured a collection of stories by Swedish authors such as Helena Nyblom, Alfred Smedberg, and Helge Kjellin. Bauer worked on the anthology in 1907-10 (Volumes 1-4) and 1912-15 (Volumes 6-9). Most of his illustrations are full-page watercolours, titled after passages from the stories. The colour palette of the illustrations is muted, with most of the subjects being rendered in earthy tones of brown, grey, and mossy green. The woodland setting in which these fantastical creatures reside was influenced by Bauer’s childhood near the forests of Jönköping. The dim light of the illustrations appears to be inspired by the never setting sun of Swedish summers, and the overhead illumination is reminiscent of rays of light penetrating through a dense canopy of trees. Accents of white in the characters and the starry skies add luminosity and contrast to the images.

John Bauer, Look at them, mother Troll said. Look at my sons! You won't find more beautiful trolls on this side of the moon, from Among Gnomes and Trolls, 1915, watercolour

Bauer’s illustrations show fairy tale characters such as princesses and princes in dense magical forests and by still, dark lakes. They are accompanied by animals such as elk, bears, and horses, as well as mythical beings such as gnomes and, most famously, trolls. Some aspects of Bauer’s trolls, such as their bent knives, spears, shoes, and belts, were inspired by Sami culture, which Bauer encountered on his visit to Lapland. Although these images were produced for a children’s book, some of these inclusions seem troubling considering the contemporary Swedish political context. Mountain Sami people were being insulated and isolated from contact with Swedish culture, from contact with perceived ‘civilisation’. The North and its people were repeatedly associated with magic in a variety of sources, including children’s books, which served to reinforce and naturalise the associations of Lapland, Sami people, and their culture with otherness and racial difference. Whether intentionally or not, through the inclusion of Sami peoples’ dress and culture Bauer’s illustrations are implicated in this ideology of otherness.

John Bauer, Still, Tuvstarr sits and gazes down into the water, from Among Gnomes and Trolls, 1913, watercolour

One of the most famous works by Bauer, however, is not actually one of trolls or gnomes – it is Still, Tuvstarr sits and gazes down into the water (Ännu sitter Tuvstarr kvar och ser ner i vattnet), 1913, produced for the 7th volume of Among Gnomes and Trolls. The fairy tale of Princess Tuvstarr, or Princess Cotton Grass, was created by Helge Kjellin. In the story, the little Princess Tuvstarr leaves the Dream Castle to explore the dark forest. She is accompanied by the wise elk named Leap (Skutt the Moose in Swedish), who warns her of the evils of the forest. Throughout the story, the princess is robbed of her crown and her beautiful white gown, left only with a golden heart necklace that was given to her by her mother. The elk carries the princess to a lake deep in the forest, and although she is warned to be cautious of the water, Tuvstarr leans in too close and the golden heart drops into the water. Wishing to find her heart, the inconsolable princess sits on the grassy banks of the lake, and over many years turns into a slender plant with a white head of cotton – a cotton grass. Bauer shows Princess Tuvstarr after she has lost her heart of gold – still human, the nude girl with tresses of long white hair sits in a mysterious forest by her lonesome and looks down into the dark waters below.

John Bauer, Poor little bear!, from Among Gnomes and Trolls, 1912, watercolour

Ari Aster (director), Still from Midsommar, 2019

In letters to editors and publishers Bauer repeatedly expressed his desire to work on oil paintings rather than illustrations. He stopped working on Among Gnomes and Trolls in 1915 and moved on to scenography and fresco projects. Tragically, Bauer never had the chance to fully return to oil painting before his death in 1918, when a steamer ship transporting him, his wife and their son capsized in Lake Vättern, killing everyone on board.

Despite his early death, Bauer’s work has had a long-standing posthumous legacy. His life and work have been the focus of numerous Swedish publications, films, and television series. Bauer’s illustrations for Among Gnomes and Trolls have inspired a number of projects in a variety of media, including music albums and Mats Andersson’s photography book of forests from Bauer’s drawings. The setting and characters of Bauer’s illustrations have served as inspiration for the art design of 2013 Swedish video game Oknytt that takes place in a Norse medieval world. The illustrations have also been featured in prominent cinematographic projects such as Ari Aster’s 2019 film Midsommar, in which Bauer’s illustration Poor little bear! (Stackars lilla basse!) is hung in the home of the main character Dani, foreshadowing the events of the movie. The continuing legacy of Bauer’s work shows that his mythical works retain a prominent place in both Swedish and global artistic consciousness.

Notes:

Art Passions. ‘John Bauer Art: Trolls, Fairy Tales and Folk Tales - Swedish (1882 - 1918)’. [Accessed 21 October 2022] https://artpassions.net/bauer/bauer.html

Conrad, JoAnn. ‘Into the “Land of Snow and Ice”: Racial Fantasies in the Fairy-Tale Landscapes of the North’ in Narrative Culture, Vol.5, No.2 (2018): pp.255–290

Lindqvist, Gunnar. John Och Ester: Makarna Bauers Konst Och Liv (Stockholm: Carlsson, 1991)

Silveira, Guaracy C. ‘Jogo Digital e Nutrição Para Estesia. Oknytt e a Obra de John Bauer’ [Accessed 21 October 2022] https://www.academia.edu/34540756/Jogo_Digital_e_Nutri%C3%A7%C3%A3o_para_Estesia_Oknytt_e_a_obra_de_John_Bauer

Sundin, Marua, and Roslund, Curt. ‘John Bauer: Painter of a Star-Spangled Fairy-Tale World’. Vistas in Astronomy, Vol.39, No.4 (1 January 1995): pp.623–28.