John Bauer

[alexandral]

John Bauer (04.07.1882 – 20.11.1918 was a painter and illustrator from Sweden. His most known illustrations are for the popular Swedish fairytale annual, "Bland tomtar och troll" (Among Elves and Trolls) . Apparently this annual is still going! I was introduced to his art by baleanoptera in her excellent post Picturing that which is not, again and immediately fell in love with it.

John Bauer was one of the people whose life follows inexplicable and dark fate. His sister died when she was 13 and this made a huge impact on him and his family. He was suffering from depression and had family difficulties in his later life. John Bauer, his wife and his son died in the shipwreck and this is a very strange story : they decided to go to Stockholm by ferry because they had heard of the recent train accident.

I have been collecting his illustrations for quite a while already and meant to post them for ages. They are absolutely amazing, outworldly and mysterious!
























































I have made some icons from John Bauers's illustrations, free to share. Preview:

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Comments

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I am so glad you like!!! It was you who introduced me to John Bauer's art!!! I have been looking for his works on and off for a while and strangely, visiting the National gallery put me in the mood. :D I am also making icons from the paintings of Impressionists but I haven't finished yet.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Impressionist icons sounds wonderful. And I'm very happy my post introduced you to Bauer - as it resulted in this lovely post and these amazing icons. Hee.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I have found three more interesting illustrations yesterday, but LJ doesn't like me today so I have to post them later.. I had to connect through VPN to my work machine again which seems always a good help..

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...LJ doesn't seem to like me either. I tried posting earlier but all I got were technical errors. (And this was followed by a brief moment of panic on my account, probably fuelled by all the general deletion panic. ;P)

But hopefully Lj will behave better tomorrow and you'll be able to post the illustrations - because I'd really like to see them.

(I'm also a little in love with this icon. I must say you did a great job with the Bauer icons! The cropping is simply gorgeous.)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I suspect LJ's problems are just the same as the ones last week (when they said it was DOS attack I was not a little unsure). Also an increased traffic due to LJ crisis may have contributed to this.

I am glad you like the icon!! Do you know the fairytale it is from?

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Sadly I don't know the story! I've been trying to find it, but Swedish fairytales are not very well known in Norway.
(there is this whole cultural rivalry between Sweden and Norway, and since Norway is so proud of their own fairytales the Swedish ones have largely been ignored. I find that really sad - since I love fairytales and think the more the merrier!) But I'll still keep a lookout and tell you if I come across it.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEE! One of the comments in this post had a short description of the story:

http://alexandral.livejournal.com/140262.html?thread=2449382#t2449382

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Yay! That is so great! A mystery is solved. I must try to get my hands on one of the Bauer books as well, because now I'm curious about all the other images as well. hee.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

They really are STRANGE INTERSTING tales!