183. JOHN BAUER. “He led him over roads and paths, over mountains and hills. And all the while he slept".

Pencil and wash in gray and off-white, 26.1 x 26 cm. Signed John Bauer and dated 09.

“He led him over roads and paths, over mountains and hills. And all the time he slept" from Anna Wahlenberg's "Tomtarna".

PROVENANCE Book publisher Erik Åkerlund, then inherited by the current owner.

EXHIBITIONS National Museum, Stockholm, "Bauer - an artist and his fairytale world", 1981, cat no. 59.
Millesgården, Stockholm, "John Bauer's fairytale world", 5/12 1993 - 20/2 1994, cat no. 30.
Österbybruk's Herrgård, Österbybruk, "John Bauer's fairytale world", 1994, cat no. 30.

LITERATURE "Bauer - an artist and his fairytale world", National Museum exhibition catalog no. 450, ed. Per Hedström, 1981, pictured in the catalog section page 141.
"John Bauer's Fairytale World". Millesgården's exhibition catalog no. 27, illustrated full page page 56.
"John Bauers Sagovärld", 1994, illustrated full page page 28.

Already during his education at the Art Academy in 1901, John Bauer's teacher, Professor Gustaf Cederström, wrote: "I want to call his art great art, and in his almost miniature works he has made an infinitely more powerful impression than so many so-called monumental painters on acres of canvas. It does not depend on the surface content, but on the content". This quote captures the greatness of John Bauer - that his images may be small in format but hold so much infinity; a skilled artist who draws material from art theory and a soulful landscape where the viewer who encounters it is rewarded with a truly unique universe.

After completing his studies at the Art Academy, it was clear that John Bauer had a talent for illustrations. As an artist, he was not a radical, and his entire generation of artists can almost be said to be a calm bridge between the Opponents and the Artists' Union and the burgeoning modernism.

In the summer of 1904, John Bauer was commissioned to illustrate CAV Lundholm's masterpiece "Lappland", which involved a month's stay in northern Sweden together with the Sami. During this period, Bauer got to experience a different kind of nature than the Vättern region of his childhood, but he recognized the mystery of nature. For John Bauer, this mystery is connected to how he experiences the essence of the forest during periods of ending work peace and increasing depressive periods. After the meeting with Esther Ellqvist in 1903, he tries to find as many commissions and sales opportunities as possible to enable a marriage and it is during this period of cartoons that he comes into contact with the editors of "Julstämming" and later also with Erik Åkerlund.

John Bauer's unique style is like a patchwork of what he sees and experiences in his short life. The German heritage from his father results in travels around Germany where art and architecture influence his craze for the medieval romantic element of his motifs. During his trip to Italy with his wife Esther Ellqvist in 1908-1909, he was captured by early Renaissance masters such as Piero della Francesca, Sandro Botticelli and Fra Angelico, whose Madonnas bear several similarities to the princesses that populate Bauer's pictures. It is also the light in the paintings of the old masters that captures Bauer, which leads to his own conviction about the somewhat dark Nordic nature-romantic landscape coming to an end, compared to the brightness of the Renaissance and its handling of the (divine) light. In the later years of "Among Elves and Goblins" there is a summary of John Bauer's nature religion where the Swedish nature is a kind of temple hall in which he inserts elements from the spirituality of the Italian Renaissance.
John Bauer's unique style and renewal of the illustration as an art form of its own was noticed even in his contemporaries when the National Museum acquired two watercolors in 1911 and Anders Zorn incorporated "Nu är det already half-dark night" into his own collection.

At this spring's classic auction, Stockholms Auktionsverk has had the privilege of showing and selling three watercolors by John Bauer, all of which have been in the publisher Erik Åkerlund's collection. In 1907, John Bauer was commissioned to illustrate a new fairy tale collection, "Among Elves and Trolls", which was published by the "Julstämmings" editors, and in this way Erik Åkerlund came to spread a treasure of images to generations to come. During the years 1907-1915 (with the exception of 1911), John Bauer illustrated "Among Elves and Goblins" which had a circulation of around 100,000 copies - a breathtaking circulation for the time. After Bauer's death, the collection of stories was printed in new editions, and in this way more generations could take part in his completely unique nature and universe.

In John Bauer's forests, goblins and beings are constantly present but they are never scary, but always have the viewer's and the reader's sympathy through their stupidity and naivety. If the first meeting with the troll or Santa is a little scary, this will turn into understanding and friendship at the end of the story.

When it comes to the technical details of the illustrations of "Among Elves and Goblins", Bauer started all the images in postage stamp-sized sketches which took the form of a grid. In this first draft, Bauer stuck to black and white only. The next step was to enlarge the format and carefully introduce color into the images. Purely in terms of reproduction, the illustrations from 1907-1910 differ from the later years. The earlier years were printed with halftone screens that reproduce the gray scale between black and white with a yellow tone plate which cooperates with the gray scale. These printing technical conditions were exploited by Bauer and he composed the images with this in mind. His discreet color management seems suggestive in the images and he has few but effective color accents at individual points. In the illustration from "Tomtarna" the task of illustrating the prodigal son is elegantly carried out in a wash where the intensity of the black determines the contours and the wealth of detail. What breaks off are the blue bells in the foreground of the picture, which also appear as a frame in "The Golden Keys" in 1915. In a note to the printer, Bauer has written "I don't think the little color I here and there amused myself with will in any way create the reproduction". In the illustration for "The Boy Without a Shadow" we see how he thoughtfully laid out the coloring in the picture with the yellow tinted base plate and displacements in pencil but used marker and chalk to create sharper outlines.
In "Herr Birre och trollen" Bauer draws inspiration from Theodor Kittelsen, who illustrated folk tales in Norway at the same time. There the goblins get to embody the ancient nature; their bodies become a living mountain, these bodies are covered with moss and they are experienced as ancient as the Nordic granite.