Painting

Carl Gustaf Bernhardson (1915 - 1998), the Bohuslänan folk life painter, devoted much of his life to depicting the conditions, way of life and the world of performance of the coasts. He did so in paintings, books, records and place names maps and has left behind a unique material, a gold mine for each interested in the old Bohuslän. Carl Gustaf Bernhardson was born in 1915 in Grundsund on Skaftö in central Bohuslän. The father, Martin Bernhardson, was a fisherman on his own “Welfare,” mother Lydia was a farmer’s daughter from a farm a few kilometers from Grundsund. When Carl Gustaf Bernhardson was three, the mother became ill and spent a lot of time in hospital while the father was on the lake. Therefore, he came to grow up with his grandmother and grandfather, Kristina and Johannes Jonsson in the courtyard Slotthagen under Löndal outside Grundsund. The boy lived in the borderland between the small growers' village and the fishing camp where the parents lived. Growing up with grandma and grandpa, he came more directly into contact with experiences, memories, sayings and stories passed on for generations. Grandpa Johannes was also a known narrator and traditional bearer. Bernhardson was captured early on by the elderly’s stories about the ancestral everyday wear, accidents, shipwrecks and the supernatural world. All this was told during childhood “night darkness” when gathered in the cottages. Bernhardson listened to the memory. For generations, Carl Gustaf Bernhardson’s lineage had had its livelihood both on the lake and as a smallholder. Seventeen years old, he started as a fisherman, went to island fishing for some years and later on shipping on the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Bernhardson also had an interest in agriculture and after ten years on the lake he trained among others. a. A at the University of Sweden at Tjörn, Dingle vid mannaskola and Svalöfs vid mannaskola. In the 1940s and 50s he was active at farmsteads and trade gardens in various places around the country. The whole time, however, there was a longing to portray the archipelago life in the poorer peoples of recent times, not only in words but also in picture. Between 1949-1952 he attended Hultberg’s painting school in Gothenburg, which was run by Hilding Hultberg. From the late 1940s until his death in 1998, he saw as his life task to document life in the folk paintings with explanatory text that came to be his signature. Bernhardson was at the same time a diligent local announcer for the Nordic Museum, the Gothenburg Historian Museum and the Dialekt, resort name and folk memory archive in Gothenburg. From the 1960s he resided at Skaftö in the home he himself built. Here he writes and paints full time for just over 30 years. Motif, which Bernhardson’s thoughts constantly seem to have been absorbed and which he reappears in painting after painting, is the women’s wear, the supernatural and special conditions that applied in the coastal band as soon as you were going to go somewhere. In several paintings, we meet adults and children who are eternally thrashing, wearing and trailing on land slopes or ice, rowing and sailing in open boats at all stages of life. Winter motifs are very common. The special conditions that prevailed in the archipelago when icing are depicted. This is a landscape distant from today’s image of the summer paradise Bohusländer. Unique to Bernhardson is that he has written explanatory texts with brush or pen on the back of each painting. He talks about the episode or phenomenon that the painting portrays, often with an indication of time and place. Bernhardson is happy to use a linguistic mixed form with dialectal words and expressions. Sometimes there is also a small drawing with. Bernhardson’s upbringing among the archipelago women caused him a lifelong admiration for their ability to cope with hard working conditions and great responsibility. Life in coastal areas was marked by the men’s long absence on the lake and the women’s collective concern and waiting. This was to wipe the livelihood and upbringing of large children’s cares in households with a lack of fuel and water, with heavy work in agriculture and fisheries. The vulnerability of poor widow could be alleviated by the mercy of superstition but more often by the cohesion of fellow sisters. The poor helped the even poorer In many pictures there is thus a trait of social criticism and a detailed description of the difficulties in supplying themselves in a barren natural environment, but we also encounter portrayals of the brighter sides of life, the lively perennial life and the child’s world. All parts of life are described. Nothing is too insignificant or offensive to be left undocumented. In recent years, the circle of motifs was concentrated on the supernatural and mythical. We meet the seals of the archipelago supernatural and present the system - the sea people, gazes, gendarmes. Carl Gustaf Bernhardson was a scholar of the people who made a holistic view of the culture in the coastal communities and who put the folk faith in the picture. In addition to the 526 paintings at Bohusläns Museum, Carl Gustaf Bernhardson is represented at Göteborg’s Stadsmuseum, Göteborg’s Sjöfartsmuseum, Vikarvets museum in Lysekil and in Uddevalla municipality. Carl Gustaf Bernhardson received several public awards and awards, including. a. Göteborg and Bohusläns Landstings Kulturpris 1980, Lysekils kommun’s Culture Scholarship 1979 and the award Bohusländer thanks 1996. Bernhardson’s private archival material, listed in Emuseet’s Individual Archives, was also received by the Museum of Bohusläns. Books by Carl Gustaf Bernhardson on his own publishing house: Bernhardson, C.G: Bohuslänska Folkliv, Uddevalla, 1978. - “” - Bohuslänan custom and popular belief, Uddevalla, 1980. - “” - Bohuslänska Kustbor, Uddevalla, 1983. - “” - Bohuslän - from Wämmer and Kräppe, Uddevalla, 1985. - “” - Skageracksmyten, Uddevalla, 1986. - “” - Buàmmae Vaàmmae. Maritime Reflections, Uddevalla, 1991. - “” - glimpses from the history of the Skaft Islands, Uddevalla, 1995. Hunting and seal fishing in the middle Bohuslän, from Bohusländer Yearbook 1992, p. 17-22. Articles from the Yearbook Vikarvet -A Real Tôst Dark Evening 1996/97, p. 98-100. -Gåvosten - Önskesten, “offersten,” 1990/1991, p. 170-171. -Skärsmarin - a boat type, 1974/1975, p. 116-118 -Kisthandel in BohusKis -Rackekärar 1972/1973, p. 85-86. Brockman, Ann-Marie: C. G. Bernhardson, Bohusland folk life painter. The publishing house of Bohusläns museum 2010. With the contribution of Per Dahlström. Jonsson, Eric: C.G. Bernhardson. A Bohusland painter and folklorist, Uddevalla, 1973, AB. Gothenburg Post: Bohusländer in our hearts, 1980, GP, s. 34 - 37. Gustavsson, Anders: Everyday Archipelago. Carl Gustaf Bernhardson’s Paintings of Folk Life from Bohuslän, Gothenburg, 1980. Gustavsson, Anders: Everyday and Folk Faith. Carl Gustaf Bernhardson’s paintings of folk life from Bohuslän, Uddevalla, 1989. Gustafsson, Anders: Carl-Gustaf Bernhardson’s folk paintings as a source of cultural historical research. RIG 3/2006, p. 129 - 138. The book The West Coast through the artist’s eye written by Nils-Olof Olsson, Limhamn emerged in 2004. In the 250-page work, six paintings by C G Bernhardson are presented. The titles are the Victims of the War, Drivis, Isdans, Kolerasommaren 1834, Nolvan and Brännvinsfaten. The author writes about Bernhardson that he “portrays moods, people and nature with an unsentimental hit safety.” Karl Gustaf Bernhardson’s baptismal name is reportedly in Sweden’s book of death: Karl Gustaf Johnny Bernhardsson