Nøgen kvindefigur 1850 - 1910

John Börjeson, a Swedish artist, made this small clay sculpture of a nude woman in the late nineteenth century. The woman is seated, her head bowed and arms wrapped around her legs in an attitude that suggests contemplation, or perhaps even sorrow. The rough modelling of the clay is quite expressive and captures an emotional state, but its lack of classical polish would likely have relegated it to the status of a sketch or study at the time it was made. In the 1800s, the institutions of art – academies, salons, museums – favored highly finished, idealized nudes with moralizing themes. Börjeson’s figure seems to offer a more intimate, psychological kind of realism, reflecting an emerging interest in the inner lives of women. To understand Börjeson’s sculpture in its full social and artistic context, one could research the changing role of women in Scandinavian society, as well as the shift away from academic art that occurred at the end of the nineteenth century. In doing so we recognize how art is interwoven with its own historical moment.