to man’s perverse desires is incomprehensible to me.  Of the other pictures by the same artist, the flock of wild geese, standing in the shallow water of a stony beach, carries all the conviction of being well studied which applies to any of Liljefors’ pictures.  The eagles and the seagulls are scarcely as interesting as the swans.  Liljefors is never better than when he depicts flying birds — and fly they do.  There is never any doubt about it.  Those swans are actually in the air, and moving.  A certain disagreeable fuzziness in the skies of all of his pictures interferes somewhat with their full enjoyment.

Of the other painters Mrs. Boberg should be mentioned next.  She is the wife of Ferdinand Boberg, the architect of the Swedish Building, who himself, as a true artist excelling in a number of things, has a splendid collection of etchings in the long black and white gallery adjoining the Liljefors’ room.  Mrs. Anna Boberg’s pictures, in a very small gallery at the eastern end of this section, are not advantageously hung.  Her work is so decorative, and so painted for distant effect, that to see it close at hand is disappointing.  The eleven of her pictures are unusual in subject and for that reason win less sympathy than they deserve.  All of them were painted on a trip she made with her husband to the Lofoden islands, and when one considers the proverbial coldness of the Arctic seas, her interpretations seem marvelous in their beauty and richness of colour.  A study of their titles in the catalogue seems hardly necessary for understanding of their meaning, and I for one am perfectly satisfied to feast on the gorgeous colouring and the great veracity they possess.  Some of them are already sold, a most surprising thing when one considers that to most people a picture actually executed in three dimensions is seldom considered meritorious.  I do think that while the physical width and height of Mrs. Boberg’s pictures are governed by conventional considerations, a little less depth of paint might accomplish the same solid appearance without making one feel like slipping sideways past them into the next gallery for fear of knocking off a few lumps of paint.

In the adjoining gallery, a somewhat larger one on the east, Gustav Fjaestad’s very fine decorations form what we are in the habit of calling a “one-man show.”  Mr. Fjaestad certainly has the decorative feeling, whether he paints a picture or designs a rug.  In fact all of his pictures look like designs for rugs.  And why not?  If a wall rug is a decoration, a picture should be one in just the same way.  It is hard to single out among the many good examples the best one, and it may be left to the taste of the individual, who among nothing but good things cannot make a poor choice.  The time will come again when our artists will find it honourable and profitable to apply their talents to utilitarian art, as does Fjaestad, and the interrelated activities of the Swedish in both fine and applied arts afford a lesson which is by no means new.  It is the basic condition on which the art of the Renaissance flourished that develops men like the Swedes.