Opinions of the young poet Henrik Ibsen against Realism.

The young poet Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen is recognized worldwide as a revolutionary playwright and it is said that his plays, even today, are the most performed on stage after Shakespeare’s; but Ibsen, in his native Norway and in the Scandinavian countries in general, is also recognized as a poet of great talent - in fact, he is the national poet of Norway (1). The cliché of his fame in his native country in relation to the Norwegian language is the same credited to Shakespeare with English or Cervantes with Spanish, no less. But his poetry, apparently too nationalistic or local (though no great poet is local only, I would say...) is virtually unknown outside Scandinavia, and even his plays written in verse have seen their poetic characteristics "erased" from them due to the translations that have been made of them. Let's not forget that translating from Norwegian to English or, worse, to Spanish, is extremely difficult - in the case of Ibsen it was from Dano-Norwegian, as it was called in his time, when Norwegian was not yet recognized as a language but as a dialect which used a lot of Danish words to become "literary" -, the rhythm and musicality of poetry are easily forsaken in order to maintain consistency with the dramatic text. That’s a pity, no doubt.

So, if today Ibsen’s work as a poet is unknown to most of the world, much more so is the time when our famous playwright had not yet taken realism as his battle horse.

While learning the art of success for the theater (which cost him blood and tears) the young Ibsen made his living as a critic, and his views were clearly marked by his love and respect for what he considered the highest quality in theater: poetic theater. No wonder then that the revolution caused by photography and Realism in  European theater (though not yet Naturalism) wasn’t to his liking.

In the biography of Ibsen written by Michael Meyer I found some small passages and quotations about the times of Ibsen the defender of poetry in drama and ardent critic of the new realistic fashion coming from France that flooded Danish and Norwegian theatres. In these comments we see an Ibsen little known to the world, criticizing what later became his gateway to global stardom, but curiously we also discover in his critique full of conservatism a visionary regarding the levels that the Realistic movement would achieve in future, even to the present day.

 

Here's the quotation from Meyer’s book:

 

“On 11 October 1857, less than six weeks after his arrival in Christiania, we find him castigating the theatre-goers of the capital for their lack of taste. The play under review was Hans Andersen's A Country Tale, adapted by Salomon Mosenthal's Der Sonnenwendhof; and Ibsen warned his readers that it could hardly expect a long run, since "its quality is essentially poetic. This is the age", he continued, "of transparencies, of clever technical effects. Technique, in the most superficial meaning of the word, is the only thing the public is capable of appreciating, and the theatre is perfectly justified, from a financial standpoint, in continuing as hitherto to present more recent French works which have for so long constituted the basic diet of our repertory. These plays commonly display a skilled technique, which the public likes, and, which is probably even more to their taste, they have nothing whatever to do with poetry." Ibsen goes on to express sentiments which may surprise those, still, sadly, a majority, who think of him principally as a social realist on the strength of a few plays which he wrote in the middle of his career. Many people, he writes, "will regard this play as both untrue and unwholesome, because it does not bear a photographic resemblance to reality … People demands reality, no more and no less. That art should elevate is not a popular conception." The only limitation of photography, he concludes ironically, is that it cannot, except in abstract kind of way, reproduce colour; but this, doubtless, will soon be remedied, and an even greater realism will result, a tendency which art and poetry will doubtless follow in their quest for further popularity.

Two months later, in a tribute to the actor Anton Wilhelm Wiehe published in Illustreret Nyhedsblad on 13 Decemeber, Ibsen returned to the attack on modern French drama and photographic realism. Denouncing the former as "lacy weavings," which "so sadly flaunt virtuosity at the expense of art," and "can only degrade art into the vulgar emptiness of 'effect', he praises Wiehe for his "spirited pursuit, not of banal realism, but of truth, that loftier, symbolic representation of life which is the only thing artistically worth fighting for, yet the existence of which is acknowledged by so few"- (2)

 

Salomon Mosenthal, author of Der Sonnenwendhof.

Cover of Der Sonnenwendhof libretto

Anton Wilhelm Wiehe, actor of "poetic theatre"

In my head stir all these initial conceptions of Ibsen, the realist, from my first theater studies around Realism, so reading and thinking about him as an advocate of ‘spiritual reality’ through poetry in the theater sounds like an idea coming from another world.

Certainly, an unrecognizable Ibsen, but  one that actually existed, and our recognition of that phase of his creative life could help us to have a better appreciation of his complete work, not only one part of it as apparently has happened.

People change over time, artists even more so, we are inherently unstable and we follow exploratory paths, either because of a deeply artistic interest or because we’re being pushed by our own life situation; some attempt to hide their changes and the changes of others are simply deleted by history, which chooses and edits in accord of its own interest.

(1) Ibsen's poetry can be found online, translated into English: http://www.ibsen.net/index.gan?id=26645&subid=0

(2) Ibsen, A Biography By Michael Meyer. Double Day. New York, 1971. Pages 146-147.
 

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Henrik Ibsen advices to a young writer.

Laura Petersen (Later Laura Kieler)

 
In 1870 he was not at the peak of his career but he was already famous and a controversial writer, a good poet and was on his way to becoming an European personality; around his 40s Henrik Ibsen could receive letters with texts of new born writers, especially women writers.
Laura Petersen, a Norwegian young writer, published a kind of sequel to Ibsen’s poetic play Brand entitled Brand’s Daughters. Michael Meyer, Ibsen’s biographer, depicts this text as “an imaginary sequel (...) an emotional contribution to the debate on women’s rights”. Today we recognize Ibsen as a 19th century champion for women rights (thanks to some of his plays of maturity), but in that time, around 1870, that wasn't a very easy subject for him.  In fact, he wasn't a very open minded man about that: when he was younger and living in Italy he asked for the expulsion of some members of the Scandinavian Club in Rome who let their wives enter to the club (reserved only for men) without being noticed; and years later he used to have some lively debates with Camilla Collet, a Norwegian novelist recognized by her fighting for women rights; Collet, following Meyer’s text “... was scandalized by what she regarded as an old fashioned man about ideas on women’s place in society”.

So, when Laura Petersen sent to him her Brand’s Daughters asking for advice, one could only expect the letter would be ignored or at least rejected in a polite way.  But no, something happened to Ibsen when young women writers approached to him asking for advice.  Suddenly, the gentleman surged from him,  and a patient and kind wise man always replied. Thanks to that attitude towards young women artists we can now read a document with some advices, coming from his own hand, directed to a young writer.
Letter to Laura Petersen (June 11, 1870):
"Are you thinking of continuing to write? (…) Much more is needed than mere talent. One must have something to create from, some genuine experience. If one lacks that, one doesn't write in the true sense, one just makes books (…) Intellectually, man is a long-sighted animal; we see most clearly from a distance; details distract; one must remove oneself from what one wishes to judge; one describes the summer best on a winter's day (…) The main thing is to be true and faithful to oneself. It is not question of willing to go in this direction or that, but of willing what one absolutely must, because one is oneself and cannot be otherwise. The rest is only lies." (*) 

Laura Petersen never went out from Ibsen's life, both were linked for ever; she married later and her name changed to Laura Kieler, and a terrible real anecdote with her husband was Ibsen's inspiration for A Doll's House; Nora Hellmer was modeled on this young lady who was thinking on women rights since her adolescence.

Ibsen, with the honesty and wisdom his letter shows, was not only a good mentor to Laura Petersen but a prophet of his own future way to work.


 





 

(*) Henrik Ibsen Biography. By Michael Meyer. Page 320.

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Ibsen, the anarchist, speaks about Freedom

Here a very short quotation from an Ibsen’s letter to Georg Brandes (1872) where the Norwegian poet complain about the misconception around his texts over his idea of freedom. The text shows an Ibsen much more closer to Anarchism than to any liberal believes:

"I shall never agree to identify Freedom with political freedom. What you call Freedom I call freedoms, and what I call the battle for Freedom is nothing but the continuous pursuit of the idea of Freedom. He who possesses Freedom otherwise than as something to be striven for possesses something dead and meaningless, for by its very definition Freedom perpetually expands as one seeks to embrace it, that if, during the quest, anyone stops and says: "Now I have it!" he shows thereby that he has lost it." (...) "The state must be abolished!" (...) "There's a revolution to which I gladly lend my shoulder. Abolish the conception of the state, establish the principle of free will and all that is spiritually akin to it as the one prerequisite for a universal brotherhood-there is the beginning of a Freedom that is worth something!" (*)

Of course, a text that didn’t help to change the general idea that Ibsen was an ultra radical in the political ambience in the end of European 19th century.

*Ibsen Biography. By Michael Meyer. page 338.

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The meeting between Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen, a curious note.

Hans Christian Andersen

Henrik Ibsen

In Ibsen’s Biography by Michael Meyer, Meyer reconstructs a curious meeting in London between two giants of Literature, Henrik Ibsen and Hans Christian Andersen. The whole text is a curiosity, it depicts very well, in a real situation, those two extreme personalities, that child-like and frivolous Andersen and the reasonable and self-assured Ibsen, but also is full of simple funny anecdotic details which make reading literature (or theatre) history a big pleasure:


"Hans Andersen was eager to meet the new dramatist, having apparently forgotten their brief encounter in 1852. On 11 August (1870) he noted in his diary: "Fru Melchior told me that the poet Ibsen was dinning today with Carl Bloch, and expressed surprise that I had not been invited. I was put in a bad humor by the thought of how little attention B.  had paid to me." "I wasn't there," he wrote the next day to Henriette Collin, "but would have liked to have been invited, to see at last this Norwegian poet who doesn't like the Norwegian." A week later he got his wish, when Moritz Gerson Melchior, a politician in whose eighteenth-century house overlooking the Sound Andersen had, by generous arrangement, a permanent suite of three or four rooms, gave a party for the two writers. Andersen tried to prepare himself for the meeting with a little homework, and the result depressed him. "Read Peer Gynt," he noted in his diary fro 18 August, "which is written by a mad poet. One goes crazy oneself reading this book. The poetry isn't good either, there is something sick and distraught about the whole thing. Am sorry I read it, as Ibsen is coming here this evening fro the first time. I've never seen him; he's said to be taciturn and gloomy." But the occasion passed off unexpectedly well, for the diary continues: "After dinner he arrived with Bloch, and made a good impression … He talked well and amiably. We all liked him."

Andersen's diary conceals how close the evening came to being a disaster. According to John Paulsen, who had the story from Ibsen himself:

"Many of the city's most notable personages were among the guests. Everyone had arrived and was ready to sit down, but no Andersen descended from his room upstairs. A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour; a nervous restlessness settled on the company, and the hostess looked unhappy. Message after message was sent up, but he still did not appear. The hostess quietly went upstairs, but returned with a more worried expression than before. he would not come down. No one said anything to the guest of honor, but Ibsen sensed what was afoot. Andersen did not like to be with people of whose sympathy he was not sure. When people mentioned strange authors he would naïvely ask: "Does he admire me?" The atmosphere grew more embarrassed. It was now three-quarters of an hour past the appointed time for supper. The host and hostess were at loss what to do. Were they to sit down without Andersen?
Then Ibsen saved the situation. He took his host aside and asked to be allowed to go up to Andersen's room and speak with him. The host nodded and showed him the way. A minute after, to the joyful surprise of the company, the two great writers entered the room arm in arm, Andersen evidently deeply moved, smiling through his tears. He was like a small child who has got his way.
"But what happened between you and Andersen in his room?" I asked Ibsen. Ibsen smiled at the memory. "I embraced him and paid him a casual compliment. He was moved and, as he returned my embraced asked, 'Then, you really like me?'" Ibsen added: "It was one of the pleasantest evenings I have ever known. Andersen could be lovable and entertaining as few other men when he wanted to be."

Andersen was delighted with his new acquaintance. He wrote to a friend that he had found Ibsen "very amiable, unassuming and pleasant. I like him a lot, but Peer Gynt not at all."

*Ibsen Biography. Michael Meyer. Page 323.
 

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Ibsen at War: "My book is poetry; and if isn't, it will become such."

Ibsen's original draft of Peer Gynt. Act V. (Photo from H. Ibsen Biography by Michael Meyer.)

After the publication of Peer Gynt in 1867, in his motherland, Ibsen was attacked as no other author before, attacked because of his style of poetry, his subjects and his strange idea of theatricality (even when Peer Gynt wasn’t conceived for the stage). But that wasn’t the Ibsen of some years before, immature and choleric, who didn’t know how to reply any attack; Italy, the exile and the success of his “Brand” had given to him a self-assurance that nobody in Norway could brake in the future.

After Peer Gynt was published Henrik Ibsen has become a monster.

The next is an extract of a letter to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (December 9, 1867) as a reply of all those critics:

"Dear Bjørnson, (…) My book is poetry; and if isn't, it will become such. The conception of poetry in our country, in Norway, shall shape itself according to this book. (…) However, I am glad that this injustice has been flung at me; it is sign of divine aid and dispensation; anger increases my strength. If there is to be war, then let there be war! If I am not a poet, what I have to lose? I shall try my hand as a photographer, I shall deal with my contemporaries up there, each and all of them, one by one, as I have dealt with these language reformers; I shall no spare the child in its mother's womb, nor any thought nor feeling that may have motivated the actions of any man who shall merit the honor go being my victim. (…) Do you know that all my life I have turned my back on my parents, on my whole family, because I could not bear to continue a relationship based on imperfect understanding?"(1)

Ibsen is capable to assure that his own text would become in Norway the concept of poetry itself (and it was almost true), and it wasn’t what his critics called errors and mistakes. Who can assure that?

He knew he was at war if he wanted to be the most recognized author in Norway, and that famous sentence about photography that many of us are used to identify as Ibsen’s start in Realism became his chant of battle: “I shall deal with my contemporaries up there, each and all of them, one by one, as I have dealt with these language reformers; I shall no spare the child in its mother's womb, nor any thought nor feeling that may have motivated the actions of any man who shall merit the honor go being my victim.”

We only have to recall his most important plays to see that those words were accomplished.

Ibsen also made a very hard confession about turning his back to his parents and family; coming from a very provincial background, with no intellectual or artistic links, all his relatives were mere obstacles in his way to fame as a writer (since his adolescence he never saw any of them again). Only a man with all his goals in mind, ready to fight any battle to be the number one in his world could write in that manner.

He wanted it, he fought for it and he got it. He was monster.

(1) Ibsen Biography. By Michael Meyer. Double Day, 1967.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Ibsen and the Beauty of Rome. Understanding Greek Tragedy and Art.

Detail of Tragic Muse Statute at Vatican Museum

Ibsen like many other Scandinavian and European artists from the 19th century, found in Rome the inspiration for their art and their idea of beauty and depth in art. Reading Michael Meyer’s Biography of Henrik Ibsen I discovered a letter to his friend (and sometimes enemy) the writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, describing his favorites pieces of art in the eternal city and his reaction after observing them.

Ibsen lived in Rome during his 30s in a kind of auto-imposed exile, and wrote several of his most famous plays during those years in Italy. Being known that he wasn’t used to read books (any kind of, he only read newspapers) this stay was for him more than a general view of the classical art world, it was the visual reading of all the classics in literature and theatre through sculpture and architecture. Yes, as odd as it sounds.

Ibsen sent this letter to Bjørnson (dated January 28, 1864) confirming Bjørnson’s predictions that the playwright's stay in Rome would gradually become attuned to classical art and sculpture.

I’m posting the whole extract of the letter from Meyer’s book and also some photographs (from different sources on internet) that’ll help visualize those works Ibsen is talking about.


"Its beauty (…) grows more and more on me, as you said it would. It comes in flashes, but a single flash throws light over whole vistas. Do you remember the "Tragic Muse" which stands outside the hall in the Rotunda in the Vatican? No sculpture here has yet been such a revelation to me. I may even say that it is through this that I have understood what Greek tragedy was. The indescribably calm, noble and exalted joy in the expression of the face, the richly laurel led head containing within it something supernaturally luxuriant and bacchantic, the eyes that look both inwards and at the same time through and far beyond the object of their gaze--such was Greek tragedy."

Tragic Muse (Vatican Museum)

“The statue of Demosthenes in the Lateran, the Faun in the Villa Borghese, and the Faun (of Praxiteles) in the Vatican (brachia nuovo), have also opened great windows for me into Greek character, and have enabled me to understand what imperishability in beauty really is. Pray heaven I may be able to use this understanding for my own work."

Demosthenes Statue (Vatican Museum)

Praxiteles' Faun (Vatican)

Faun (Villa Borghese)

"Michelangelo's Moses in S. Pietro in Vincoli I had not seen when I last wrote to you; but I had read about it and built up expectation which has not quite been fulfilled--however. I have only seen it once.

How glorious the landscape is down here; in both forms and colours there is and indescribable harmony. I often spend half the day lying out among the graves on the Via Latina or the old Via Appia, and think it an idleness but no waste of time. Caracalla's Baths are another place which holds some especial attraction for me (…)"

Graves at Via Appia

Caracalla's Baths

Maybe is only a curious information but maybe it could help to understand in a better way the work of this playwright and poet, and to better understand the man behind that work.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

"Buy a dog, my lord"

Just a simple Ibsen's dialogue quotation from The Pretenders (circa 1863) which show, in my point of view, that ironic Ibsen of his later years. Even without thinking about the great author who wrote it, this is a charming point:

"Skule- (…) I must have someone by me who will obey me instinctively, believe in me unflinchingly, stand close by me through good days and evil, live only to give light and warmth to my life--someone who, when I fall, must die! What shall I do, Jatgeir?

Jatgeir- Buy a dog, my lord."*

* The Pretenders by Ibsen. From Michael Meyer's Ibsen's Biography. Double Day, 1967. Page 210.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson critic of the young Henrik Ibsen

The young Henrik Ibsen (1861)

The young Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1860)

 The young Ibsen was insecure, choleric and with a remarkable physical ugliness (at least in the point of view of many of his contemporaries), his personality was worthless for many, as Olev Arvesen writes about him when used to see him "entering L'Orsa's café punctually at two o'clock each afternoon to drink coffee and read the foreign newspapers", around 1858:

"That this man with the threadbare coat, old, soft mormon hat and profoundly unassuming mien would become one of Norway's and Scandinavia's greatest men was an unimaginable thought." (Michael Meyer, Ibsen's Biography)

But at the same time Ibsen owned a great talent for poetry, liked (and could) to write theatre and had the dream-ambition of being the greatest writer of Norway.

But around 1859, at 31, and in the beginning of his life as a playwright, theatre director and poet, he has not succeeded at all. That was the moment of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, who was the head of Norwegian young writers, tall, handsome and economically successful artist; it was him who Ibsen wanted to dethrone. The first fights (Ibsen’s attacks to Bjørnson) were charged of misunderstandings, jealousy and suppositions that only were in detriment of Ibsen himself. Yes, the greatest realist writer didn’t have yet that superb personality and speech what would characterize his last years of fame, a man full of cold wisdom.

After a small scandal with Ibsen’s piece The Viking of Helgeland, Bjørnson wrote a letter to Clemens Petersen elaborating a big description of the ambiance around Ibsen and a strong critic to him. It is curious for us today the remarkable tone of power as a writer and artist Bjørnson shows in that letter, more if we think of Bjørnson’s comments at the end of his life, all totally charged with bitterness and envy for Ibsen.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson letter to Clemens Petersen. Bergen, 5 March, 1859:

"The play (The Vikings at Helgeland) hasn't succeeded, though it may seem from a distance to have (…) Ibsen has a little clique of admirers headed by Nyhedsbladet. But every time he has to face the general public everything goes wrong and I've had to go to his aid twice, because Ibsen despite his aberrations is a poet. And I hope some day to get him to be himself and turn away from all this damned pastiche. The day Ibsen admits he is small he'll become a perfectly enchanting poet. I've told him as much pretty plainly, but the result is, he's jealous. He's done all sort of little things to annoy me, and does still. He's angry that I haven't put The Vikings at Helgeland into my repertory. (…) I haven't read his poem 'Gull Cry'; I've heard it's rather affected stuff, and was written largely because Danish monthly said he was lesser writer than me. Now that's exactly the kind of thing that always distracts Ibsen from what he ought to be and do. The point is, he's rather small and gnomish little chap, with no chest or rump, so he feels that as he has no other gifts he has to strain most frightfully when he writes. And so he doesn't write what he'd really like to, and could." (*)


These are very harsh words, but most of them could be the truth, that was the young insecure and sometimes stupid Ibsen; but what a terrible game for Bjørnson because they now only talk to us ironically about his fall and his wrong appreciation of an ambitious man, who “despites his aberration” could become not only the greatest poet and playwright of Norway but one of the greatest of the history of the world.

 

* Ibsen Biography. By Michael Meyer. Double Day, 1967. Page 161.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

Eleonora Duse watching Ibsen's window...

"La Duse watching Ibsen's window" (By Gustavo Thomas. 2011)

She was there when he was dying

but couldn't see him,

couldn't kiss him,

nor thanking him.

She was there, just waiting for him to appear

but he never did

She was there, just looking and waiting,

they say...

"Duse was visiting Norway for the first time, largely in the hope of meeting the dramatist who had provided her with her greatest triumphs. On her arrival she sent a letter and flowers to Ibsen asking if she might call merely to say "¨Thank you". Suzannah, however, telephoned that Ibsen was too ill to receive anyone. Lugné-Poe, who was with Duse at the time, tell what followed

I remember very well that morning when she had just received this sad message. I went in to her and found her swathed in the long white paladrane which she loved to wear. She sat fearful, annihilated, hollow-cheeked, her face tired and lined as though life was abandoning her. She asked me: "What shall I do? Please, what shall I do?"... What could I do for her? I had hoped so much, for her sake... Next morning, around noon Duse and i found ourselves outside Henrik Ibsen's house. She had bought Norwegian boots, for she wished to go there on foot. We walked round the left of the palace, and at the stroke of twelve we stood beneath the corner window, where, every day at this time, people could see Dr. Ibsen in person, sometimes with a secretary or someone at his side. Duse stood there waiting, in the cold and snow. Who, even thirty years later, would not be shaken by the memory of having been present at that sad and silent meeting? Eleonora Duse on the pavement, looking for the old poet's silhouette behind the big window."

Ibsen's Biography. By Michael Meyer.

My painting is based in a original photograph of Eleonora Duse taken for the production of Ibsen's play The Lady from the Sea.

Texts, photographs and videos in this Blog are all author's property, except when marked. All rights reserved by Gustavo Thomas. If you have any interest in using any text, photograph or video from this Blog, for commercial use or not, please contact Gustavo Thomas at gustavothomastheatre@gmail.com.

A Strindberg portrait at Ibsen's studio

The fight between Realism and Supernaturalism (Symbolism) that becomes evident at the end of the 19th century in many aspects of art, though particularly in theatre, has an evident parallelism, I’m convinced, in the fight between their two major exponents in modern theatre: Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg. Their theatrical currents are an encounter between conscious and unconscious, between the idea of personality and the inner self or the unconscious.

Nevertheless, the personal relationship between Ibsen and Strindberg is somewhat unknown by the readers of either authors, and in turn is a curious chapter in the history of theatre and of art in general (1). Two geniuses who never met in person but who had an intimate and dramatic relationship. Two opposing visions of theatre, of literature and of the world they lived in, with just one point in common during Strindberg’s attempt, in his first years in his writing career, to imitate Ibsen’s work

Strindberg lived a real obsession about Ibsen’s work and person, he went from being, first, an emulator and admirer of the Norwegian writer, to becoming later one of his sharpest critics. His attacks were direct, continuous and went from deep analyses of the Ibsenian work to simple and plain offenses to his social behaviour.

Ibsen never understood those attacks, or he never wanted to keep an open (nor closed) fight with Strindberg; his standing in Europe’s intellectual society was, anyhow, much higher and, when it came to comparisons at the time, he was undoubtedly the winner; he didn’t need to write a single word against the work or person of Strindberg.

Nevertheless, that indifference to the Swedish writer’s attacks didn’t mean at all that Ibsen didn’t stop to contemplate the great man and artist that Strindberg was.

When Henrik Ibsen was in Stockholm, on April 13th 1898, celebrating his 70th birthday (yes, it wasn’t his birthplace, but the Swedish government offered homages in his honour), a Swedish journalist asked his opinion on Strindberg. Ibsen described the Swedish writer, 27 years younger, as “A great talent”, adding “I don’t know him personally - our paths have never crossed - but I’ve read his work with great interest. In fact, his last play, Inferno, has left a deep impression on me.” (2)

The impression that Strindberg caused on Ibsen was such that, years before that declaration, Ibsen had, in his own studio in Oslo, a portrait painting of the Swedish artist. He didn’t know him personally, but he was taken by his image, his personality and the strength of his literary work.

August Strindberg painted by Christian Krogh, 1893. (Norwegian Folk Museum)

In 1893, while he lived in Berlin, August Strindberg posed many times for the Norwegian painter Christian Krogh, who painted seven portraits of him; one of those paintings was acquired by Henrik Ibsen, according to himself, “for the, relatively speaking, ridiculous sum of 500 crowns.” Ibsen’s studio (and his whole apartment) is kept in the Ibsensmuseet (Ibsen's Museum) in Oslo (3), but Krogh’s painting is not there anymore, as it hangs at the Museum of Popular Art of Norway.

Ibsen saw in Strindberg a powerful figure, almost mythical; the portrait by Krogh not only was hanging in his studio, but had a primary place in it, exactly in front of his workplace. He used to say that he liked to look at it while he wrote, and that it seemed the man in the portrait would look straight at him like a “madman approaching him with demented eyes”. He particularly enjoyed looking at those “demonic eyes” and, at some point in his life, he commented “He is my mortal enemy; he must hang there and observe everything I write.” (4)

Henrik Ibsen in his studio in Oslo

Ibsen’s quotations, from his own mouth, are manifestly clear, that strong impression can’t be concealed.

Ibsen’s personality, reserved as he was and profoundly correct (even during his most famous scandals) didn’t leave room to recognise in him his great personal fears, obsessions and passions, but he undoubtedly struggled with the forces that August Strindberg and his work represented; the hanging portrait in his studio is proof to the presence of the “other” in his creative life, of his struggle and, of course, of his admiration.

The theatre director August Lindberg, a friend of Strindberg’s, tells of how, when visiting Ibsen’s studio, Ibsen asked him if the portrait on his wall resembled the real Strindberg. Then, and without waiting for an answer, Ibsen got close to him and, almost whispering, maybe trying not be heard, he affirmed “A remarkable man!”.




(1) In a curious and interesting essay Barbara Lide, from the Technical University of Michigan exposes the “admiration-hate-fear” relationship between two of the greatest writers and dramaturgs of modern theatre, a strange relationship that has all the characteristics of the currents each of the belongs to in theatre.
(2) Most of my citations have been taken from the book “Henrik Ibsen and the Birth of Modernism” by Toril Moi (Oxford University Press. London, UK 2006), as well as from the article: “Strindberg’s Ibsen: Admired, emulated, scorned, and parodied” by Barbara Lide (Michigan Technological University which, in turn, is based on Strindberg’s basic biography by Meyer.

(3) The presence of Strindberg’s portrait by Krogh in Ibsen’s studio is known through direct citations from the Norwegian author, as well as from friends and acquaintances of his. The information was taken from Toril Moi’s book as well as from Barbara Lide’s essay.

Ibsen's studio. Ibsenmuseet, Oslo.

(4) One of Ibsen’s phrases (translated into English) that remain as his appreciation of the portrait is "Insanity Emergent".


Author's note: This is a personally revised translation (made by Tadeo Berjón) from my original post in Spanish..

Henrik Ibsen on the cover of "L'Illustration" (March 19th 1889)

Henrik Ibsen was a famous author, less than Victor Hugo (who moved masses), but more famous, at his time (19th Century), than many playwrights we revere today. There’s no question about his presence in many social and editorial European circles, and about his position as a living national poet of Norway. Ibsen was a pretext for writing articles, reviews, critics, books (Bernard Shaw dedicated one to him, for example), and his own intellectual figure was fashionably appearing on the cover of many magazines as today we would see on “Times” or “Newsweek”.

One of those covers was the number for Saturday, March 19th 1898 of ‘L’Illustration’, which was dedicated to Ibsen, who was going to celebrate his 70th birthday. The magazine also published two articles about his work (1).

Henrik Ibsen (L'Illustration March 19th, 1898)

I found this ‘curiosity’ at the Lagunilla Market (a flea market) in Mexico City around 20 years ago, at the exact moment I was at the climax of learning Antonio González Cabllero’s Acting Method (2). I was 17 years old, couldn’t even read in French yet, but I was amazed by it, by the idea of owning a magazine with Ibsen on the cover, more than by knowing that it was from the same time he was alive: the magazine was went on print on March 19th and Ibsen’s birthday was on the 20th!

The articles inside are simple, without much interest, as if they hadn’t found anything really new to say about Ibsen. The author of the article (it is impossible to know his name, he only signed as ‘P.Q.’) listed the whole work of Ibsen till that moment: the last play on the list is John Gabriel Borkman, dated 1898. There is some data I could call interesting information: Ibsen is named as an author of the highest European avant-guard, and Paris, which was the city of the avant-guard par excellence, received Ibsen’s plays from the hands of ‘Théâtre Libre’ and Antoine; the article says the production for Ibsen’s plays was low budget and lots of creativity.

About the celebration of his 70th birthday, Norway and Sweden joined together to honour the playwright with ceremonies, official banquets, popular celebrations and, of course, performances of his plays. Ibsen was an important figure not only for Scandinavian countries but for all of Europe.

The engraving (a photograph of it)you are seeing in this Blog on the cover of the magazine shows an image of Ibsen with great personality: a big old man with an air of wisdom; a strong face, a firm but good-natured body. My master Antonio González Caballero used to draw parallelisms between the personality and work of the four artists who ‘propose’ the way of acting in the Theatre of Modernism (3). So, about Ibsen, he always remembered his enjoyment of the social world, his appearance, and this photograph is an example of those comments by González Caballero(4).

We should do an exercise in comparing any picture of any author with his personality and his work. I’ve already done that with many of my favorite authors and it is a surprising game, even clarifying.


Here is one photograph circulating on the Net. You will notice it was the same photographic session that we saw on the cover of L’Illustration, Ibsen is wearing the same clothes and he’s seating at the same desk, but in a different pose:

Henrik Ibsen at the same photo session as that for L'Illustration magazine (1898). It is the same coat and the same desk.

(1) About this number of L’Illustration, an antiquities site in French says:
“ L'ILLUSTRATION. N°2873 Henrik Ibsen, gravure par Thiriat. Journal Universel. 19 mars 1898. (…) Intérieur frais. 16 pages environ illustrées de nombreuses gravures noir et blanc, premier plat de couverture illustré d'une gravure. La corporation des bouchers de Limoges par De Noussanne avec gravures dans le texte (rue de la Boucherie, syndic tenant la bannière, intérieur de triperie, église des Bouchers, croix de Saint AUrélien). Un devancier de Gutenberg par M. Normand avec gravure dans le texte (fac-similé de la dernière page du Doctrinal de Gerson imprimé par Jean Brito. L'hôtel des ventes, suite par Montheuil avec gravures dans le texte et gravure pleine page d'une vente de lingerie fine. Gravure pleine page en couleurs d'Une jeune fille d'orient par P. barthot. De Courbevoie à Banghi avec la mission Marchand,suite avec gravures dans le texte dont l'adjudant Laurent dans la pirogue, photo de l'exécution de Mounounaméka...). Publicité pour l'Art Nouveau avec 4 photos de mobilier et une lampe (buffet de salle à manger, glace avec encadrement, table toilette avec carreaux artistiques..). ”
(2) Ibsen, Pirandello, Chekhov and Strindberg, are what González Caballero named "los cuatro autores propositores de las corrientes actuacionales en el teatro moderno" (the four authors who propose the acting way for Modern Theatre); so, the study of their work, their personality and their propositions (“proposiciones”) enveloped our life as acting students.
(3) I’m currently writing a Blog about Antonio González Caballero’s Acting Method: agcmetodo.blogspot.com
(4) Chekhov was different, living outside the social life and only wanting to spend his time at his house in Crimea, while Ibsen’s life had continuos movement; it is known that the Norwegian author spent a big part of his daily life reading newspapers behind the windows of famous cafés where everybody could see him.