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- Ljungström, Lars, 1956-
(författare)
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Magnus Gabriel De la Gardies Venngarn : Herresätet som byggnadsverk och spegelbild
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Starting in about 1640, Sweden experienced a building boom among the nobility lasting up to 1680, when Charles XI initiated a massive withdrawal of Crown fiefs. Based on contemporary Swedish sources, the strategies and ideology behind these large new houses are discussed in connection with questions concerning visual identity – corporate as well as individual. Opinions held in the Swedish debate are compared with the characteristics described by Volker Bauer in his analysis of competing German court ideal types, and are found strikingly reminiscent. This approach constitutes the framework for a close examination of Venngarn, one of Count Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie´s country houses, rebuilt and considerably enlarged from 1661 and onwards. De la Gardie was Rikskansler, Chancellor of the Realm, a dominating magnate and one of Sweden´s most eager building patrons. The remodelling of Venngarn was begun at a time when major works were in progress at five other estates, at the palace in Stockholm and his father´s burial chapel. Other projects were to follow suite. At Venngarn the idea of an ideal correspondence between the level of Magnificentia and the individual´s station is expressed by a systematic gradation of the apartments. Another court ideal, that of the prince (or aristocrat) as a disciple of the Muses, was just as befitting an attribute. The most telling example is the 'learned' décor of the chapel. More than fifty emblems, parables and devotional subjects are found to be organized according to a comprehensive programme, combining important tendencies in contemporary Lutheran spirituality, on the one hand themes from Johann Arndt, on the other the dogma of Ordo salutis. A more mundane aspect of aristocratic behaviour was villeggiatura, or the preference for temporary retreats from urban life and public affairs. De la Gardie has left several drafts defining the weekly round of a country life and aiming at an otium, as recommended by Seneca, Cicero and the neo-Stoics. Several circumstances indicate that De la Gardie considered this a component of a true statesman´s life and that Venngarn and his other country houses were to serve such a purpose.In these and other ways, De la Gardie could be said to have arranged the house at Venngarn as an ideal mirror image of his persona, an image that would testify to his greatness and further his reputation.
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| 3. |
- Wahlberg Liljeström, Karin, 1964-
(författare)
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Att följa decorum : Rumsdispositionen i den stormaktstida högreståndsbostaden på landet
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the layout of the aristocratic country house throughout Europe changed considerably. The purpose of this thesis has been to study the layout of Swedish aristocratic country houses during the Era of Greatness. Three country houses in the county of Uppland have been examined: Per Brahe the Younger’s Bogesund, Carl Gustaf Wrangels’s Skokloster and Nils Bielke’s Salsta. Bogesund and Skokloster were erected starting in the 1640s and 1650s respectively. Salsta was rebuilt and extended during the 1670s and 1680s. The country houses have been studied from the start of these activities until the 1720s. A study of thirteen architectural treatises has been included in order to illustrate contemporary ideas about the aristocratic country house. By analysing categories of rooms, topology, access, denomination, use and also hanging of painting, the layout of rooms have been examined. The identity of an aristocratic country house could be expressed by e.g. its topology, use and choice of interior decoration and paintings. Planning of buildings was closely linked to decorum. Decorum meant in this context something both socially and aesthetically appropriate. The three country houses expressed different types of ideas about the use of a building. The layout of Bogesund gave opportunities for several encounters between residents and visitors. In Skokloster the few staircases rendered some possibilities of unexpected encounters, even though there was strict spatial differentiation in social classes, gender and age. In Salsta with its many small suites and adjoining antechambers and more staircases, the rooms could fulfil their specialised function without blending of people of different social categories. The layout of Bogesund and Skokloster could therefore been seen as more generative than the conservative and confirming one of Salsta.
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