Elective Affinities, hors-série: Alexandra Curvelo

 

The watercolors of Swedish painter Carl Larsson (1853–1919) have been associated with the work of Ingmar Bergman before, particularly Fanny and Alexander‘s interiors with Larsson’s illustrated book A Home of 1894 (you can read Egil Törnqvist’s article on the relationship of Bergman with visual art here). Alexandra Curvelo (dear colleague of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and dearer friend) has established this remarkable visual parallel, between one of Larsson’s watercolors and a scene from Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, where a smiling Bibi Anderson positioned behind a branch and outside a wooden cottage, closely echoes Larsson’s composition. What is even more striking though is the feeling of nostalgia and irretrievable happiness of childhood and youth that both images exude and that becomes more pronounced by their juxtaposition.

 

Carl Larsson, 1914, watercolor, Private collection (?)

 

Ingmar Bergman, Wild Strawberries (1957)