birthday girl

Kersti's Birthday by Carl Larsson, 1909

Kersti’s Birthday, watercolour and pencil on paper laid on canvas, 1909

Today's art is by Carl Larsson (1853-1919), a Swedish painter of watercolours and frescoes and creator of books depicting his home and family life. His books were popular in Sweden and had a great impact on Swedish design in the 20th century. Here's a wonderful quote from 'A Home': Therefore, oh Swede, save yourself in time. Return to simplicity and dignity. It is better to be awkward than elegant. Dress yourself in skin, fur, leather, and wool. Make yourself furnishings that suit your heavy body, and on everything put bright colors.


Birthday girl

So, Kersti, today it’s your birthday!
Happy birthday to you!
And here you are with all your friends
at a tea party in the garden,
all costumed up so uniformly,
so brightly, the summer sun 
brightening everything, 
your bonnets, your vests, your aprons,
and we see how brilliantly, 
how lovingly, your father 
captured in paint such a vivid 
smile-for-the-camera 
moment.
 
But Kersti, he knows you too well! 
He leaves us to wonder, to guess, 
absent abundant and carefully placed 
gifts or flowers, to guess, to wonder, 
who the birthday girl is, 
which of the lovely eight 
around the table in the garden 
is you. 
 
Ever detectives, we ask: 
are you the slightly anxious one, 
close, whose radiance, still
a little bit interior, is just 
starting to ease itself out, 
or the standing one to the right 
her eyes a shade more adult,
telling us she is praised by teachers,
gets good grades in school? 
Or are you the really golden-haired one 
almost hidden at the back left,
whose lips form an effort to fit in, 
an effort she really wants to make? 
Or you could be one of the others 
who display their innocence, 
their open delight, sweetness 
rarely observed in anyone 
at all older than you are today. 
 
Then we notice the girl 
who did not turn 
for the pencil, the brush. 
Could she be you, Kersti? 
Would your father allow your face 
to be obscured on your birthday? 
Would he not give you 
every chance to shine? 
Well, assuredly, he did, 
as he knows you too well, 
for who do we see,
positioned near the center, 
at the back and framed by the others,
a little smaller than the others, 
but a girl whose expression, 
assuredly, tells us why, 
in the absence of a trace 
of a smile, or smirk, 
instead, in a look of petulance 
or disdain, or perhaps 
a profound disappointment,
that she is you, Kersti, 
the one being celebrated, 
the one receiving 
all attention, all love, 
the one whose day of happiness
has been laden since sunrise 
with expectations 
too easily not met, 
recognition insufficient, 
gifts, the quality of the tea, 
her friends (or merely 
the embarrassment of having 
a famous painter for a father), 
she the one today,
that is, you, Kersti, 
with the most to lose, 
the one who, it seems, 
has already lost so much. 
 

Carl Larsson in his home, 1912