Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1944, Page 219

ECCLESIASTICAL ART IN SWEDEN
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earliest village churches were built, a class of people untroubled
by inferiocity complexes against the inhabitants of the few and
insignificant towns. A large number of Royal demesnes, and,
in the late Middle Ages, the class-consciousness of the landed
proprietors also acted as the basis of ecclesiastical artistic activity.
Peasant conservatism and active care of ancient monuments
confirmed by law since the days of Gustaf II Adolf, have caused
an astonishingly high percentage of medieval art to be preserved.
Still, some of it has been lost. The rationalism of the i8th cen-
tury and the false taste for restoration of the I9th are chiefly
guilty.
There is and was a law which provides for the care of the
effects of the churches. But what was the use of laws when the
authorities did not know all the valuables that ought to be pre-
served? As a rule the elder, unserviceable works of art were not
included in the official inventories of the churches and thus from
the judicial point of view meant no more than air. To the art
historians, who now felt the responsibility for the national
treasures, the value of which was known to them only, the printed
word seemed the most effective means of protection. A publish-
ed description of the building with a inventory in which the
value, age, condition, beauty, function were explained, was first
needed. Consequently a propaganda on a fixed basis of scientific
truth was to be started, which was to make the ecclesiastical art of
our forefathers loved and thus protected by the congregation.
This was one object of the work of SVERIGES KYRKOR.
The other was the simple scientific purpose of publishing and
preparing valuable, also from an international historical point
of view, costly material.
The work was started in Uppland within the Seminary of
Art History in the University of Uppsala with young under-
graduates as voluntary assistants. From the very first published
volume the work was organized as comprising the whole country.
Founders and leaders were Johnny Roosval and Sigurd Curman.
Our efforts were chiefly directed towards the village churches.
Reason of favouring the country parishes was besides what al-
ready said that their churches through their isolation are more
exposed to surprising dangers.
The programme for our description of the churches is very
extensive. Such a monograph of a village church may run to 30—
40 pages illustrations included. ¥e list the sources of the history