Lars Jonsson is today considered one of the world’s foremost portrayers of birds and nature, a genre that follows a long art historical tradition. Not least, the legacy of Bruno Liljefors, who exhibited in the same halls at Liljevalchs, in the art gallery’s first exhibition in 1916, is visible. As an ornithologist, Lars Jonsson became internationally known in the 1970s for his field manuals on the birds of Europe.
With deep knowledge, unique powers of observation and technical skill, Lars Jonsson has revolutionized bird painting. His paintings capture the birds’ appearance and close connection to their habitats, but the images also reach deeper into their character and inner life. In the exhibition, we get to follow the artist’s creative process from sketch to finished painting. In poetic depictions, we sense something that may seem hidden on the surface, but which becomes visible through Lars’ ability to empathize with the birds’ personalities and souls.
When I point the telescope at the pair of eiders in the grey-green water for the first time this year, calmly swimming in from the surf, it is the same feeling and sensation of something that must be captured, read and immortalized. The same second I see, I paint in my mind exactly what is visible on the retina – the combination of grey-green, pink, the white as different shades of peach, mango, lemon peel, vanilla and the flanks black as dry licorice, and slowly the waves wander towards the shore. The miracle is happening here and now , says Lars Jonsson, artist.
