wholesome, and, on
the whole, most characteristic side of the Swedish character. A rather
daring and flippant humor enters into his paintings. One of his portraits
of himself shows him standing, his happy reddish face aglow, against a
yellowish-brown wall. He is dressed in a long, yellowish-brown smoking
frock, and holds in his raised hand a pencil from which appears to spring
a little feminine figure supposed to represent his genius. "This figure
carries what looks like a quantity of small round cookies," says his
critic, "possibly to symbolize the adequacy with which his genius
provides for his nourishment."

Another shows him with his little girl sitting on his head, maintaining
her equilibrium by planting stout feet on his shoulders. The painter
wears a house-jacket, loose slippers and baggy trousers, his face beams
with good-humor; the child is brimming with laughter; the little scene
is instinctive with the spirit of intimate domesticity, and the drawing,
free and easy, without apparent effort in the direction of elegant
arrangement or expressiveness of line, is nevertheless singularly
nervous and vigorous.

[Illustration: MY FAMILY

_From a painting by Carl Larsson_]

In still another portrait, he is sitting before his easel, his little
girl on one knee, his canvas on the other with the easel serving only as
a prop. His eyes are turned toward a mirror which is outside the picture
and the reflection in which he is using as a model; the child's eyes are
fixed on the canvas watching the growth of the design. These are
"self-portraits" in more than the usual sense. It is the rarest thing in
art to find a painter representing his own aspect with such complete
lack of self-consciousness. No characteristics seem especially to be
emphasized, none betray exaggeration, there apparently is neither
distortion nor idealization, nor is there any attempt to select a mood
that shall preserve a favorable impression of the sitter. Nothing could,
however, more favorably present a character to the critical scrutiny of
strangers than this superb good faith. The least sentimental of us must
recognize with frank delight the wholesome sweetness of the world these
kindly faithful records open to us.

Larsson was born at Stockholm in 1853. From the age of thirteen he
depended upon his own labors for support; retouching photographs at first.
Later he entered the elementary school of the academy where he received
honors. He drew from