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Friday, August 28, 2020


The Floating Bathhouse was the scene of several Jansson paintings, and this is probably the best known.  It made the rounds on tumblr a few years ago, but no one (including me) mentioned that the guy at center approaching the diving board was Jansson's lover Knut Nylan.  And could the midair diver be Jansson himself?  We earlier saw a photo of him doing exactly that sort of dive. 

5 comments:

  1. Wow..fab. Or though the men are quite stylised, and there are at least 40 of them this still conveys much of the spirit of the photographs. That diver is stunning..

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    1. That stylized element adds a bit of awkwardness to the piece, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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  2. This one is interesting; it took me a second to comprehend it. At first glance I thought they were supposed to be under the water looking up at someone swimming just under the surface.

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  3. His style seems to be a cross between Monet and Van Gogh's. Both painters experienced failing health and eyesight, which seems to be happening to Jansson and his art. Jansson appears to be in his 60's in those bathhouse photos, but he was actually only 42 or 43 when they were taken. Jansson was known to have nearly died of scarlet fever as a teenager, and had poor health and eyesight as a result.

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