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Sirén received his academic education at the Imperial Alexander University of Finland (presently the University of Helsinki) in his hometown of Helsinki. This was the only academic institution in the country, which at the time was the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland (1809–1917) in the Russian Empire and Helsinki was its capital. In addition to the university, the city could boast an art museum: Ateneum Art Museum had opened its doors in 1888 and made public the collection managed by the Finnish Art Society (established in 1846). The same building housed the drawing school of the Finnish Art Society. Culturally Stockholm was closer than St Petersburg because of historical reasons: Finland had been part of Sweden until the Napoleonic wars in the early nineteenth century. It is not clear what inspired Sirén to choose art history as his major. The subject was new to the university curriculum in Finland. Only two doctoral dissertations on art history had been defended at the university and his was to be the third.1 In fact, there had been no professor designated to art history until 1897 when J. J. Tikkanen (1857–1930) became personal supernumerary professor. Art historical topics had been under the care of C. G. Estlander (1834–1910), Professor of Aesthetics and Modern Literature. Both Tikkanen and Estlander were Sirén’s teachers. Estlander was an aesthetician and a chairman of the Finnish Art Society (1878–95) and in this latter function played an important role in the Finnish art scene. Sirén’s interest in literature and aesthetics is more comprehensible. A budding poet, the first entries in his bibliography are poems published in periodicals. One of these appeared in 1898 in Finsk tidskrift, a journal which had been founded by Estlander. Sirén went on to bring out two collections of his poetry: Accord (1902) and Stilla stunder med naturen (Quiet moments in nature; 1913). During the last years of the nineteenth century Sirén took his first steps as an art critic as well. Sirén was, however, looking west towards Stockholm. He had not yet embarked on his doctoral studies when he moved there in 1898 and began working as an 2 The Beginnings of the Journey 10 Enchanted by Lohans extraordinaire amanuens (research assistant) at the Nordic Museum (Nordiska museet). In Stockholm, Sirén was in close contact with Oscar Levertin (1862–1906), Professor of Literary History at the University of Stockholm. Levertin lectured on French eighteenth-century literature and painting from 1897 to 1899 and conducted research on Swedish painters Niklas Lafransen (1698–1756) and Alexander Roslin (1718–93).2 Sirén may have listened to some of the lectures; in any case, it was Levertin who suggested a topic for Sirén’s doctoral dissertation, namely, the eighteenth-century Swedish genre painter Pehr Hilleström the Elder (1732–1816). Sirén’s next major research project concentrated on portrait painter Carl Gustaf Pilo (1711/1714–93); indeed, he was fascinated at that time with Rococo, writing in a notebook enthusiastically about the playfulness and liveliness of the art and imagining gentlemen in their powdered wigs and ladies in robes à la Pompadour swirling through minuets.3 Powdered wigs and ladies in wide petticoat-dresses abound in the paintings of Hilleström and Pilo. By that time he had moved to work in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, which held an important collection not only of Swedish but also of French eighteenth-century painting, as Sweden and France had had close cultural ties during that period. In addition to poetry in the Romantic vein and research on Rococo themes, Sirén began to publish in the Swedish journal Theosophia in 1900. The topic of his first article is “Karma och återfödelsen” (Karma and rebirth).4 It is not known exactly when and how he became interested in Theosophy, but as an aspiring poet, he had certainly read the works of the Romantic poet and writer Viktor Rydberg (1828–95). The Theosophical Society in Sweden (Teosofiska Samfundet) had been founded on Rydberg’s initiative in 1889. Rydberg himself was never active in the Theosophical Society, but he followed theosophical literature. Central to his interests was NeoPlatonism , and he even showed partiality to Buddhism.5 The Theosophical Movement had begun in the United States in 1875. Its inception was based largely on the writings of Helena Blavatsky (1831–91), one of the founding members, and she drew from both Hinduism and Buddhism among other thought...

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