Reviewed by Richard W. Hallett, Northeastern Illinois University

In Travelling in a palimpsest: Finnish nineteenth-century painters’ encounters with Spanish art and culture, Marie-Sofie Lundström examines the works of three Finnish painters, Adolf von Becker, Albert Edelfelt, and Venny Soldan, who visited Spain in the 1800s to establish how their perceptions of Spain were ‘manifested in their pictures in response to the growing tourist industry in nineteenth-century Europe’ (14). In this examination, L combines the areas of art history and tourism studies and considers each of these artists’ oeuvres a palimpsest—that is, ‘a superposition of modern and ancient patterns’ (16). L’s introduction (11–41) presents an overview of the notion of palimpsest and how it can be used to discuss tourist art in particular.

In Ch. 1, ‘The lure of Spain’ (43–58), L discusses the importance of Swedish artist Egron Lundgren, whose ‘fame in Scandinavia made his Spanish imagery particularly important for the emerging view of the characteristics of the Spanish people’ (57). L expands on this theme in Ch. 2, ‘Les dieux et les demi-dieux de la peinture’ (59–83). The growing popularity of Spanish-themed tourist art led to a demand that artists have direct contact with Spain. Ch. 3, ‘Adolf von Becker and the manière espagnole’ (85–132), provides an in-depth analysis of the first Finnish painter to travel to Spain to study and imitate Spanish art.

Ch. 4, ‘The dichotomy of hispanicism: Old masters and popular themes’ (133–205), examines the work of Albert Edelfelt, who apprenticed under von Becker. In Ch. 5, ‘Albert Edelfelt’s imagined Spain’ (207–46), L continues this examination and coins the term connoisseur-tourist, which describes ‘painters travelling abroad in order to enhance their career[s] as painters’ (236). Ch. 6, ‘The Romantic lure of the souvenir’ (247–307), argues that a pictorial souvenir is the most common type of souvenir. In the nineteenth century the pictorial souvenir was tourist art; today it is the ubiquitous postcard.

The focus of Ch. 7, ‘Change and the tourist experience’ (309–51), Edelfelt’s travels in Seville, where he was more of a tourist than he had been in Granada. Ch. 8, ‘The Romantic craze for history’ (353–86), focuses on the history of Spain and the need to show an ancient past to be considered a modern nation state. The book concludes with Ch. 9, ‘Spain remembered: Travelling in a palimpsest’ (387–401), which summarizes how Finnish painters of Spanish tourist art traveled metaphorically in a palimpsest.

With 237 figures, this book is richly illustrated. It will be of particular interest to linguists working in semiotics as well as those working in the discourse of tourism.