This paper examines the exhibition Allmänna konst- och industriutställningen in Stockholm 1897 and how landscape paintings by Swedish artists possibly could be interpreted as a part of the exhibitions political intention of being nationalistic. Methodically it is influenced by art historian Michael Baxandalls social history concept period eye. Focus is here about how and with what arguments the paintings could be said to be a fruit of their society. The purpose is to investigate whether, and if so, with witch rhetorical language the paintings were exhibited to help communicate a notion of common national values. The result shows that the paintings were exhibited together with international paintings, not side by side but divided country by country. Several paintings have parts in their motifs that in this context can be said to be related to the construction of national identity. A conclusion is that both paintings and context are performative.

The genre paintings of the artist Pehr Hilleström (1732–1816) are frequently used as illustrations of everyday life in the Swedish late Eighteen-century bourgeois households. The aim of this study is to examine Hilleströms interior scenes as a source to the cultural history of the Eighteenth century in Sweden.  The Eighteenth century is often described as a period when the concepts of home and household changed and came to be seen as something private and more intimate than before. In this study I examine if these new perceptions of the household found expression in Hilleströms images. In addition, I also analyze if, and to what extent these images can be seen as moralizing.  I do this by examining Hilleströms bourgeoise interiors in relation both to French genre painting, and to accounts of home and household derived from readings of range of Eighteenth-century literary sources. In my examination of the views on household of Hilleström and his contemporaries I use Michael Baxandalls concepts troc and period eye. The primary sources I use to create a period eye, comprise novels, satirical verse, theatre plays and conduct books.  The study shows that Hilleströms images owe quite a lot to conventions of genre painting and, especially to French painters, such as Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin. The content of Hilleström’s pictures correspond well to the image of the traditional, ideal home found in contemporary literature. However, the new, more sentimental ideas about home and household are not to be found in Hilleström’s images. Whether Hilleström’s images are moralizing or not, I find more difficult to conclude. While not explicitly satirical, in the light of the Eighteenth-century literary texts, they might have been interpreted so by the viewer.