ABSTRACT
Many scholars have classified displays of death as summations of distinctive worldviews. These have been designed to deliver messages of comfort and discomfort while also strengthening solidarity and excluding outsiders. Some nineteenth century American cemeteries, for example, have sought to portray landscapes of desire, originally conceived by French painters and later realized in English estates and public parks. Another distinctive tradition, reflected in large public monuments in Washington D.C., attempts to confront death with the memory of a heroic life. 1 Amidst these traditions, Stockholm’s Woodland Cemetery presents a unique case study. Unlike a cemetery like Mount Auburn in Cambridge, the Woodland Cemetery is not a portrait of one time and one worldview. Instead, it reveals a transitional view of a changing country, struggling with modernity and memory. In this process, it shows intent to be inclusive by artful rhetorical consolidation of pre-Christian, Christian, and Vitalist traditions. Lastly, it serves as a demonstration that modernism has the capacity to embrace these traditions and offer diverse meanings.
