Mens sana in corpore sano

Georg Pauli studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in Stockholm in 1871-75 and 1878–79, and studied and worked in France and Italy for several years during the 1870s and 1880s. He studied naturalist in- and outdoor painting, influenced by Bastien-Lepage. In 1887, he married Swedish painter Hanna Hirsch (1864–1940). Having encountered cubism in Paris in 1911, he apprenticed himself to André Lhote and moved towards a cubist style, which he however abandoned in the 1920s. He had a lifelong interest in classical motifs, mythology and symbolism which was often reflected in his paintings. Beginning in the 1890s Pauli specialized in monumental paintings. "Mens sana in corpore sano" is one of the first versions of a mural in the auditorium in Jönköping secondary school. The Cubist emphasized murals were among the first in Sweden and aroused great debate.