When Christian Eriksson rented out his newly built summer studio and residence in 1898 to the newly married artist couple Gustaf Fjaestad and Maja Hallén, the foundations of the Rackstad Colony were laid. There thoughts were propagated from it English Arts and Crafts movement with ideas from John Ruskin and William Morris. They considered that art was an important part of society and strove to improve society through artistic creative work and avoid it
ugly, pointless and false. These ideals led among other things to the formation of a new art style - Art Nouveau - as it came to be known in England and France or Jugend in Germany and the Nordics, meaning the young style.
This art movement spread across the western world in the late 19th century really took root The Nordic countries and also with Christian Eriksson.
He had come into contact with these currents under its time in Paris during the 1890s.
It is clearly visible through his experimenting in different materials and techniques. It could be pewter works, silver platters, ceramic teapots, executed in an organic form albeit somewhat subdued.
In the design of door locks and switches from 1901 Christian has on an elegant and skillful way let the female figure pass to an ornament. The ornament was an important feature of Art Nouveau, but then it was above all the plant ornament referred to. He was charmed in Heidenstam fashion by the Swedish the flora with the bluebell as favorite but was not significantly inspired by the floral i their works, but instead listened the human being at the center. The realistic expression can be seen in the cabinets which he created. Some examples are the Chicago cabinet with the tailor and shoemaker depicted and the so-called The Laurin cabinet there Christian have had the motif with a woman and a calf from his home village in Taserud. The model to the woman was brother Olof's wife Christina and the calf was Anna's at Tomta in Högvalta.
On the Kärvbinderskan relief from 1896, the maid Johanna in Rifalla was the model. Both of these reliefs bring to mind the ideas of John Ruskin about truth as the basis of art and Arts and Crafts photographer Peter Henry Emerson's