(sometimes) sadness

Årnäs isn’t supposed to need repairs or modernizing or maintenance because the point is preserving a timeless legacy that never changes.

This is a good point re: the visibility of effort and the preservation of timelessness. I've recently read this chonk of a book about the gentry as a social class in the UK, and I feel like August's relationship with his family estate is very similar to a lot of the upper-end of the gentry spectrum portrayed in that book, in the sense that he wants to feed into Årnäs; he wants the place to thrive, to be respected, to be protected and preserved for future generations. Which is understandable, especially if you were born into that kind of mindset.

Fixing the estate up isn't necessarily a bad thing. Being seen to care for your ancestral home isn't exactly frowned upon but as you've pointed out, there's a hypocrisy when it comes to work versus the perception of work. August's problem is that he's so cash-poor that he can't fix up Årnäs like he needs to without selling the paintings or whatever he owns--and that's the real downside of his situation. He's trading in his social cachet (paintings, etc) for something as 'demeaning' as cash, which he should already have in spades.

Anyway, the way I'm so sympathetic to August's plight is. A bit insane, actually.