And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
The Wild Hunt of Odin, by Peter Nicolai Arbo, 1872
Odin uses a spear (Gungnir). I see Thor with his hammer in the background, but no male spear-wielders, and I've never read of Odin doing the sex-swap thing (that was more Loki's gig).
This is the painting "The Wild Hunt of Odin" dated 1872, painted by Peter Nicolai Arbo. Arbo based his work on a poem by Johan Sebastian Welhaven, and you can see the painting at the National Museum of Art in Oslo.
Bathory's use as an album cover is one of many commercial uses of the artwork.
In Abro's version a helmeted man, some say it is "Sigurd," leads the mystical hunt, with the two bare-breasted "Valkyries." The full nude is someone they have captured.
While the gratuitous bare breasts and other details make for a tantalizing painting, the poem and Nordic tradition cast these characters in a different light. Basically Arbo did to the poem what Hollywood does to a good story that isn't sexy enough.
Nonetheless I would happily give up the wall space for this painting.
Per 'History Today': "Accompanied by Odin’s ravens, the menacing throng ‘sweep through forest and air in whole companies with a horrible din’, all in search of mortals who, having failed to find a hiding place from the celestial hunting party, are abducted as prey and taken to the underworld. The arrival of the Wild Hunt was thought to herald catastrophes, such as war, plague or famine, and presaged the death of anyone who witnessed it."
Ghost Riders in the Sky...
ReplyDeleteGreat minds think alike.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mynzbmrtp9I
"On Horses Snorting Fire"
I'm partial to the Vaughn Monroe version.
DeleteOdin uses a spear (Gungnir). I see Thor with his hammer in the background, but no male spear-wielders, and I've never read of Odin doing the sex-swap thing (that was more Loki's gig).
ReplyDeleteThe cover for Bathory's epic "Blood, Fire, Death" album.
ReplyDeleteSeems we are real close to that time.....Ragnarok....
ReplyDeleteThis is the painting "The Wild Hunt of Odin" dated 1872, painted by Peter Nicolai Arbo. Arbo based his work on a poem by Johan Sebastian Welhaven, and you can see the painting at the National Museum of Art in Oslo.
ReplyDeleteBathory's use as an album cover is one of many commercial uses of the artwork.
In Abro's version a helmeted man, some say it is "Sigurd," leads the mystical hunt, with the two bare-breasted "Valkyries." The full nude is someone they have captured.
While the gratuitous bare breasts and other details make for a tantalizing painting, the poem and Nordic tradition cast these characters in a different light. Basically Arbo did to the poem what Hollywood does to a good story that isn't sexy enough.
Nonetheless I would happily give up the wall space for this painting.
Per 'History Today': "Accompanied by Odin’s ravens, the menacing throng ‘sweep through forest and air in whole companies with a horrible din’, all in search of mortals who, having failed to find a hiding place from the celestial hunting party, are abducted as prey and taken to the underworld. The arrival of the Wild Hunt was thought to herald catastrophes, such as war, plague or famine, and presaged the death of anyone who witnessed it."
ReplyDelete