Maa for sin Trolöshed böde.
There remains now to discuss briefly whether the Norse mythology furnishes subjects for painting and sculpturing. If the reader has become convinced that there is material in it worthy of the greatest poet, then it is not necessary to say much about painting and sculpturing; for we know that most things that can be said in verse can be made visible on the canvas, or be chiseled in marble. We shall therefore be brief on this particular point, but after the presentation of a few subjects for the painter or sculptor, we shall have something to say about nude art.
Can the brush or the chisel ask for more suggestive subjects than Odin, Balder, Thor, Frey, Idun, Nanna, Loke, etc.? or groups like the norns at the Urdar-fountain? or Urd (the past) and Verdande (the present), who stretch from east to west a web, which is torn to pieces by Skuld (the future); the valkyries in the heat of the battle picking up the slain; or when they carry the fallen Hakon Adelsten to Valhal? Cannot a beautiful picture be made of Æger and Ran and their daughters, the waves? of the gods holding their feast with Æger and sending out Thor to fetch a caldron for them from Jotunheim? or of Thor clapping the pot on his head like a huge hat and walking off with it? What more touching scene can be perceived than the death of Balder? Only in that short poem Hamarsheimt (fetching the hammer) there are no less than three beautiful subjects: (1) Thor wakes up and misses his hammer; he feels around him for it; he is surprised and hesitates; he wrinkles his brows and his head trembles. Loke looks down upon him from above; the rogue is in his eye; he would like to break out in a roar of laughter, but dare not. (2) All the gods are engaged in dressing Thor in Freyja’s clothes; he is a tall straight youth with golden hair and a fine brown beard; lightning flashes from his eyes; while Fulla puts on him Freyja’s jewels there is a terrible conflict going on in his breast with this humiliation of his dignity, which he cannot overcome. Loke stands half-ready near by as maid-servant; he dresses Thor’s hair and is himself half-covered by the bridal-veil which Thor is to wear. All take an intense interest in the work, for they are so anxious to have the stratagem succeed. (3) The giants have laid the hammer in the lap of the bride; Thor seizes it, and as he pushes aside the veil he literally grows into his majestic divinity, for whenever he wields his mighty Mjolner his strength is redoubled. The disappointed desire of Thrym, the astounded giants, the amused Loke; all furnish an endless variety of excellent material for the brush of the painter. The plastic art can find no more exquisite group than Loke bound upon three stones, and his loving wife, Sigyn, leaning over him with a dish, wherein she catches the drops of venom that would otherwise fall into his face and intensify his agonies. A volume of themes might be presented, but it is not necessary. Suffice it then to say that for poetry, painting and the plastic arts, there is in the Norse mythology a fountain of delight whose waters but few have tasted, but which no man can drain dry.
We promised to say something about nude art. It is this: We Goths are, and have forever been, a chaste race. We abhor the loathsome nudity of Greek art. We do not want nude figures, at least not unless they embody some very sublime thought. The people of southern Europe differ widely from us Northerners in this respect; and this difference reaches far back into our respective mythologies, adding additional proof to the fact that the myths foreshadow the social life of a nation or race of people. The Greek gods were generally conceived as nude, and hence Greek art would naturally be nude also. Whether the licentiousness and lasciviousness of the Greek communities were the primary causes of the unæsthetical features of their mythology or their Bacchanalian revels sprang from the mythology, it is difficult to determine. We undoubtedly come nearest the truth when we say that the same primeval causes produced both the social life and mythology of the Greeks; that there thenceforward was an active reciprocating influence between the religion on the one side and the popular life on the other, an influence that we may liken unto that which operates between the soul and the body; and thus it may be said that the mythology and the popular life combined produced their nude art. To say that the popular character of the Greeks, taken individually or collectively, was stimulated into life by their mythology; that the virtues and the vices of the people originated in it alone; would certainly be an incorrect and one-sided view of the subject. The Greeks brought with them, from their original home into Greece, the germs of that faith which afterwards became developed in a certain direction under the influence of the popular life and the action of external circumstances upon that life, but which in turn reacted upon the popular life with a power which increased in proportion as the system of mythology acquired by development a more decided character. The same is true of the Norsemen and of the Goths in general. When it is found, for instance, that the mythological representation of Odin as father of the slain (Val-father), and that Valhal (the hall of the slain), the valkyries and einherjes, contain a strong incentive to warlike deeds, then it must not be imagined that this martial spirit, that displayed itself so powerfully among the Goths generally, and among the Norsemen particularly, was the offspring of the mythology of our ancestors; but we may rather conceive that the Norsemen were from the beginning a race of remarkable physical power, that accidental external causes, such as severe climate, mountainous country, conflicts with neighboring peoples, etc., brought this inherent physical force into activity and thus awakened the warlike spirit; and then it may be said that this martial spirit stamped itself upon their religious ideas, upon their mythology, and finally that the mythology, when it had received this characteristic impress from the people, again reacted to preserve and even further inflame that martial spirit. And there is no inconsistency between this view of the subject and that which was presented in the third chapter.
It was said at the outset that we Goths are a chaste race, and abhor the loathsome nudity of Greek art. We were a chaste people before our fathers came under the influence of Christianity. The Elder Edda, which is the grand depository of the Norse mythology, may be searched through and through, and there will not be found a single nude myth, not an impersonation of any kind that can be considered an outrage upon virtue or a violation of the laws of propriety; and this feature of the Odinic religion deserves to be urged as an important reason why our painters and sculptors should look at home for something wherewith to employ their talent, before they go abroad; look in our own ancient Gothic history, before going to ancient Greece.
But the artist who is going to chisel out an Odin, a Thor, a Balder, a Nanna, or a Loke, must not be a mere imitator. He must possess a creative mind. He must not go to work at a piece of Norse art with his imagination full of Greek myths, much less must he attempt to apply Greek principles to a piece of Gothic art. He will find the Norse chisel a somewhat more ponderous weapon to swing; and you cannot turn as rapidly with a railroad car as you can with a French fiacre or American gig. To try to chisel out the gods of our forefathers after South European patterns would be like attempting to write English with the mind full of Latin syntax. Hence we repeat, that we do not want an imitator, but an original genius. Greek mythology has been presented so many times, and so well, that the imitation, the repetition, is comparatively easy. He who would bring out Gothic art (and but little of it has hitherto been brought out) must himself be a poet, and what a mine of wealth there is open to him! Would that genuine art fever would attack our artists and that some of the treasures that lie hid in the granite quarries of the Norse mythology might speedily be exhumed!
In his work, entitled Science of Beauty, Dr. John Bascom has taken decided grounds against nude figures in art. We would recommend the eighth chapter of that work to the careful consideration of the reader. We are not able for want of space to give his opinion in full, but make the following brief extract:
There is one direction in which art has indulged itself in a most marked violation of propriety, and that too on the side of vice. I refer to the frequent nudity of its figures. This is a point upon which artists have been pretty unanimous, and disposed to treat the opinions of others with hauteur and disdain, as arising at best from a virtue more itching and sensitive than wise, from instincts more physical than æsthetical. This practice has been more abused in painting than in sculpture, both as less needed, and hence less justifiable, and as ever tending to become more loose and lustful in the double symbols of color and form, than when confined to the pure, stern use of the latter in stone or metal. Despite alleged necessities,—despite the high-toned claims and undisguised contempt of artists,—our convictions are strongly against the practice, as alike injurious to taste and morals. Indeed, if injurious to morals, it cannot be otherwise than injurious to taste, since art has no more dangerous enemy than a lascivious perverted fancy.
Nay, in the radiant dawn of our Gothic history our poets and artists may, if they would but look for them, find chaste themes to which they may consecrate the whole ardor of their souls for the æsthetical elevation and ennoblement of our race. As a people we are growing too prosaic and, therefore, too ungodly; we nourish the tender minds of our children too early and too extensively on dry reasoning, mathematics and philosophy, instead of strengthening, stimulating and beautifying their souls with some of the poetic thoughts, some of the mythology and folk-lore of our forefathers. These mythological stories, these fairy tales and all this folk-lore, illuminated by the genial rays of the Christian religion shining upon them, should be made available in our families and schools, by our poets, painters and sculptors, and then our children would in turn get their æsthetical natures developed so as to be able to beautify their own life and that of their posterity with still finer productions in poetry, painting, and sculpture.