My prior Art posts can be found HERE.
How do we move away from being a civilization that produces art that causes comments like, “my five year old could make this,” back to being one that creates beauty and inspires deep questions? We must reject modernity and embrace tradition. To embrace tradition, we must first learn about it.
Let’s study art history together.
Sverd i fjell (Swords in Rock) Hafrsfjord, Norway
| Location | Hafrsfjord, Norway |
|---|---|
| Coordinates |  58.9414°N 5.6713°E |
| Designer | Fritz Røed |
| Material | Bronze |
| Height | 10 m (32 ft 9+1⁄2 in) |
| Completion date | 1983 |
This is one of the best public monuments in Norway and their existence is a reminder of the value of long-standing cultural cohesion. In 1983, King Olav V of Norway presented this monument to the public as a memorial of a battle that occurred in 872. Over a thousand years after the battle took place, the monument was built to help people remember their ancestors – and to take pride in their cultural heritage.
In the West today, there is a strong undercurrent of self-hatred. In a short span of time, we have seen a dramatic progression toward the total erosion of Western culture itself (art, architecture, a historical assumption of fault in all circumstances, mass migration without assimilation, etc.) We’ve also seen human beings doing what human beings never do – which is to stop procreating at a self-replacement level. People who hate themselves don’t replace themselves, as it turns out. I don’t know if something like this monument could have been built today, and if it had, it seems likely to have been met with scathing reviews and protests.
Fortunately though, forty years ago, we had not yet embraced that outlook and epic monuments like this could still be built. The message here is good, too. It embraces Norway’s history (as opposed to scorning it) and it includes both the winning King Harald and the losing sides of that history, as though it is one history. It’s a monument of both strength and peace. Hopefully a monument like this can help inspire us out of the malaise we are enduring today.
(more on the monument, via wiki)
Sverd i fjell (English: Swords in Rock) is a commemorative monument located in the Hafrsfjord neighborhood of Madla, a borough of the city of Stavanger which lies in the southwestern part of the large municipality of Stavanger in Rogaland county, Norway.
History
The monument was created by sculptor Fritz Røed from Bryne and was unveiled by King Olav V of Norway in 1983. The three bronze swords stand 10 metres (33 ft) tall and are planted into the rock of a small hill next to the fjord. They commemorate the historic Battle of Hafrsfjord which took place there in the year 872, when King Harald Fairhair gathered all of Norway under one crown. The largest sword represents the victorious Harald, and the two smaller swords represent the defeated petty kings. The monument also represents peace, since the swords are planted into solid rock, so they may never be removed.
