Image: Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). The Nibelungen series, Ride of the Valkyries (1942), New York

Description: The German fascination with Scandinavian and Viking war myths has long dominated the nation’s artistic and musical traditions. Richard Wagner’s operas famously employ the people and places of Asgard to tout the superiority of the Fatherland in every aspect of physical and moral life. Here Szyk’s depiction of the Valkyries, shrieking as they plunge into battle for their Führer, both underscores and makes sport of the importance Nazi Germany placed upon such stories. In traditional Norse folklore, the Valkyries are handmaids of Odin who ride magnificent white steeds through the air, flying into combat to choose the warriors who are to be slain and taken to Valhalla. In Szyk’s image the female spirits hurtle through the darkened sky alongside German fighter planes, carrying javelins, machine guns, and bombs. Swastikas adorn their armor and their shields, and they grimace in determi- nation under winged helmets. The galloping horde recalls scenes of the apocalypse as presented in renaissance woodcuts; Dürer’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse surely informed the composition. The central Valkyrie sports a shield emblazoned with a treble clef, an homage to Herr Wagner that brings to mind the rousing leitmotif of Die Walküre. To die for the Fatherland and awaken again in the heaven of Valhalla—this is the blind patriotism of a generation of German soldiers, particularly the prized pilots of the Luftwaffe. This detailed and intensely crowded drawing pulls the viewer into the frenzy, forcing one to hear the sound of the dogfight from which there is no retreat. The horses alone seem unresigned to their fate: the terrified animal at bottom right seems to escape the bounds of the drawing itself. In so many of his works Szyk portrays the Germans as overfed louts, ignorant and sluggish. Ride of the Valkyries acknowledges the flipside of the stereotype: lest we forget, they were formidable enemies that fully deserved our fear and awe.
Title: Arthur Szyk (1894-1951). The Nibelungen series, Ride of the Valkyries (1942), New York
Credit: The Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA (www.szyk.org)
Author: Arthur Szyk
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