Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Einar Jónsson

Einar Jónsson is an Icelandic sculptor. I'd been a bit turned off him (the idea of him) since I read a chapter in a travel book - perhaps Mrs Alec Tweedie, A Girl's Ride in Iceland (1894), but I can't remember exactly - where she said that he was good, but 'not quite so mighty as Gustav Vigeland'. If you haven't seen anything by Gustav Vigeland before, then here's a taster:

You need particularly to notice the sixty-foot-tall phallus made of writhing naked bodies. It's even more impressive close up. After the phallus, I was a little wary of anyone, Jónsson included, who fell into the same category. But this afternoon, I went to the Jónsson sculpture park up the hill by the Hallgrímskirkja. Pleasantly surprising.


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