The Horses of the Waves. Vignette, by Gerhard Munthe

and ominous night birds flap their wings. Rusty iron gates
creak upon their hinges, blood courses beneath closed doors
and drips from mirky vaults. And the rout of trolls,
loathsome and lumpish, undergo their metamorphoses.
Yet amid all of this devilry there is a dash of bucolic humor
and animal comedy; amid all that is sinister there is some-
thing that is idyllic and childlike in charm. In the entire
series of pictures, moreover, the colors are positively jubi-
lant, strong and pure and refreshing to the eye.

Munthe's greatest achievement, nevertheless, is the group
of drawings for Snorre. From the fabled world of the
tales he has made his way to the solid ground of history.
He has had recourse to the unearthed art relics of the
bronze age. He has proceeded with the determination of
reaching what is most fundamentally Norwegian in tradi-
tion and temperament; and his intuitive and self-willed
intelligence has actually found the way. He has solved his
problem with the sureness of genius. It is not merely
somnabulistic certainty. Much wide-awake reflection and
thorough study precede his results. This fact Munthe has
made evident to us in a few thoughtful and brilliant pages
on the subject of illustrating our primitive past. With
regard to the best of his drawings for Snorre one has the
impression that they could not have been done otherwise.

Munthe understood, as Egedius also understood, that
without archaizing nothing was to be accomplished. All
attempts at naturalism would inevitably glance off from the

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