ABSALON’S CASTLE

This is a sketch, to the Painting Absalon’s Castle. This motif is a reminder to the politicians that thousands of liters of unstoppable glacial water are heading their way into their offices and homes.

It will wash away life as we know it. Politicians will fail. Kings will fall. Water will remain as a silent witness to the human flaw.

Fourth draft for a larger painting. Drawing and water color, 28 x 40 cm / 11 ×15 Inches

There is a saying: Lay Down Like a Dane, Absalon was not one of those Danes. According to the Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, Bishop Absalon of Roskilde built a castle in 1167 on a small island outside Copenhagen Harbour.

The castle was made up of a curtain wall, encircling an enclosed courtyard with several buildings, such as the bishop’s palace, a chapel, and several minor buildings.

At the death of Absalon in 1201, possession of the castle and city of Copenhagen passed to the bishops of Roskilde. A few decades later, however, a bitter feud erupted between crown and church, and for almost two centuries the ownership of the castle and city was contested between kings and bishops.

Furthermore, the castle was frequently under attack, for example by Wend pirates and the Hanseatic cities, and during the years 1249 to 1259 it was occupied and plundered. In 1370, King Valdemar IV of Denmark was defeated in conflict with the Hanseatic League, which ordered the castle to be demolished.

They sent 40 stonemasons to demolish the castle stone by stone. The castle had long been a terrible nuisance to the Hanseatic cities trade in the Sound, and the time had now come to remove it.