“Swear to me, Hagen, my son!”, 1911, ink and watercolor on paper, Arthur Rackham. Image Source
“Swear to me, Hagen, my son!”
“Swear to me, Hagen, my son!” is an ink and watercolor on paper illustration by the English illustrator, Arthur Rackham. It was commissioned for a 1911 English publication of Richard Wagner’s opera, The Ring of the Nibelung. For the first time, it was translated into English. Rackham painted 30 colored plates and additional monotone illustrations.
The Ring of the Nibelung is a four-part opera loosely based on Norse mythology. Wagner composed this Germanic opera between 1848 and 1874. It follows the fate of a magic ring created by the dwarf, Alberich, and the struggles between gods and heroes to gain control over it.
In “Swear to me, Hagen, my son!“, Alberich, the creator of the ring and father to Hagen, speaks with his son. He pleads for him to obtain the magic ring, and to remain loyal to him. This scene takes place in the fourth and final part of the opera, the “Twilight of the Gods”. The well-known “The Valkyrie” is the second part of this opera.
C. S. Lewis loved Rackham’s work and spoke about the first time he saw this book in person:
“There, on [my cousin’s] drawing room table I found the very book… which I had never dared to hope I should see, “Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods” illustrated by Arthur Rackham. His pictures, which seemed to me to be the very music [of Wagner] made visible, plunged me a few fathoms deeper into my delight. I have seldom coveted anything as I coveted that book; and when I heard there was a cheaper edition at 15 shillings… I knew I could never rest until it was mine.” source
For more on Arthur Rackham, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
