▲ 119 points
back
28 comments
> He was skilled enough to invent a credible fake in the style of a 17th-century mural.
What if he didn't want to, though? What if the joke was to do something ridiculous and make people take it seriously? In short, what if he was trolling?
If he was, you have to give a certain respect to a man who spends his whole career building credibility to burn on a single high-effort, high impact prank, never losing his straight face even with his son who somehow has to go along with it. Not necessarily an admirable man, but an impressive man.
Or maybe it was just a mental health episode oddly confined to a particular time, place, and role in the man's life with no known side effects. That could happen, I guess.
> Or maybe it was just a mental health episode oddly confined to a particular time, place, and role in the man's life with no known side effects. That could happen, I guess.
My first impression was that Gotaas suffered symptoms of pareidolia[1] caused by ergotism.[2][3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism
[3] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.94...
Fascinating stuff. The demonveggen reminds of something in an art museum: compelling and disturbing all at once.
> The lines of the painting are so fine that the tiniest figures seem to pull the viewer into an infinite Satanic menagerie.
Ooh. Someone ML up a XaoS-style zooming fractal menagerie!
Too much effort to be a joke. I see several possibilities
1. Non deliberate poisoning
Meat is hard to find in war times. A diet with too much legumes or spinach is rich in vegetable toxins that the plants use as defense. Expecting humble substandard quality food seems appropriate when living in a small village vicar's house, unable to even afford accurate heating in the church.
Meat is rich in zinc. If we combine a meatless diet with plant toxins that block zinc absorption and all of this with paint, we can end with paint poisoning. Calcium dust could raise the calcium intake and calcium competes with zinc absorption. Chrome salts in the paint may mess also somehow with the capability to absorb zinc.
Altered levels of zinc in the blood are directly linked with schizophrenia.
2. Revenge
Not the type of "you scammed and didn't pay me, so I will work for two years more in miserable conditions". Maybe a serious grunt or a strong dislike for the priest in charge would lead to a statement of "this church is not a good place and is filled with demons forever now". The higher number of demons, the better. Could be related with something that happened to him, or to his son, or with some rumors circulating about the priest .
Is unclear how the priest would not notice even the bigger figures. Either the didn't, or prefer not to sue him or disclose the case, for several reasons.
There are also other two hypothetical explanations, very unlikely but not impossible
3. Disguise
The draw is a disguise. Maybe with the complicity of the priest. The elaborate and dense figures in some places mixed with bigger and less dense figures in other would be hiding chunks of an hypothetical previous text that could be seen as a shame, politically dangerous just before 1940, or blasphemous but without destroying it entirely for a possible historical value.
Maybe a statement in jewish marking the church as a sanctuary place, or a few phrases in cyrillic, runes or other foreign language that would be not evident to spot for a non native. Some alphabet with a lot of pairs of circles that could be refactored logically as eyes. Lots and lots of them.
The priest would not want it disclosed as would harm his reputation as caretaker of an historical building or reduce his income, but just painting white over the previous religious picture would guarantee a lot of undesirable interest. Claiming that they were restoring it and drawing over it to achieve a grey effect would be a "safer" compromise solution.
4. Deliberate poisoning
By himself (Amanita mushrooms?) is unlikely as is an isolated case in his career and would not lead to such meticulous work. His son would have noticed also that something was not right. The figures are strange but still realistic and not distorted. If by a third part there is not an obvious reason to do it, and he would not voluntarily return to the place after this.
> or prefer not to sue him
The church is/was state property. It wouldn't have been the priest who'd go after him, it'd have been the government department responsible or the police.
> Maybe a statement in jewish marking the church as a sanctuary place, or a few phrases in cyrillic, runes or other foreign language that would be not evident to spot for a non native.
Hebrew would be incredibly unlikely in that between the time the mural is from and 1940, there were very few Jewish people in Norway as a whole, and certainly not in some tiny village in the middle of nowhere. From 1687 to 1814 it required special dispensation from the government for Jewish people to enter Norway at all. From 1814 to 1851 Jewish people were banned from entering by the constitution. After the ban was lifted, few came due to very strict immigration policies in general. By 1940 there were only about 2100 Jewish people in Norway.
Cyrillic writing would be equally unlikely. If it had been up North, maybe, but not in Telemark.
Runes would be more likely to be celebrated than hidden away unless the content was very problematic, and mere references to Norse mythology would not be sufficient; the influence on pre-Christian Norse mythology on Christianity in Norway is rarely hidden away, and during that time, there had been a renewed interest in that heritage. In fact, at that time, about half of all known runic inscriptions in Norway were in churches, and many of them made by or on behalf of priests or bishops. (There was at least one "[priest] was here" type inscription in Telemark - "Áslakr prestr reit rúnar şessar", "Aslak the priest wrote these runes" - originally in Atrå church)
I don't think there has ever been any find of inscriptions in runes in Norway which would have been problematic to find in a church. It's possible, of course, but I don't buy that there'd be this one huge exception, not least because most runic inscriptions are very short.
> or reduce his income
The priest would have been a state employee on a fixed salary. Norway had a state church until 2012, and while there had been independent churches for quite some time by then, none of the older churches like the one in Sauherad would have been. If the priest was in on something it was certainly not for fear of his personal finances.
>Too much effort to be a joke.
This is not sound reasoning. People put immense effort into jokes.
I could be wrong, but jokes are normally limited in scope, time and place. Nobody sane would destroy an historical artifact in a sacred place and then says "just kidding, ha-haa". This looks too much overblown just for a small private amusement. It would need a stronger motivation because the consequences are real and not negligible. Is professional suicide for a restorer.
Just the first example I can think of is this dude that spend decades of his life creating an elaborate satanic hoax. He never came clean to anybody, presumably hope the joke could go on for a long time. You also have those desert monoliths, that confused everyone recently.
https://da-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Knud_Langkow?...
People might be reading too much into the 'demon' stuff: At least in Denmark, all medieval churches had devils painted on the ceiling. Could be the guy just thought it fit well in this Norwegian church too?
Someone please scan this, extract all the faces, and create an avatar generator.
What’s so weird about this? If he’d painted flowers we’d have all said “how lovely!”. Maybe he liked painting demons, it doesn’t make him demonic.
But he was not an artist, but a conservator. His job was to restore the existing historical painting, not create a new one from his imagination. He was, by all accounts, extremely meticulous about that in all other assignments apart from this one. Other than that, if he "liked painting demons" there would be notebooks and canvases full of the stuff at home. There were none. So the fact that this is a one-off, extremely serious breach of professional etiquette, combined with an obsession with a subject matter he was not otherwise interested in, does indeed make it rather weird.
I find it really interesting that you are defending against a claim that was never made in the article - the possibility of him being "demonic". Personally I found it strange that the piece speculated so much from a psychological angle but didn't remotely mention the spiritual, while my thoughts on reading were exactly that - perhaps the person or place was under some kind of demonic possession and this is the outcome of a spiritual attack. A little instance of the world we don't understand spilling over into the one we do.
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist." - Keyser Söze, after Baudelaire
> does indeed make it rather weird.
A fascinating case indeed. It’s interesting to speculate about what could explain what happened.
> Personally I found it strange that the piece speculated so much from a psychological angle but didn't remotely mention the spiritual, while my thoughts on reading were exactly that - perhaps the person or place was under some kind of demonic possession and this is the outcome of a spiritual attack.
Because mania and delirium are things that actually happen and can be caused by many things (somebody else mentioned ergotism; there are other things that cause behaviours that can be interpreted as religious); demonic possession does not.
> "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist." - Keyser Söze, after Baudelaire
I would not trust a 19th century poet with syphilis and off his face on absinth to tell me what is true and what is not. Besides the logical fallacy embedded in that specific quote.
Looking at that picture, I'm not seeing anything demonic or disturbing in it. This view is often seen by people under influence of drugs or alcohol, if they ever manage to remember details, and this gives a plausible explanation: the author was high that time, and must've confused his otherwise banal vision with something important.
I've used drugs. I've generally been casual about it (save for nicotine and sometimes THC), but it means that I've met a few actual users in my time.
Most folks aren't seeing demons, and especially not enough to do a 2-year secret art project while on drugs. It is, honestly, more common for a businessperson to have a secret drug habits.
I'd also like to point out that folks have seen demons for quite some time in history without having it fueled by drugs: Religion can fuel this, especially when combined with little understanding of the observable world around you.
And lastly, just because you don't see anything demonic nor disturbing doesn't actually take away from it being such to others. I put random eyes in artwork sometimes: I like it, but it really makes some folks' skin crawl. They definitely have different opinions than I do.
That might be possible, but according to the article, the images were created over the course of two years.
If the conservator was under the influence of drugs or alcohol for that long, I would imagine signs would have showed up in his other jobs, in his personal documents, or in other aspects of his life (the vicar didn't note that much substance consumption?)
Regardless of the cause, I'm quite interested in what the conservator's reaction to it would have been if/when he realized he did not actually conserve the original art. I've watched a few art conversations (Baumgartner Restoration on YouTube is great!) and there's a huge pride in accurately reproducing/restoring the original.
He was under influence once (e.g. a delirium episode), he saw that vision once and it really impressed him. The true importance of these demons is that of mosquitos: they are unimpressive, but drugs may distort visuals so mosquitos appear as dragons for example.
It reminds me of that guy who squiggled over his whole house. Demons make interesting shapes.
>under some kind of demonic possession
You spelled “miracle” wrong.
I wonder if – assuming it's not forged or a product of hallucination/pareidolia – this was created during the bubonic plague epidemic in Europe in the 14th century. Priests would travel around to farms to "treat" the ill. And no doubt see some fucked up shit in the process.
No. The work was created in the 20th century by a conservator going rogue, for reasons unknown, and completely ignoring the underlying painting that he was supposed to restore.
That's not a confirmed theory at all. It seems likely, yes, but not confirmed.
I wouldn't say it's only a "theory" that remnants of a 16th/17th century (not 14th) mural depicting biblical figures were present before Gotaas turned up. That is clearly documented. I mean, you could make a very far-fetched hypothesis that under this work was another, much older work, unlike anything else ever known to be produced at the time, which Gotaas somehow discovered and restored without telling anyone else and without stopping to ask whether they would prefer this to be restored instead of the biblical scene they had originally asked him to take a look at. But there is absolutely zero evidence that any of the figures depicted by Gotaas were present before he began his "restoration".
I'm aware it's far fetched and I don't even really believe it, and there is no evidence like you say, but it's also kind of hard since there doesn't seem to have been a huge amount of analysis done before his work. To me this is one of those things we'll basically never know the answer to; the crucial information(state of the mural before the restoration) is lost to history. It reminds me of the Voynich manuscript in that sense.
I was just captivated by the idea of some 14th century priest losing his mind and doing this. But yeah, not exactly likely.
It was done in the 1940’s so the demons might be due to WWII.
I don't see any clear demon there. I see dragons (a scaly body can be seen near), fantastic animals and people. Some with grotesque or angry faces.
A wildboar, a baby over a horse and a warrior can be spotted clearly but, apart of a goat with horns (that is not looking at the spectator and could just be a hunting scene), none of the stereotypical figures associated to demons like stars, 666 numbers, or inverted crosses are seen in the photos
If there are demons, they look much more like Asian demons. Not in the christian tradition at all.
> none of the stereotypical figures associated to demons like stars, 666 numbers, or inverted crosses are seen in the photos
Those are modern, pop culture stereotypes. The inverted cross and the pentagram are centuries old catholic symbols (not associated with demons).