The costumes of the Norsemen consisted of trousers, belt, shirt, and often a coat of mail, and over the shoulders they sometimes wore a cloak with a fringe or border at the sides. They carried swords with most elaborately carved and embossed hilts and scabbards of gilt bronze and silver.
To depict the first landing of Lief Erickson amid these surroundings was the object of the painter. How well he has succeeded, a mere inspection of this canvas will at once reveal. The heroic figure of Lief, himself, dreamily and yet with wonderment, looking out upon the newly discovered shore, while with uplifted sword his men are apparently consecrating the new world with a solemn vow of loyalty, some standing on a small boat which is being pushed towards the shore, while others stand knee-deep in the shoal water--the form of the ship or drakkar in the background, the costumes, swords and all the other accessories--constitute a striking and fascinating group. It portrays vividly the solemnity of the occasion when the first white men were about to set foot on the American continent.
The discovery of Vinland and its subsequent colonization by Thorfinn are referred to in the beautiful verses of Bayard Taylor, written on the occasion of his visit to Iceland to attend its millennial celebration, in August, 1874.
"We come, the children of thy Vinland, The youngest of the world's high peers, O land of steel, and song, and saga, To greet thy glorious thousand years.
"Across that sea the son of Erik Dared with his venturous dragon's prow; From shores where Thorfinn set thy banner Their latest children seek thee now.
"What though thy native harps be silent? The chord they struck shall ours prolong; We claim thee kindred, call thee mother, O land of saga, steel and song!"
[Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Edward Moran.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Edward Moran.]
THE SANTA MARIA, NIÑA AND PINTA (EVENING OF OCTOBER 11, 1492)[E]
THE DEBARKATION OF COLUMBUS (MORNING OF OCTOBER 12, 1492).[F]
The landing of Columbus was an historical event of such importance in its consequences that the artist wisely celebrates it in both of these pictures.
We little realize what it meant to brave the perils of the unexplored ocean in the year 1492. We marvel when some adventurous navigator, even now, when every current and wind of the ocean have been observed for five hundred years, and are accurately known and precisely charted, undertakes to cross it in a somewhat diminutive vessel. What, then, must have been the courage of Columbus, when, at the advanced age of fifty-seven, he ventured with his crew upon this perilous undertaking in three frail barks or caravels, the largest of them equipped with a single deck and a single bridge, with an awkward one-story compartment at the prow and a two-story compartment at the stern, and the two others without any deck at all, with their little masts carrying awkward, unwieldy, partly square and partly lateen sails!
