T is for TROLL - for 'From A to Z in April', Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

T is for TROLL - for 'Blogging from A to Z in April', Tuesday April 23rd, 2013. Some of my first memories of TROLLS are images painted by the Swedish artist/illustrator, John Bauer (1882-1918): 

John Bauer (1882–1918)

If you have ever walked in an old forest in Sweden, you know that you can almost feel the presence of trolls. They hide behind huge stones; sometimes they disguise themselves as moss-covered boulders. 

John Bauer (1882–1918)

John Bauer (1882–1918)

John Bauer (1882–1918)

John Bauer, 1882-1918 (Read more here: in Swedish & in English) was an artist who died too young. I wonder what his art would have become if he had been able to continue working and not drowned together with his wife and son when the steamer, Per Brahe went down in a storm on the lake Vattern on November 20th, 1918.

There have been many tacky renderings of trolls made since John Bauer stopped painting them. I would love to do something with trolls, write stories and/or illustrate them. I would like to make them majestically ugly or beautifully hidious and worthy of John Bauer's memory. But it may not be possible. John Bauer lived in a time that was closer to trolls than ours.

My theme for A to Z is my favourite things that might show up in written stories, poems, paintings or jewellery. This is my list of subjects that I would like to work with.


Best wishes,
Anna










First Commenter:
Alex J. Cavanaugh