Now And Then: Sculpted Independence Day Heroes

And how they end up as LDS tropes

We’re at Austurvöllur, the heart of Reykjavík. The green oasis in front of Alþingi, where people sometimes protest, while others try to enjoy the summer and where some of the more colourful characters of this town can sometimes be seen on the benches. Towering over the middle of the square is a life-size statue of our George Washington, our independence hero, our Jón Sigurðsson (1811-1879), who’s generally seen has the man who trailblazed Iceland’s path to independence in the middle of the 19th century and whose birthday, the 17th of June, was adopted as Iceland’s independence day in 1944.

Since 1931 his statue, sculpted by Einar Jónsson (1874-1954) to commemorate his 100th birthday in 1911, has towered over Austurvöllur and looked (we hope) approvingly across the field towards the Alþingi building. In fact, the statue is such an integral part of Austurvöllur that no local can even imagine the place without it, let alone another statue in its place. But this used to be the case. Until 1931, another statue of another Icelander had occupied the pedestal for almost six decades, a self-portrait of a sculpture by then the most famous Icelander to have lived, outside of perhaps Snorri Sturluson. That sculpture of Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) was gifted to Icelanders by our Danish then-overlords in 1874 to celebrate a thousand years of settlement.

Admittedly, Bertel was only half-Icelandic and was born in Copenhagen, but back then, we didn’t have Björk (or Kaleo) so we took what we could get. A renowned sculptor in his day, Bertel did work for popes and emperors, but to the modern reader, his most famous work is probably Christus, a marble sculpture of Jesus now found in the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen. Wait, you haven’t heard of that? That’s right, but that particular statue is what the LDS Church has copied many times over and used far and wide in their houses of worship and yes, you simply must have seen it, but never thought of it until now.

The old picture here is from The Reykjavík City Museum’s photo collection. Visit it here.