Good day dear community, I hope you are all doing well and you had a day that brought some interesting experiences into your life as well as a positive start to the weekend! In this article, I would like to talk about a well-known legend from Swiss mythology and hope you are able to expand your knowledge.
A very realistic painting by the painter Carl Blechen (1798 - 1840) can be seen here, which is supposed to depict the construction of the Devil's Bridge in the canton of Uri near Andermatt and before I go into more detail about this legend, I would also like to introduce the artist. Carl Blechen came originally from Germany and has become particularly known for his landscape painting and in addition to his own passion for art, he was also a professor of painting at an art academy in Berlin and he himself was considered a diverse artist who liked to be shaped by different cultures and he made trips to different countries and learned a lot about culture there. His works have a very own style and he has stood out from other artists especially through his realistic painting style as well as the light effects, but he only later developed an interest in art and in his young years he was especially influenced by his father who wanted his son to accept a profession in the financial sector but he decided to do his own thing and decided to take art lessons. He was considered an open person and liked to seek contact with other artists who were supposed to influence his works and he was probably also inspired by the painter Casper David Friedrich (1774 - 1840) and some time of his life he also devoted himself to other arts and worked at the theatre where he was responsible for the decoration of the stage. As a painter, he already made a name for himself during his lifetime and regularly visited exhibitions to present his works but his life was characterised by many health Problems and he died at just 41 years and to this day, he is considered a very influential artist who inspires numerous painters with his unqiue style.
After I have discussed the life of the artist, I would now like to come to the legend which can be seen in this painting and was created in the canton of Uri near Andermatt in Switzerland and the origin can already be dated back to the late Middle Ages in the 13th century where supposedly the devil was involved in the construction of a bridge. In this alpine region, the inhabitants once had huge problems when it came to travelling in the southern direction because the way was blocked because of the stony landscape and that the villagers came to their destination, they had to make long detours every time and building a bridge themselves proved to be almost impossible in this area and was also very dangerous and the people had a great respect of this canyon because some people have already had accidents there. Again and again the people tried to find solutions how to cross the canyon but they came to no solution and some day, the whole village community met to find a solution and yet they came to no real solution and they decided to get together with the devil who should build the bridge.
One of the inhabitants then met the devil who said that he would build the bridge but he wanted as a reward the first person who should walk over the bridge and the one who met the devil ran full of excitement to the others to tell them about it. The villagers agreed full of laughter and thought that the one had only come up with this to allow himself a fun and the next morning, the villagers could not believe when they saw that the bridge was already there and the devil was already waiting for the first one to cross it. In another version of the legend, the devil is said to have appeared directly in front of the whole village community to close this pack with everyone and when the bridge stood the next day, they did not know who they should send first and the people even tried to trick the devil and sent a goat over the bridge whereupon the devil freaked out and threatened to destroy the bridge again. When the devil had just picked up a large stone to splinter the bridge into small parts, an old lady came up with the idea of distracting him, which is why he had missed his goal. The legend around the Devil's Bridge is not only one of the well-known from Swiss mythology, but also from a historical point of view very interesting because in the 18th century there was a conflict between the Russians and the French under the leadership of Napoleon.
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about mythology and art! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.
