735. CARL FREDRIK HILL. "Saved from Sacrificial Death II".

Cardboard paper (brown coarser paper) lined on Japanese paper, 56.5 x 67 cm.

EXHIBITIONS Malmö, Malmö art gallery, "CF Hill", 1976, cat no. 494.

LITERATURE
Nils Lundhagen, 1976, “Carl Fredrik Hill - the Art of the Disease”, illustrated and listed in the catalogue section as no. 244 and omitted in text p. 171.

In Nils Lindhagen's book “Carl Fredrik Hill - Sickness Year's Art” (1976), which is one of the most exhaustive books on the subject, the author goes through pictures and textual references that Carl Fredrik Hill took part and impressions of during his illness and how he used these in his art on paper. The catalogue number “Saved from the Sacrificial Death II” draws much of its intertextual material from Friedrich Nösselt's “Handbook in Greek and Roman Mythology” (1862) which was an important source for Hill. It recounts at length the story of Iphigenia, the daughter of King Agamemnon, who sacrifices her life for her father and country, but is saved by divine intervention when a Hindu sent by Artemis receives the sacrificial priest's dagger and Iphigenia's life is spared. This story borrows Hill and through a series of drawings he takes the frame story of Iphigenia and the voluntary sacrifice and interprets it based on his worldview and self-perception. About the auction “Saved from sacrificial death II”, Lindhagen writes: “The artist appears in his identifications here also in two figures, partly bound on the sacrificial altar, and partly as a saved person standing in the same position as in the previous picture, if also in different attire, with the condemned tigers at his side. The three lance-tips in Nösselt's picture appear as arrows, pointing downwards towards the tigers, and we can also recognize the praying woman in the left edge of the picture in the corresponding place in the drawing. The Hind now reveals itself in its true form, and the woman above it should, in the name of consistency - and Hill is very often consistent - be the saved Artemis. Even three of her priestesses have been allowed to accompany” (p. 171)

According to the myth of Iphigenia, she is supposed to have said, on the way to her death, “My name shall shine in eternal reputation”, as Carl Fredrik Hill's name has done, not only through the rich material on paper, but also as a renewer of Swedish outdoor painting and a peculiar artistic voice that still inspires, fascinates and influences artists today.