In April 1961, after extensive preparations, the warship Vasa was salvaged from the harbor at Stockholm where it had sunk during its maiden voyage on August 10, 1628. The hull was towed to a dry dock, placed on a pontoon, and surrounded by a protective aluminum casing. From the late autumn of 1961 to December 1988, the Vasa was exhibited in a provisional museum, where it was also conserved and restored. In the summer of 1990, the reconstructed warship was placed on view at the new Vasa Museum in the Djurgården in Stockholm (fig.). Since then, over 6 million visitors have viewed the ship, making the Vasa Museum one of the most popular museums in Scandinavia.

When the Vasa was salvaged, the ship consisted only of the hull, which, however, was amazingly well preserved. The powerful rigging with its masts and topsail yards and the high aftercastle [???] with its galleries [???] and transoms [???], as well as the massive cutwater [???], had all been destroyed during the 333 years the Vasa lay at the bottom of the sea, while many other parts had fallen off as well. Thus the salvaging of the Vasa also included the recovery of thousands of structural elements as well as several hundred sculptures and carved ornaments. All of these provided the basis for the reconstruction of the ship. Today, the Vasa may be seen in all its restored ornamentation, with the reconstructed aftercastle [???] and cutwater [???] and numerous sculptures, ornaments, and architectural elements, all in their proper places. The final product is the result of many years of patient work, made all the more difficult by the lack of any surviving drawings, illustrations, or specifications for the original appearance of the ship.

The Vasa was built at the royal shipyard in Stockholm between 1626 and the spring of 1628, in the course of rearmament of the Swedish fleet. She was constructed primarily in the Dutch manner by a master shipwright born in Holland; with her high and rather narrow stern and the large, heavy cutwater [???] inclined slightly upwards, the Vasa represents the type of ship developed in western and northern Europe during the second half of the 16th century. With a length of 69 meters including the bowsprit, the warship Vasa was a large vessel for Swedish standards, perhaps the largest built up to that point in Sweden. The stern with the sterncastle [???] was nearly 20 meters, the main mast ca. 50 meters high; the ship's displacement was 1,400 tons. Built with a double battery deck for 48 heavy cannons, the Vasa had a total of 64 guns; with its ten sails, it was designed for a crew of 450 men, including 200 soldiers (fig.).

Around the year 1600, painted decoration on ships was increasingly being replaced by three-dimensional ornamentation, above all carvings. [1] Accordingly, the ships of the 17th century boasted a splendid array of sculptures, a development that reached its climax in the second half of the century. Such ornamentation served an important function. Inspired by the symbolic-allegorical visual art of the Renaissance and Baroque and rooted in antique mythology, the Bible, philosophy, and history as well as in national-historical romanticism [??? Störgotizismus], the sculptural decoration of ships served to propagate a message. In most cases, the statement concerned the person of the prince - the lord of the ship - and was intended to display before the world his power, moral integrity, and virtuous rulership as well as his political intentions and ambitions. In this respect, the great warships may be compared to the palace architecture of the same period, with its decorative allegorical programs intended to glorify the prince and patron. The importance of the great warships in this cult of the ruler cannot be overestimated, as the following statement by the French minister Colbert regarding the great warships of Louis XIV makes clear: "... il n'y a rien qui frappe tant les yeux, ni marque tant la magnificence du Roy que de les (les navires) bien orner comme les plus beaux qui ayent encore paru à la mer...." [2] These ships were viewed not only as war machines, but as a kind of floating palace. Until now, this aspect has received little or no attention in art and cultural-historical studies of 17th-century warships. The reason, of course, is that very little carved ships' decoration has survived; here the Vasa is a notable exception. At the same time, however, many countries have rich resources in the form of drawings, illustrations, paintings, and ship models that could be used to shed light on this area. The latter holds true not least of all for France, where the allegorical decoration of the great ships reached its climax in the second half of the 17th century, i.e. during the reign of Louis XIV. Here ships served as an important element in the glorifying, propagandistic myth constructed around the person of the ruler. [3] While the English cultural historian Peter Burke does in fact deal with this theme, he fails to consider the role played by the ornamentation of the great warships in this context. [4]

The Vasa constitutes a unique surviving example of a richly ornamented warship. For the first time, the principles of ornamentation for a great warship can be traced and studied in detail for the way in which they express the self-image, power claims, and political intentions of a ruler. Today, the reconstructed Vasa shows almost 500 carved figures, close to the original number of figural elements. Most of the sculptures have symbolic content. [5] They were concentrated both on the aftercastle [???], with the square stern [???] as the most prominent part of the ship in terms of content, and on the cutwater. The choice of motifs for the individual sculptures as well as their placement make clear that the ship's decoration was based on a detailed iconographic program. The author of the program is unknown; it seems likely, however, that it was the work of the highly educated senator [???] and university chancellor Johan Skytte (1577-1645), the teacher of Gustav Adolf. [6] In any case, the inventor of the program, whoever he may have been, probably devised it in close cooperation with the king (fig.).

The Vasa was ordered in the winter of 1625; thus it is probable that the iconographic program dates to the beginning of that year. As long as the ship was under construction, however, changes or additions could be made; finally, the sculptures were carved at the shipyard. Any attempt, therefore, to read the sculptural decoration of the Vasa as an expression of Gustav Adolf's plans, thoughts, and ideas must take into account his situation during the period from 1625 to the spring of 1628, particularly with reference to foreign policy.

The Swedish king was faced with three problems: the war between Sweden and Poland, the war in Germany, and Sweden's tense relations with its old enemy Denmark. At stake in the Polish war was the ascendancy in the Baltic region (dominium maris Baltici), the maintenance of Swedish power in the newly acquired Baltic provinces, and not least of all the dynastic conflict between Gustav Adolf and his cousin Sigismund of Poland. The latter had been king of Sweden around 1590, but was deposed in 1599 - though this, to be sure, did not hinder him from continuing to lay claim to the Swedish throne. The war in Germany had been in progress since 1618, and Gustav Adolf followed events with the greatest of interest. He saw his own struggle in Poland as a part of the war that was splintering Europe. [7] Naturally, as a Protestant king he stood on the side of the Protestants, though he viewed the Holy Roman emperor as a genuine political threat as well, especially after the latter's appointment of Wallenstein in 1625: the defeat of the Danish king Christian IV by Tilly in August 1626 was followed by Wallenstein's invasion of northern Germany and Jutland, which understandably was perceived as a direct threat to Swedish power in the Baltic region. Thus we may assume that during this period, the king and his counselors played with the idea of intervening in the war. As far as Denmark was concerned, at this point Gustav Adolf was interested in an easing of tensions between the old rivals. Indeed, the two lands had a common enemy in the German Catholics and the emperor, and already earlier, the Swedish king had suggested joint military intervention in the war, though the proposal was rejected by the Danish side. In addition, after the defeat of Christian IV in 1626, Denmark found itself on the defensive, though it was still the strongest power in the Baltic area. Perhaps it was for this reason that Gustav Adolf stopped short of allowing himself to be represented on the Vasa as Neptune, king of the seas. King Christian of Denmark used the Neptune symbolism in his propaganda, and in this difficult situation Gustav Adolf probably wanted to avoid challenging the Danish king, the lord of the Baltic Sea. [8] In the following discussion, several sculptures and sculptural groups will serve to exemplify how Gustav Adolf's self-image found expression in the iconographic program of the ship. The sculptures discussed are from the square stern [???] and the bow of the ship, including the cutwater [???]. They are easy to decipher, since they are closely allied to the conventions of Renaissance iconography.



The Crowning of the Square Stern [???] with an Image of the King

High up on the square stern [???] is a large group of sculptures. At the center, beneath a round arch, is a young man with outstretched arms and a youthfully round, beardless face (fig.). [9] He is dressed in civilian clothes according to the fashion of the time. On his head is a diadem with frontal ornamentation and around his neck a chain with a medallion; the motif on the medallion is no longer recognizable. He is flanked by two large griffins holding a great royal crown over his head. The base of the sculptural group bears the letters G A R S, which stand for "Gustavus Adolfus Rex Sueciae." Thus there is no doubt that the young man is meant to represent Gustav Adolf himself, the king of the land and the lord of the Vasa. But why do we not recognize him? Why is his appearance here unlike that seen in other contemporaneous images, where he is shown with a large moustache and a pointed beard? The answer is clear: it is the young Gustav Adolf, the boy heir to the throne. How old is the figure represented here? The king was born in the year 1594, and if one imagines him here as a ten-year-old, the representation can be brought into association with an event from the year 1604. In that year the father of the prince, Duke Karl, soon to be Karl IX, established the order of succession at an imperial diet. He chose his oldest son Gustav Adolf as his heir; Gustav Adolf's cousin Sigismund of Poland, the latter's son Prince Vladislav, and Duke Johan of Östergötland (a half-brother of Sigismund), all of whom could lay claim to the throne, were excluded from the succession. [10] The crown over the head of the young Gustav Adolf thus signifies that already as a ten-year-old boy, he had been chosen as the sole heir, the only one who, at the appropriate time, could legitimately lay claim to the crown of Sweden. The griffins were motifs from the coat of arms of Duke Karl, and thus clearly underlined the symbolism of the group. The coronation sculpture was thus meant to convey a very specific message, aimed above all at Sigismund of Poland: to him it was made clear that he had no rightful claim to the Swedish throne. The sculpture's position on the sterncastle [???] makes it the most important one on the ship. In view of the Swedish-Polish war, itself the result of dynastic conflict, the sculptural group appears highly appropriate for this warship.



The Coat of Arms of the Vasa Dynasty and the Gothic Legacy

Somewhat further down on the square stern [???], at the height of the cabin [???] and almost in the center [??? des Spiegels], is the coat of arms of the royal house, the Vasa dynasty (fig.). [11] It consists of a richly profiled escutcheon with the family symbol, a naturalistically carved sheaf of grain under a great royal crown. The escutcheon is supported by two naked, winged putti, each of whom holds an olive branch in its free hand. Next to them appear heavy garlands of fruit and festoons. The analysis of surviving traces of pigment has shown that the coat of arms, like the other sculptures on the ship, was richly painted and partially gilded. In its coloration, the escutcheon with the Vasa sheaf followed the conventions in effect since 1560: the gilded sheaf stood out against a blue-red background, which in turn was divided by a left diagonal chevron in white or silver. The Vasa coat of arms on the square stern [???] is one of the most interesting and expressive sculptures on the entire ship. Like the coronation sculpture described above, the Vasa escutcheon also carries dynastic significance. Most immediately, it is the coat of arms of the family of Gustav Adolf; at the same time, however, it represents more than just the king and his family. It also stands for the name of the ship, referred to in contemporaneous documents as "Wasan" or "Wasen." Far more important, however, was the allusion made by the coat of arms to the history of this Swedish dynasty and its founder King Gustav Vasa, grandfather of Gustav Adolf, who died in 1560. At the beginning of the 16th century he had liberated Sweden from Danish rule, made himself king in 1523, and prepared the ground for the national state of Sweden. We know that Gustav Adolf often paid homage to his grandfather in speech and writing; it is reported, for example, that he said of him: "He knew how to make peace and pilot kingdoms." [12] Precisely this is what the escutcheon on the ship Vasa is intended to express: Gustav Vasa and his family, whom he made into a royal dynasty, put an end to the war with Denmark and established peace for his subjects, thus guaranteeing growth and prosperity. The olive branches held high by the putti - symbols of peace from time immemorial - are likewise to be interpreted in this sense. The heavy bunches of fruit, in turn, are symbols of wealth and abundance. The deeper significance of this motif is revealed by a comparison with Archimboldo's famous allegorical portrait of Emperor Rudolf II as Vertumnus in the Skokloster palace. In the Renaissance, Vertumnus was considered the Roman god of the seasons, the patron of rich fertility [13]; correspondingly, the face in the portrait of the emperor was formed of fruits and vegetables. In this way, the ruler was represented as the guarantor of growth and prosperity for his people.

The crown over the Vasa sheaf is large, almost oversized. Likely it was intended to underline the claims of the Vasa to status as a royal dynasty equal to the other royal houses of Europe. The legitimacy of Gustav Vasa's descendents as pretenders to the Swedish throne had been repeatedly called into question, not least of all by the Danish king, who viewed Gustav Vasa as a usurper. Some said that the Vasa dynasty could lay no claim to royal status, that they were a simple peasant family that had illegitimately gained possession of the Swedish crown through the expulsion of the lawfully crowned Danish king, Christian II. Thus the large Vasa coat of arms on the square stern [???] certainly also reflects the efforts of Gustav Adolf and his family to document their legitimacy in the eyes of the world. The claim expressed by the Vasa coat of arms is further reinforced by the six large figures of knights flanking it, three on each side (fig.). [14] The knights are clad in armor typical of the period and wear helmets adorned with feather plumes; two of them [??? two of the pairs?] have open visors. The knights closest to the coat of arms have young, beardless faces, while the other two with open visor represent grown men with dark, moustached faces. The meaning of the differing faces of the knights is a problem that exceeds the scope of the present essay. Suffice it to say that they are closely related to the "Gothicism" [???] which, rooted in the Middle Ages, found eloquent expression around 1550 in a great work by the last Catholic archbishop of Sweden, the Historia de omnibus gothorum sveonumque regibus of Johannes Magnus, published in 1554 in Rome. In this work, based on sources including Jordanes' history of the Goths of ca. A.D. 500, the author constructs a chronology of the Swedish kings reaching back to Magog, the grandson of Noah, and presenting them as the heirs of the Goths, who once subjugated the Roman empire. [15] In the second half of the 16th century, this historical fiction served as a mythical source of national pride for the sons of Gustav Vasa as well as for Gustav Adolf. It was employed not least of all in the war propaganda, beginning with the Polish war and continuing later, when Gustav Adolf was preparing to intervene in the Thirty Years' War. Thus it is no surprise to find this theme included in the decoration of the Vasa as well. As the representatives of the ancient Goths, the armed warriors or knights are Gustav Adolf's predecessors and models; his intent is to imitate them in courage and intensity and to make their virtues his own, both on the battlefield and as a statesman.



The Soldiers of Gideon

A motif that may possibly reflect of Gustav Adolf's views concerning the course of the war in Germany and shed light on his plans for possible intervention is found on the upper stern galleries [???] and the upper square stern gallery [???], directly over the Vasa coat of arms and the Gothic warriors. This sculptural group consists of a total of 25 soldiers in Roman armor and plumed helmets (fig.). [16] They are individually modeled, each with a wind instrument (trumpet, horn, etc.) in one hand and a burning torch or a pitcher with fire coming out of its mouth in the other. These attributes render the subject matter easily recognizable: the group shows a scene from the Old Testament, the story of Gideon and his victory over the Midianites (Judges 7). The God-fearing Gideon was instructed by God to equip his band of 300 Israelites with trumpets and burning torches concealed by clay pitchers. In the night, the soldiers were to creep into the camp of the enemy and at Gideon's sign break the pitchers, raise the burning torches, and sound their trumpets. The confusion thus produced would make it possible for the Israelites to drive out the Midianites. The Bible reports that Gideon did as he was commanded: there was great confusion in the enemy camp, the Midianites turned on each other and fled, and Gideon was victorious. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Gideon was viewed as a prefiguration of Christ. It is by no means surprising that the story of Gideon was among the themes selected for the sculptural program of the Vasa. Panegyric poems, funeral sermons, and commemorative speeches as well as in simple folk songs often alluded to Gideon as a model for Gustav Adolf. The Swedish king was viewed as a new, Swedish Gideon, who like the biblical hero trusted God and walked in his ways. [17] Proof of this parallelism may be seen in the fact that none of the soldiers can be identified as Gideon. The hero is the king himself: he is the incarnation of Gideon. Perhaps we may interpret this motif, which appears here as an isolated instance in the Swedish art of the period, as an expression of Gustav Adolf's plans to intervene in the war, even if it is unclear to what extent such plans had developed when the pictorial program for the Vasa was devised. The king knew that the fight against the emperor would be a hard one; but he wanted to prove that God was with him and that he, like Gideon, walked in God's ways and would thus receive power and strength. In addition, we know that during the same period, the Swedish king was referred to as Gideon in secret correspondence with the exiled family of the elector Frederick V and other German Protestants, who counted on help from Gustav Adolf and Sweden. [18] First and foremost, however, the Gideon motif served to emphasize Gustav Adolf's status as a Christian ruler.



The Strong Spares the Weak

A large sculpture at the front of the ship on the starboard side, immediately behind the cutwater [???], shows Gustav Adolf as the epitome of Christian virtue, the miles christianus, and the protagonist of the bellum iustum or just war. [19] The sculpture represents a large warrior - almost a giant - in Roman armor, with a splendidly plumed helmet and a wide mantle whose folds seem to flutter in the wind (fig.). [20] With one hand he holds a large shield before his body, while the other is extended high, as if holding a broadsword or foil; the latter, however, has been lost. The man stands with sandal-shod feet on a great lion's head with bared teeth. Also visible at his feet is a small, naturalistically carved dog, who bites the lion's ear. To judge from certain details, a copy of this iconographically very unusual sculpture seems to have been located on the opposite, port side of the ship as well. Presumably the lion and the dog are the key to the interpretation of the sculpture, for here the two animals do not appear in their traditional roles as the embodiment of power or strength or fidelity, respectively. Rather, they are probably associated with a text from the Roman writer Pliny the Elder. In his famous Historia Naturalis, viewed by Renaissance humanists as the essence of antique knowledge concerning nature, Pliny states that the lion is the only wild animal to show clemency and forbearance toward weak and inferior beings. [21] The lion does not need to prove his strength or superiority to an inferior opponent who begs for mercy and is willing to submit. This theme is adopted by a number of Renaissance humanists, for example by Guillaume de la Perrière, whose emblem collection of 1553, La Morosophie, projects the positive leonine qualities described by Pliny onto a human being, in this case a warrior in armor. [22] Through his noble sensibility, demonstrated to the weak and inferior enemy, the warrior enjoys the protection of God and is viewed as the bearer of Christian virtues. In the sculpture, the behavior of the lion toward the small dog at the foot of the warrior is implicitly attributed to the warrior himself as well. With the qualities described above, the warrior naturally represents Gustav Adolf, who here documents his status as a Christian king, defender of the throne, and a warrior noble and humane toward his enemies. The great warrior on the bow, along with his lost counterpart on the other side, may therefore be viewed as a personification of the king.

The king's enemy is, of course, "the Pole." We find him near the great warrior on the starboard side, under the cathead extending diagonally from the upper deck out over the cutwater. He serves as a support for the cathead and is shown as a man cowering under a bench (fig.). [23] The man's broad face with its large moustache and forehead hair as well as the knee-length robe are details which at that time were considered typically Polish. In addition, the posture in which he is shown represents a method of punishment customary in Poland in earlier eras. One who had violated the law was forced to crawl under a bench and there, in this humiliating position, "bark" like a dog, therewith confessing his crime and his baseness. [24] This motif in the ornamentation of the ship, repeated under the port cathead as well, was designed especially for the Vasa in view of the current war against Poland and the dynastic tensions between the two lands. The representation degrades and derides the enemy and constitutes a variation on the theme of the "Victory of Virtue over Vice," here brought to expression in a particularly sophisticated way.



The Roman Emperors

Like the motif of the soldiers of Gideon, the Roman emperors on the cutwater may also constitute an expression of Gustav Adolf's attitude toward to the emperor and the war in Germany as well as an indication of his plans to intervene in the war. Along the sides of the cutwater [???] stand twenty Roman emperors, ten on each side (fig.). [25] The emperors are arranged in chronological order and begin with Tiberius at the front on the starboard side. Further back on the same side we find the emperor Titus (fig.). The series continues with Nerva on the port side of the cutwater [???] toward the rear and probably ended with Septimius Severus, though this last sculpture has never been found. The emperors are shown with armor, mantles, and laurel wreaths or nimbuses on their heads, and were able to be identified from the inscriptions at their feet, some of which were barely legible. Since the series of emperors begins with Tiberius, one is struck by the absence of Augustus: no place is provided for him on the cutwater [???], and it is apparent that he did not belong to this group. The explanation for this fact is a simple as it is logical: most likely the king viewed himself as Augustus, the most famous of the Roman emperors and the author of the Pax Romana. Allusions to Augustus were often made in panegyrics to the Swedish king, and the name "Gustavus" was interpreted as an anagram of the name "Augustus." [26] Like the great Roman, Gustav Adolf, too, wished to be viewed as a prince of peace, a Swedish Augustus bringing peace to his land. Against this background, the absence of an Augustus figure on the Vasa is easily comprehensible. The king himself was to be viewed as the incarnation of Augustus; thus the latter was intentionally omitted. In this way, the group follows the same narrative strategy as the Gideon group: the hero himself is missing, and his place is assumed by the Swedish king. Thus in the decoration of the Vasa, motifs from both the Old Testament and Roman history were used to represent Gustav Adolf as the victor bringing long-awaited peace to his people. The emperor motif on the cutwater [???] can be interpreted in other ways as well: it can also be read, for example, as a challenge to the Holy Roman emperor and the Hapsburg house, who saw themselves as the direct successors and heirs of the Roman emperors. Viewed in this way, the sculptural group is closely associated with Gustav Adolf's plans to intervene in the German war and therewith to challenge the emperor.

The 1620s were a dynamic period for Sweden, marked by offensive war strategy and active diplomacy. With the conquest of the Baltic provinces, the war against Poland, and Gustav Adolf's involvement in the Thirty Years' War - leading in 1630 to an actual intervention - the foundation was laid for the emergence of Sweden as a major European power. In deliberations with his counselors and in diplomatic actions, as well as in letters, dispatches, and proclamations, the king's concern was to clearly demonstrate his intentions and ambitions. This aim, however, could also be pursued with the help of the great warships, whose sculptural decoration served as his "mouthpiece." The salvaging of the Vasa and its sculptures has made it possible to reconstruct these messages. The motifs discussed here show that the king viewed his ship as a means for propagating a particular image of himself, his character, and his intentions. The powerful visual language, reinforced by the clear coloration and gilding, shows that Gustav Adolf harbored no doubts as to the comprehensibility of the message.

FOOTNOTES