Travel as a Strike fan: The things you notice.

 I am just back from a fantastic trip to Germany and Denmark, with day trips into the Czech Republic and Sweden. When you take a trip like that after months of immersion in the latest Strike book, it can't help but color your perspective. At the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin, for instance, two paintings jumped out at me. 

The first is this Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, by Pompeo Girolama Batoni. A few interesting facts to note: 

• Psyche's face is modeled after Batoni's wife, said to be one of the most beautiful women in Rome.
• That is Venus assisting her son in placing the ring on Psyche's finger, while Hymen, the god of marriage supports Psyche. 
• Zephyr, the west wind who orginally carried Psyche to Cupid, is blowing a blast of air on the happy couple. 
• All the gods are positioned on clouds, while the mortal Psyche stands on the floor. 

What struck me was the fact that this is one of the few depictions of the marriage I have seen that shows Cupid as a child, the way he is often depicted when alone. Not only do they appear to have the opposite age issue that Strike and Robin have, Psyche appears to be drifting dangerously close to Tim Ashcroft territory. Compare Batoni's painting to the one Galbraith tweeted. 

The next painting I noticed was this one of Leda and the Swan, by Antonio da Correggio.   I was struck by how consensual the encounter seems, compared to the more rapey depiction described in Paul Satchwell's painting and the one that Robin and Strike saw at the Ritz. Leda looks more like she's nuzzling a beloved pet than being impregnated by a swan.  Some more trivia:

• This is one of Correggio's most famous works, one of a series of four depicting Zeus's sexual conquests. 
• When it was acquired by the Duke of Orleans in the 1700's, his devoutly religious son Louis was offended by it and took a knife to the painting, destroying the swan's head. 
• When it was reassembled and restored, it was made a bit less lewd than Correggio's original. Apparently, Leda originally had a very different expression on her face and her head was turned away from the swan. 
• Notice too, that there are actually three depictions of Leda and the swan in the picture. On the far right, she is meeting the bird for the first time.  The "main event" is in the center, with Cupid playing the lyre on the right. Between the other two Ledas, we see her getting dressed as the swan flies away. 

We walked an average of about 8 miles a day, through multiple palaces, museums and churches. One thing that kept jumping out at me were some of the icons of the Strike series: swans and lions and how often you run into them. 

These are just a few of the swans I encountered, live and in art.  I even found one with a crown around its neck, like in the Freemason's temple.  I also managed to capture two swimming alongside each other 

Lions were also quite common, though, thankfully, there were no live specimens of those. 

In any case, I am happy to be back in the U. S. of A. and, though I will not be blogging regularly for awhile, I am hard at work on a long-delayed post about alchemy in THM, that I started on my first reading but quickly realized would not be workable until I had done a very thorough reading.  As is typical, my expectations were largely subverted. 

In the meantime, I highly recommend some recent posts by Ed Shardlow on the Hogpro Substack. 

The Pride of Lions in The Hallmarked Man. 

The Bracelet, Todd Jameson, the Ectopic Pregnancy and Venetian Blinds. 

The Hallmarked Man meets The Ickabog. 

Back soon, I hope!

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