Vikings: The Intruder and The Berserker
Two Vikings prints by the pencil artist Anthony Wren: The Intruder and The Berserker. Both are close figure studies rather than battle scenes, drawn in graphite, where mail, leather and weathered skin carry the picture. Printed on archival paper with fade-resistant inks, never displayed, and sized for a standard mount. Seventeen and twenty-one pounds, and they hang well as a pair.
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Two prints make up the Vikings collection, both drawn in pencil by Anthony Wren: The Intruder and The Berserker.
They are figure studies rather than battle scenes, and that is what makes them worth hanging. There is no smoke, no burning longhouse, none of the usual furniture of Viking illustration. What you get instead is a man, drawn close and drawn carefully, and left to carry the picture on his own.
The Berserker takes its title from the Norse berserkers, the warriors who went into battle in a state the sagas describe as something close to possession, and from whom we get the English word. The Intruder is the quieter of the two and rather more unsettling for it.
Anthony Wren works in graphite, and pencil suits this subject unusually well. Mail, leather, beard and weathered skin are all texture, and texture is what a pencil does best. The absence of colour helps too: these read as something closer to a historical record than a fantasy illustration, which is not how most Viking art goes.
There is a real appetite for this period and not much good art to meet it. Most of what is available is either museum reproduction or dragons-and-horned-helmets nonsense. These sit in neither camp, which is why we stock them.
The Intruder is seventeen pounds ninety-nine and The Berserker is twenty pounds ninety-nine. Both are printed on archival paper with fade-resistant inks, have stayed in their wrapping since the day they were bought, and have never been hung or displayed. Sizes fit a standard off-the-shelf frame and mount.
They work as a pair and are often bought that way, and they make a good present for a re-enactor, a saga reader, or anyone who came out of the last decade of Norse television wanting something on the wall. If you like the drawing style, Anthony Wren is also the artist behind the eleven wildlife prints in our Animals collection.
Vikings: The Intruder and The Berserker
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