Reading Paraphrase and Analysis: Baldung's Bewitched Groom Revisited

Reading Paraphrase and Analysis: Baldung's Bewitched Groom Revisited
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Paraphrase
There have been various interpretations of Baldung's Bewitched Groom including the German folk story of Rechenberger, who dies in a monastery after trying to change his life while staying there having previously been a robber (Hults, 1984). The image of a devil is also part of the story, but in the Bewitched Groom there are new items including a coat of arms, the witch and shoes for a wild horse (Hults, 1984). It is noteworthy in the story that the groom, horse and witch are prominent in Baldung’s creation. Baldung depicts the sexual manifestations of witchcraft in The Bewitched Groom and witch woodcuts.
Baldung made a woodcut to represent the young man lying down near the horse, with a witch nearby as though spreading its demonic powers. Even as Baldung was a student of Durer, but he explores how the man is tormented by the horse and witch going beyond his teacher’s work. Baldung retells the legend by introducing new elements and the woodcut shows the idea that witches invoked demons and in doing so uses popular culture and German folklore as woodcuts were popular. However, the interpretation of the Bewitched Groom is also ambiguous as there is a horse and groom lying down as though he has been kicked by the horse (Hults, 1984). In the woodcut picture, there is Baldung‘s family coat indicated that the story was more personal to the creator (Hults, 1984)
The activities of the witches are represented in various drawings and paintings while there is eroticism associated with witches. Baldung further focused the Witches’ Sabbath where women represented lust and fantasy, while the wild horses in various Baldung woodcuts have been interpreted to symbolize libido more so than the witches (Hults, 1984). Similar to other artists in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, lustfulness is represented in various art forms and Baldung also suggest that there is excessive lustfulness in the way the body of the groom reclines (Hults, 1984). The painter and printmaker link the Bewitched Groom image with fantasy where the demonic women are closely tied to the wild horses.
To Baldung, the demons could encourage or corrupt fantasies and as the groom lies down, he was unable to ride the horse and further illustrates that men was unable to control his sensual appetite. There is a religious element in Baldung’s Bewitched Groom that he could not carry the horse as he was merely an artist and salvation as highlighted by the Reformation (Hults, 1984). Baldung’s work was created during a time when there was a religious Reformation, and there was concern about the agencies of evil. Baldung’s art is inventive as the artist is able to express his feelings without necessarily imitating other peoples’ art and folklore, a...