On the Anvil of the World

On the Anvil of the World 13X40

On the Anvil of the World is based on a performance of Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata K27 in b minor by Mikhail Pletnev.

The title comes from a line in W.B. Yeats' epic poem The Wanderings of Oisin, where Oisin, an Irish King, is describing to St. Patrick the feasts and celebrations he had after his hundred-year fight with a demon on an enchanted island.

On the Anvil of the World takes on the colors of the actual "anvil of the world" - the super-volcano at Yellowstone National Park.

Yellowstone Caldera - ABC News

Inspiration from The Wanderings of Oisin

I created a series of paintings based on The Wanderings of Oisin, each one depicting a different scene in Yeats' poem. On the Anvil of the World is the last painting in that series, representing the end of Oisin's conversation with St. Patrick.

King Oisin plays his harp

For his final words, Oisin tells St. Patrick and his priests have brought decay, poverty, and hopelessness to his kingdom and they do not have the best interest of his people at heart.  He presents his own broken health and despair as an example, and tells St. Patrick that he and his Fenian warriors would most certainly attack St. Patrick and throw him out of the kingdom if only he had his own strength back.

But now the lying clerics murder song
With barren words and flatteries of the weak.
In what land do the powerless turn the beak
Of ravening Sorrow, or the hand of Wrath?
For all your croziers, they have left the path
And wander in the storms and clinging snows,
Hopeless for ever: ancient Oisin knows,
For he is weak and poor and blind, and lies
On the anvil of the world.