"Courage: also named fortitude, forbearance, strength, endurance, and the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, and intimidation." --Wikipedia (
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"Courage is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation. Physical courage is courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal or discouragement. In some traditions, fortitude holds approximately the same meaning. In the Western tradition, notable thoughts on courage have come from philosophers such as Socrates, Plato. Aristotle, Aquinas and Kierkegaard; in the Eastern tradition, some thoughts on courage were offered by the Tao Te Ching. More recently, courage has been explored by the discipline of psychology." --Wikipedia (
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The statue depicts Strength (also known as Courage) as a nude male figure with a long piece of fabric draped over his left shoulder then falling down the centerline of the front of his body to the ground. His left elbow is bent at a 45 degree angle and he holds his left arm in front of his body. In his crook of his left elbow, he holds a the top piece of a broken pillar with a lion statue on top. The remainder of the pillar stands erect along his left side. His right arm hangs down by his right side and his right hand is fisted.
A plaque about the four statues is located near the Wisdom statue and reads (in Norwegian):
De 4 Kardinaldyder
Fasaden til Bergen Tinghus prydes av fire monumentale
skulpturer kalt Kardinaldydene som symboliserer menneskenes viktigste dyder eller egenskaper
- Visdommen, Rettferdigheten, Måteholdet og Styrken.
Skulpturene er laget av de Norske kunstnerene
Stinus Fredriksen (1902-1977) og Nicolai Schiøll (1901-1984),
Egil Reimers (1878-1946) er arkitekten bak Tinghuset (1933)
og skulpturene er en viktig del av fasaden for å gi
inngangspartiet tyngde og autoritet.
The 4 Cardinal Virtues
The facade of Bergen Courthouse adorned by four monumental
sculptures called cardinal virtues symbolizing mankind's most important virtues or characteristics
- Wisdom, Justice, Temperance and Strength.
The sculptures are made by the Norwegian artists
Stinus Fredriksen (1902-1977) and Nicolai Schiøll (1901-1984),
Egil Reimers (1878-1946) is the architect behind the courthouse (1933)
and sculptures are an important part of the facade to give
entrance weight and authority.