This is a quintessential example of Nerdrum's large-scale allegories, presenting a sense of the apocalyptic. Portraying a time after our own civilization, the figures wear timeless costumes: pelts, cloaks, armour and crowns. These seated figures, interacting only with themselves and in certain cases with the viewer, are set against a barren backdrop very likely taken from studies made by Nerdrum in Iceland. Odd Nerdrum is the leading figurative painter working in Norway. A pupil in Düsseldorf under Joseph Beuys, Nerdrum turned to seventeenth-century masters such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio for aesthetic inspiration, and bases his painting technique on traditional methods, mixing and grinding his own pigments, stretching his own canvases and using life models. (http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2009/19th-century-european-paintings-including-spanish-painting-the-orientalist-sale-and-german-austrian-scandinavian-and-symbolist-works-l09663/lot.65.html)