Acrylic and chalk on canvas, 100 x 200 cm
GLIAUGIR writes about it:
"Taranis cries
. . . for he seems forgotten.
For his divine nature is displaced by the dogmas of the church.
As we ignorantly destroy our environment in spite of his warnings.
Returning to the original, to a more natural understanding and action, Taranis would laugh again."

At a large celebration in Berlin on the Day of German Unity, 3 October 2008, selected actors, including the academy, presented Celtic life in Saarland at the Saarland Representation. Several thousand visitors came to the Saarland Representation alone, where GLIAUGIR also showed his Celtic-inspired works. Afterwards he gave "Taranis cries" to the academy. However, the model for Taranis' face in this painting was not the historical depictions of the god, but the head of the centaur (a hybrid being = horse with human head), which crowns the beaked flagon from the grave of the Celtic princess in Reinheim in Saarland. Taranis, the god of heaven, weather and thunder, was one of the highest gods of the Celtic world of gods. Especially the Celtic tribes of Gaul (today France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Western Switzerland), Britain and the Iberian Peninsula worshipped him. In general, religion and ritual acts performed by druids were an extremely important part of Celtic life. Nature played a major role in this: fertility goddesses were greatly worshipped, and religious life took place in nature - in sacred groves and at prominent locations, for example on mountain tops, lakes, moors, caves or rocks. In the course of the centuries, religious ideas became more and more mixed up due to the conquest of former Celtic territory by the Romans, later by the Germanic tribes. Christianisation heralded the end of the "pagan religions".

Volker Schmidt-GLIAUGIR (*1954 in Saarbrücken, Germany) lives and works in Saarbrücken. The versatile graduate designer paints, draws, illustrates, conceives performances, gives concerts, organizes ART events, exhibits internationally and is a lecturer at various creative workshops. He has been working with the Europäische Akademie Otzenhausen for a long time in various constellations. For example, he acted as artistic consultant for the project Cerda & Celtoi and designed the book and flyer for the project. GLIAUGIR is the most frequently represented artist here with over 40 works (after Alfred Fuchs) and has exhibited several times at the academy: 1978 (together with Tom Gundelwein and Claus C. Krisch), 1990, 2005 ("Antikquarius") and 2015 ("Bitu Matos"). Even though he was at times particularly committed to Celtic culture, his name is borrowed from Germanic mythology: "Gliaugir, the one with the gleam in his eyes, or the one with the sharp look."