THE
MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT
Collaboration
in fine arts is very rare in our egocentered rational and functional society.
Every artist wants to be unique in a selfish way. Our days, it is rare that two
independent artists join to create a work of art together out of pure
enthusiasm.
I have
collaborated with Brô in two large murals 96 PARADISE - LAND OF MEN, OF TREES,
BIRDS AND SHIPS and 97 THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT.
96 PARADISE
- LAND OF MEN, OF TREES, BIRDS AND SHIPS
We painted
directly on a wall with glue paint. We have been influenced by the big murals
in the Toscana (Giotto, Paolo Uccello) and by the murals of the papal residence
of Avignon. We wanted to create something equally phantastic and important.
The second
mural 97 THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT we decided not to
paint directly on the walls but on panels which could be moved away, when the
old hunting pavilion in which we painted it would be destroyed which was the
case some years later.
The house
was the old hunting pavilion of Napoleon III situated on the border of the Bois
de Vincennes in Paris where Napoleon met with his mistress, la comtesse de
Castiglione. I lived and painted in this pavilion as guest of the Dumage family
for about ten years. When this pavilion was destroyed in the 1960s, the wall on
which the mural was painted was cut in pieces by Prof. Licata, then transported
to America in a container and reassembled in a Synagogue on Long Island where
it is today.
The mural I
painted with Brô on pressed fibre board which we carried ourselves through
Paris with hand chart. We used the
casein-technique which we prepared ourselves. We bought every day fresh milk,
let it turn sour and curdle, let the liquid whey drop through a cheesecloth to
obtain cottage cheese which we then mixed with unslaked lime.
This way,
we obtained a glue with a strong pungent ammoniac smell with which we mixed the
powder colours.
We divided
the work in the way that Brô mostly designed the forms like a genius with
quickly drawn lines, and I painstakingly coloured between the lines slowly and
in tedious work, though Brô, from time to time, changed colours himself and I
added drawings.
In that
time, I made a deal with Brô. Brô painted almond-shaped eyes high up in the
face with nose, rivers and ship-mouth in circular-shaped heads. I painted
soul-trees that means trees which had a halo of glory like human beings and
saints. Trees where you could see through as if they were made out of spheres
of glass. These trees I had seen in the drawings of Walter Kampmann. Brô gave
me the right to paint his faces, and I gave Brô the right to paint my
“soul-trees”.
Manuscript
for the catalogue of the exhibition
„Collaboration in Art“, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington.
©2008 Hundertwasser Archive, Vienna, Austria
