Pictures of the month E-Book

Johann Widmer

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Already a well-known representative of the "Arte Povera" movement, in the late 1990s Johann Widmer began to explore the field of abstract, informal painting. His credo was that all the arts (including music and literature) are important pillars of our civilisation and should therefore be made accessible to everyone by various means. In addition to his extensive artistic output, Johann Widmer has always written short stories for young and old. But he avoids the term "writer". He sees himself more as an art mediator and is happy when his books are read. Starting in August 2009, he dedicated a picture to each month, which he accompanied with a matching text. This book is therefore a compilation of the artistic work and the short stories and shows the "monthly pictures" as a collected work. The texts are not intended to influence the viewer's own imagination when looking at the pictures, but they may suggest a way of looking at the picture.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Pictures 2016 Freedom

Heroic Landscape

Still Life

Resurrection

Garden

Memories

Dreaming

Birthday

Autumn

Blue Flower

Fable

Peace On Earth

White – Blue

Changes

Idyll

Eternity

Place Of Tranquillity

Wanderlust

The Mountain

Informal

Who is afraid of …

East Is Red . . .

Light

Cold Landscape

January

Where The Journey Is Leading To

Adventure Colour

Laughter

Green Music

A Rose’s Dream

A Summer’s Morning

Fata Morgana

80

A Garden In The Autumn

Ripe Fruit

Hope

Pictures 2019 Epiphania

A Blue Fairytale

Alone

Signs

Walls

I Am …

A Summer’s Night

August 20

Puppet Plays

October Red

Silent Glow

Winter Blue

Pictures 2020 New Hope

Valentine’s Day

Void

Lockdown

Sleeping Beauty

After The Storm Is Before The Storm

Freedom

Red Of Summer

Heavey Blue

Clouds Of Ice

Circle Of Chalk

Black Year

Pictures 2021 Calm

Candlemas

Contrasts

Time

Nations, Listen To The signals!

Free

Blue Dream

Yellow In Yellow

Stories

October Gold

Joy

Buridan’s Ass

The Eternal Anniversary

After Candlemas

Violence

Watering The Flowers

Silence

A Brief History To Warm Up

Danse macabre

Image index with catalogue number

Pictures of the

Month

A picture for each month

Johann Widmer

Volume 2

2016 – 2022

Illustrations

Photos of works by the author from 2016 - 2022 Translations: Regula Christen

Editor, Translations: Isabel Hull

AugustineandJohannWidmerFoundation,ed.

© Augustine and Johann Widmer Foundation

All rights reserved, in particular the right of reproduction, distribution and translation. No part of this work may be re- producedinanyform(byphotocopy,microfilmoranyotherprocess)orstored,processed,duplicatedordistributedusing electronic systems without the written permission of the Foundation.

www.johann-widmer.ch ISBN: see cover

1st edition 2022

Foreword

Already a well-known representative of the “Arte Povera” movement, in the late 1990s Johann Wid- merbegantoexplorethefieldofabstract,informal painting.

Hiscredowasthatallthearts(includingmusicand literature) are important pillars of our civilisation and should therefore be made accessible to every- one by various means.

In addition to his extensive artistic output, Johann Widmerhasalwayswrittenshortstoriesforyoung and old. But he avoids the term “writer”. He sees himself more as an art mediatorand is pleased when his books are read.

Starting in August 2009, he dedicated a picture to eachmonth,whichheaccompaniedwithamatch- ing text.

Volume 2 is a collection of these “monthly pic- tures” from 2016 to 2022.

Thetextsarenotintendedtoinfluencetheviewer’s ownimaginationwhenlookingatthepictures,but they may suggest a way of looking at the picture.

These monthly pictures were published each month on the internet at www.johann-widmer.ch.

His books are available at www.epubli.de and in bookshops.

Zurich, July 2022, Johann Widmer Junior

Pictures2016 Freedom

January2016

Freedom, a big word with many aspects.

A human dream which is repeatedly trampled on. A utopia which continuously destroys itself. Freedom fromtheshacklesofslavery,onlytobeenslavedagain in new entanglements. Freedom of opinion, provided the opinions are compliant.

Freedom of the press, provided it speaks in the interest of the backers and powers that be.

Freedom of thought, if one can think at all.

Freedom of lifestyle, provided that economic issues have been resolved.

How much freedom can a man cope with without penning himself in with laws, rules, regulations and orders?

Freedom, is it just a delusion?

And art, how much freedom can it cope with? Since the 20th century, “art” has beena very broad term,so broad that I could sign any old object and declare it art.

Art was always linked to freedom, even if it was just the freedom of the artist to starve, at the time when a Van Gogh could still be had in exchange for a sand- wich.

That was then! Nowadays we have the freedom to pay millions for a genuine Van Gogh.

Nowadays noone hasto starveanymore (ifyou don’t count mental and emotional starvation).

That this picture is entitled ”Freedom” may perhaps surprise you.

But it is not an allegory, there is no intellectual edifice behind it.

It is one of the artist‘s vivid dreams.

It is the colours’music which aims to convey the broad, elusive concept of “freedom”. It is just one of endless ways of portraying his feeling of what “free- dom” is.

And if anyone doesn’t like the title, they can change it as they wish:

that is theirfreedom

HeroicLandscape

February 2016

If we turn our gaze outwards, we initially perceive the surroundingarea, then a little further outwards, as the backgroundor backdrop, the view, fades away into the landscape; then the outer landscape, a pho- tographof the background, which usually ends with a horizon.

Ifwelookinward,wecanperceiveaninnerlandscape, the landscape in our head which consists of dreams, imagination,emotion,intuitionandaptitude.Itisnot alandscapeofwhichonecantakephotos.Andusually this landscape is hard to describe in words, it works much better with music or painting.

The Arabic world traveller Ibn Battuta (14th century) thought that the landscape – i.e.geography, topog- raphy and climate - shapes people; so that in compa- rable, similar areas, similar human characteristics de- velop, and cultures resemble each other, with similar customs and traditions.

The land of our childhood, the landscape which we grow up in, has a big influence on us. The Dutchman in his flat land often takes a different view of things, valuesthingsdifferentlyfrom someonefromtheEng- adinintheAlpswherehighmountainsformthehori- zon all around. A resident of the Mediterranean coast has a different opinion on winter from a resident on the shore of Lake Baikal. Where the one feels safe, the other feels threatened.

And then there is the sky above the horizon. At the NorthSea, the vast canopy of heaven spans the land- scape, reaching down as far as the low-lying dividing line between air and water. Man lives in the sky, so to speak.

Instarkcontrast-ourcities.Sometimesyoucansense the bright strip of sky above the deep street canyons, but mainly our gaze discerns concrete, asphalt, glass and some kind of flashing lights. Man can barely move spontaneously, he is moved around and often forgets that there is a sky high above his stone dungeon.

Considering that the inner landscape which we carry inside us is greatly influenced by the outer one, one mightwellaskwherethepresenturbanisationislead- ing to.

Can it be counteracted with landscape paintings? That would please the painter

Still Life

March2016

A still lifeis a kind of landscape. Artificially creat-ed topography that looks randomly generated. In re- ality, everything is neatly and deliberately arranged. Composition, shape and colour have to be right. Sometimes,thecollectionoffruit,vegetables,flowers, glassesandotherobjectsseemstohaveacommonde- nominator, but often it is difficult to comprehend how a dead chicken, a tobacco pipe and a bunch of roses are linked with each other. A fantasy of the artist.

What does the painter actually want to achieve by painting a still life?

Nowadays one would probably think of Gauguin’s still life with ham as a commercial for farm produce. Was itastudyforapainting?Theresultofhunger?(Could havebeenunderstandablewithGauguin.)TheFrench term “nature morte” points in a different direction, here we have not only immovable objects lying still, but also the concept of “dead nature”. A picture of plucked flowers, empty bottles, dead birds and pigs turned into sausages. Allegory.

So our picture “Still Life with Dead Fish” is not for vegetarians. Understandable if you think that the fish is watching with unblinking eyes as he is eaten bit by bit. This needs strong nerves. Memento mori.

Today‘seatingcultureisalsocelebratedas“stilllife”in theformofnouvellecuisine.Hereyouaren’tjustgiven abigspoonanymoresothatyoucanscoffitdownina hurry.Insteadagrandculinaryworkofartisfirstpre- sented to the eye as a small portion and then relished with great pleasure. “Food Art”.

Postmodern still life.

Artrarelyfillsyourbelly,buttherearethekebabstalls to do that.

Resurrection

April2016

Resurrection. Reincarnation, or whatever you might callit,isalwayshardtocomprehend.Itisasiftheiron laws of nature cease to apply, because death all of a sudden does not seem to mean dead anymore. Being dead as the definite endpoint of life.

But the thought of resurrection is a fascinating con- cept. It is the core of many religions, because it offers solaceandhopethat,afterourshortguestappearance on Earth, there is an answer to the anxious question “Was that it?” The eternal cycle of nature consists of “being born, living and dying”, “spring, summer, au- tumn, winter and spring …”.

From the dry flower bulb,a magnificent lily emerg- es, the seed turnsinto a green, living plant, what was thought to be lifeless is reawakened to new life, death and life become the cycle of immortality. There is no placeforeverlastingdisappearanceintoHades.Death is not the absolute end and birth is not a unique be- ginning.

There is always a before and an after. Resurrection as a lifeline.

Hopeforallthosemortalswhoworkdeterminedlyon their immortality. Reincarnation means immortality, too. Hope for a revised version of a botched life.

Hopeforeternallifeforlostsouls,thelivingdeadwho crowd the pedestrianised zones of our cities. Is there any room left for spiritual belief amongst all that con- sumerism and obsession with distraction and fun?

The certain knowledge that, sooner or later, my thread of life will also break has to be somehow suppressed, so let us amuse ourselves to death.

Havefun!

Garden

May2016

“AndtheLordGodplantedagardenintheeast,in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.”

How we forfeited this garden, everyone knows and eversincewehaveprobablybeendreamingofthelost paradise, despite our planet offering a wonderful and extremely nice exile. A bright, life-sustaining oasis in dark, endlessly life-threatening surroundings.

Admittedly,mostofushavetoearnourdailybreadby the sweat of ourbrow, as promised, and this evokes in many a longing for a lovely little Garden of Eden, for an oasis of calm and leisure, a gentle landscape, quiet, harmonious colours, a garden of inner equilib- rium and tranquillity. Green is the dominant colour. Greenis easy on the eye and the soul. A bright glim- merhoversaboveit,aclearlightenvelops us,flooding throughuslikesoft,inaudibleandyetperceptiblemu- sic. The longing for inner peace and harmony.

In a Sufi community in the Sahara desert each family owns a small palm tree grove enclosed by high walls to which old people retire after having handed over their business to the young, and there they will spend the rest of their days, reading the Koran, discussing and philosophising with their neighbours and enjoy- ing their small gardens until they are able to move on into Allah’s big garden. Allotments, too, the hobby gardeners’ plots at the edge of the city, are for many people like little paradises - which can easily turn into agreenhellifyourawkwardneighbourdoesnotlike

you enjoying a cool beer instead of killing off weeds and caterpillars. Then we realise that maybe, on this planet, we do have to surroundour paradises with highwalls.ThelightanddarksidesofearthlyGardens of Eden. Often inthe dark shadow lurks a nasty gar- den gnome. Many do not feel like frittering their pre- cious time away in a garden, but even they will find their gardens, albeit their final ones, flourishing on the mounds of earth atop their coffins. Whether they will really be able to enjoy this garden then, I do not know. There would be no shortage of (precious) time any more anyway.

Naturally, a garden is not all about leisure and con- templation, it also involves lots of the sweat and tears to which, after all, we are ultimately condemned. But again, the fruit of this effort is a return to the lost par- adise. This miniature world that still knows the sea- sons,wheretheweatherstillplaysitspart,wherefresh green shoots emerge, flowers compete in colourful bloom, where one can witness birth and death, where Creation continuously reveals itself and offers inspira- tion to painters, poets and musicians.

But can we be satisfied with this world of flower-wa- tering, with this haven of peace and inner renuncia- tionwhentheworldoutsideisonfire?Ofcoursethere is little we can do with our watering can to stop the world from burning, and our garden might still turn to ashes, but from the ashes a new garden will always grow.