Fuchs, Ernst (1930-2015), Stream nymph, 1976

Ernst Fuchs(1930 Vienna - 2015 Vienna ), Stream nymph , 1976. color etching, 19.2 x 16.7 (image), 39.5 x 35.5 (frame), signed "Fuchs" and numbered as copy "328/600". Catalog raisonné Hartmann/Weis No. 261a. Framed in passepartout under glass.

- Frame with smaller rubbed spot, otherwise in very good condition

- Flowing femininity -

The stream nymph lies on a kind of island with her back to us, flung about by the movement of the waves. Her body, which is the size of the picture, is like a landscape that is also entirely determined by flowing movements. Her hair is cascading down, and the curls look like small swirls of water. The blue color of her hair is also reminiscent of water, as is her turquoise robe, which reveals more than it conceals. The color of the robe corresponds to the crests of the waves. The nymph seems to be covered by the water, which gives the picture a surreal, fantastic moment. Equally fantastic are the birds, also in flowing lines, one of which turns to face the nymph as she rises from the cushion.

The birds represent the celestial element and complement the element of water. If water is associated with femininity, the birds represent complementary masculinity. Both principles meet in the intimate gaze of the bird and the nymph and are united by the yellow flower. In the formal language of the fantastic, however, the connection goes further: the violet clouds in the background form the body of the nymph - now turned toward us - under the bird.

The moon appears next to the cloud formation. It associates the nymph with Diana and identifies the landscape as her realm, traversed by the birds. Yet the complementarity of the female and the male, pervaded by Eros, is the essential content of the picture, which is also reflected in the blue-orange contrast and which Fuchs depicts in his work in ever new aspects, thereby deepening and unfolding it.

About the artist

The young Ernst Fuchs chose as his baptismal name 'Ernst Peter Paul', an homage by the then twelve-year-old to Peter Paul Rubens, who would continue to inspire him. He received his first art lessons from his godmother's brother, Alois Schiemann. Later he attended the St. Anna School of Painting in Vienna, and in 1946 he was admitted to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied until 1950 under Robin Andersen and Albert Paris Gütersloh, the intellectual father of the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism. After travelling extensively, Fuchs spent time at the Dormition Monastery on Mount Zion in Israel, where he became deeply involved in the iconography and spiritual painting techniques that influenced him. In his book Architectura Caelestis (1966), he states that many of his motif discoveries are based on visionary experiences, which he later emphasised:

“It is not uncommon for me to go into a trance while painting, my consciousness fading in favour of a medial suspended state in which I feel guided and moved by a sure hand, doing things of which I have little conscious knowledge. This state can sometimes last for several hours. Afterwards, everything I have created in this state seems to me as if someone else had done it.”

- Ernst Fuchs

In 1962 Fuchs returned to Vienna, was appointed professor at the Academy and became probably the most influential protagonist of the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism, which had presented its first group exhibition at the Belvedere in 1959. Apart from Ernst Fuchs, Arik Brauer, Rudolf Hausner, Anton Lehmden, Helmut Leherb and Gütersloh's son Wolfgang Hutter were the main representatives of this artistic movement.

In 1972 Fuchs acquired the Otto Wagner Villa, which he turned into his private museum in a congenial continuation of Viennese Art Nouveau. The 1970s also saw the development of an artistic friendship with Salvator Dalí and Arno Breker, which Dalí summed up in 1975 with the words: "We are the golden triangle of art: Breker-Dalí-Fuchs. You can rotate us any way you like, we are always on top".

Fuchs also confirmed himself as a singer of spiritual poetry and, from the 1990s onwards, devoted himself increasingly to his fantastic architecture. The idea of a total work of art that he pursued in the Otto Wagner Villa was also reflected in the design of everyday objects. A BMW 635 CSi, for example, became a "fire fox on a hare hunt" according to his design, and the Rosenthal porcelain factory produced numerous products based on his designs.

In his art, Ernst Fuchs draws from the abundance of tradition, from which his genius gives birth to a completely new semantics:

“Insights haunt me that I had not hoped to find. Grasped by this spirituality, I also understand what the great insights of other painters were that aroused my admiration. An understanding of art and the knowledge it conveys grips me, as if my mind had entered into a discourse with all artists of all epochs.”

- Ernst Fuchs

Selected Bibliography

Source texts

Ernst Fuchs: Architectura Caelestis - Images Of The Hidden Prime Of Styles (Die Bilder des verschollenen Stils), Frankfurt a. M. 1966.

ders.: Im Zeichen der Sphinx. Schriften und Bilder. Hrsg. v. Walter Schurian, München 1978.

ders.: Aura. Ein Märchen der Sehnsucht, München 1981.

ders.: Phantastisches Leben. Erinnerungen, Berlin 2001.

Catalog raisonné

Helmut Weis: Ernst Fuchs. Das graphische Werk. 1967 - 1980, München 1980.

Literature

Gerhard Habarta: Ernst Fuchs. Das Einhorn zwischen den Brüsten der Sphinx. Eine Biographie, Graz 2001.

Friedrich Haider (Hrsg.): Ernst Fuchs. Zeichnungen und Graphik aus der frühen Schaffensperiode mit Hinweisen auf die Malerei 1942-1959, Wien 2003.

Agnes Husslein-Arco (Hrsg.): Phantastischer Realismus. Arik Brauer, Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner, Wolfgang Hutter, Wien 2008.