Fuchs, Ernst (1930-2015), The Lost Trace, 1972

Ernst Fuchs(1930 Vienna - 2015 ibid), The Lost Trace , 1972. Vernis mou and aquatint etching, 46.8 x 36.4 cm (plate), 66 x 50 cm (sheet), 69.5 x 53.5 cm (frame), WVZ Hartmann no. 185 II d, signed by hand in pencil at lower right Ernst Fuchs", numbered by hand II/XXV" at lower right and inscribed E.A. [Epreuvre d'Artist]". Paper with dry stamp. Framed behind glass.

- Few minimal crease marks in wide margin, frame with very occasional nudges.

- The Holy Night as a real dream -

Ernst Fuchs uses the printmaking technique of soft ground etching, also called "vernis mou", rediscovered by Félicien Rops in the 19th century. In this process, the printing plate, which is covered with a soft waxy layer, is covered with a paper on which the drawing is applied and pressed into the background. The result is a soft line and the transfer of the paper grain to the plate. Combined with aquatint etching, Fuchs achieved an extremely painterly effect with an intense flatness of color.

We are standing in a forest of Christmas trees at night. The burning candles combine with the twinkling stars and the white snowflakes to create a flurry of light that fills the night sky, while the snow, in turn, unfolds a white-blue luminosity. The face of Christ appears in the sky, with the wounds of the crown of thorns on his forehead. With his eyes closed, Christ seems to be dreaming the world. In the snow there are two faces, also with closed eyes, which form the surface of the world. The Christmas star literally falls on them. At Christmas, God does not appear alone above the world, he becomes present in the world itself, which Fuchs demonstrates through the immense footprint. He calls the graphic "The Lost Trace," but the trace in the picture does not disappear; it must be found and recognized, and then it also becomes clear that the trace is more than a trace; it is itself, as the steps of the hacking show, the path. The only path in the picture that leads to God as a motivic inversion of the ladder to heaven.

With his pictorial depiction of the Holy Night, Ernst Fuchs succeeds in illustrating the mediating event that redeems the world beyond conventional iconography in a way that is as inspiring as it is mysterious.

About the artist

Ernst Fuchs by Gert Chesi, around 1973 / CC BY-SA 4.0

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.