.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
‘The spiral is the symbol of life and death. The spiral lies at the very point where inanimate matter is transformed into life.’
–Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s entrancing painting Soleil enjolivé par les symptoms de la maladie (The Symptoms of the Illness Beautify the Sun), 1957, draws the viewer into a winding, curling mesh of colour. His curvilinear world is predominantly composed of the three primary colours, red, yellow and blue, which are interspersed with swathes of cool mint green and blocks of earthy brown. Arranged in a rippling formation, the spiraling colours manifest into a pulsating cellular composition that leads the eye to the work’s central vortex. The spiral motif is integral to Hundertwasser’s work. Evocative of the beautiful irregularity of nature’s organic forms, it seems to conjure the very essence of vitality and creativity both: ‘The spiral is the symbol of life and death,’ he wrote; ‘The spiral lies at the very point where inanimate matter is transformed into life’ (F. Hundertwasser, quoted in A. C. Fürst, Friedensreich Hundertwasser: 1928 – 2000, Catalogue Raisonné, Volume II, Cologne, 2002, p. 28). Raised in Austria, as a Jewish boy Hundertwasser was forced to masquerade as a Catholic to avoid persecution by the Nazis. As if in poignant opposition to the harsh severity of Nazi rule, Hundertwasser rejected what he called the ‘godless and immoral straight line’ in favour of ‘the creative spiral … organic and energised, propagating the artist’s simple truth of life and nature’ (F. Hundertwasser, ‘Mouldiness Manifesto Against Rationalism in Architecture’, in Austria Presents Hundertwasser to the Continents, exh. cat., Gruener Janura AG, Glarus/ Switzerland, 1980, p. 441). Indeed, in Soleil enjolivé par les symptoms de la maladie, his wild, unfurling forms are laden with the promise of antidote, of beauty, and of uninhibited freedom.
–Friedensreich Hundertwasser
Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s entrancing painting Soleil enjolivé par les symptoms de la maladie (The Symptoms of the Illness Beautify the Sun), 1957, draws the viewer into a winding, curling mesh of colour. His curvilinear world is predominantly composed of the three primary colours, red, yellow and blue, which are interspersed with swathes of cool mint green and blocks of earthy brown. Arranged in a rippling formation, the spiraling colours manifest into a pulsating cellular composition that leads the eye to the work’s central vortex. The spiral motif is integral to Hundertwasser’s work. Evocative of the beautiful irregularity of nature’s organic forms, it seems to conjure the very essence of vitality and creativity both: ‘The spiral is the symbol of life and death,’ he wrote; ‘The spiral lies at the very point where inanimate matter is transformed into life’ (F. Hundertwasser, quoted in A. C. Fürst, Friedensreich Hundertwasser: 1928 – 2000, Catalogue Raisonné, Volume II, Cologne, 2002, p. 28). Raised in Austria, as a Jewish boy Hundertwasser was forced to masquerade as a Catholic to avoid persecution by the Nazis. As if in poignant opposition to the harsh severity of Nazi rule, Hundertwasser rejected what he called the ‘godless and immoral straight line’ in favour of ‘the creative spiral … organic and energised, propagating the artist’s simple truth of life and nature’ (F. Hundertwasser, ‘Mouldiness Manifesto Against Rationalism in Architecture’, in Austria Presents Hundertwasser to the Continents, exh. cat., Gruener Janura AG, Glarus/ Switzerland, 1980, p. 441). Indeed, in Soleil enjolivé par les symptoms de la maladie, his wild, unfurling forms are laden with the promise of antidote, of beauty, and of uninhibited freedom.