Mysteries of the Marabou

Richard Müller

Recently Sebastiano and I spent a weekend in Brescia to attend the opening of the collective show 

 Marabù Vizi e Virtù. A big thanks to Chiara Padova who invited Sebastiano to participate in the exhibition 

and gave us the opportunity discover her beautiful gallery, an elegant city and lots of fascinating people!

 Since 1972, Chiara is the owner of the Galleria dell'Incisione, an established art gallery 

specializing in Mittel-European art from the late 19th and early 20th century. 

With dedication and connoisseurship, she has introduced and promoted many extraordinary artists

 and a media, engraving, which is generally ignored and underrated in our country. 

But the gallery's offerings are much wider, and range from Japanese woodblocks

to sculpture, contemporary illustration and photography.  

Il pretendente ardito, 1923

La grande bestia I, 1918

The inspiration behind the unusual theme of the show lies in the powerful marabous 

inhabiting the wonderful engravings and drawings of the symbolist artist Richard Müller. 

These striking and rather unappealing carrion-eating water birds of the stork family 

are physically characterized by a bald head and neck, a dangling air-filled breast pouch, 

a long straight beak and thin long wading legs. Their hyeratic pose and unsettling gaze

are likely the origin of their long history as a symbol for wisdom and spiritual insight.

In Müller's engravings the marabou is given center stage as an allegorical animal

impersonating the vices and virtues of man, and sometimes transformed into 

a demonic creature of gigantic proportions. After seeing these stunning works,

I understand and subscribe to Chiara's passion and desire to showcase them.

Ernst Moritz Geiger, La conoscenza, 1890

Martin Erich Philipp, 1925

The show features a series of works by Müller accompanied other Mittel-European artists

 of the period and by a selection of works by 12 contemporary artists produced for the occasion.

Carol Berenyi, Words of love and Urban marabou

Sebastiano Ranchetti, untitled

Seba's colorful marabou was the only digital artwork on show,

and I'm very happy to report that it's already been sold! 

Matticchio, Marababy and The last marabou

Chiara is also one of the greatest fans and collaborators of Franco Matticchio, who was not present 

in person at the event, but whose artworks were lovingly sprinkled around her house and gallery.  

Although initially reluctant to explore the exhibition's theme, he ended up creating 

three marabou drawings that are masterpieces of humour, mystery and imagination. 

Giorgio Maria Griffa

A special mention goes to the watercolors of Giorgio Maria Griffa, 

a wonderful discovery for me and one of the highlights of the show.

Marabù Vizi e Virtù is open until the 20 of March.

Magyar Magic

First lovely days of Spring-like weather in Firenze, while I am finally emerging from an intense period of 

super-busy work schedule. Let's celebrate with some great Eastern European folk-inspired art, 

a subject that I love and that has been absent too long on Animalarium! 

The Hungarian artist Jozsef Domján was born in Budapest in 1907, the oldest of 12 children 

in a poor family, which he supported by working in a machine foundry when still a teenager. 

Being unemployed during the Depression, he toured Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany

by foot, supporting himself by working odd jobs and selling his sketches, and decided to become an artist. 

After his return to Hungary he won a scholarship to study at the Budapest Academy of Arts,

and six years later became a member of the faculty. 

Domján was very interested in woodcuts, and developed a unique colorful style that soon gained

 him international fame and important prizes. Unfortunately in 1945 a bomb destroyed his studio 

and many of his artworks, and the violent repression of the 1956 Hungarian upraising led him

 to leave his homeland and  emigrate with his family to Switzerland. A year later 

they moved to the United States, and eventually settled in New York.

 The inspiration for Domján's intricate woodcuts is clearly rooted in Hungarian folk art 

and in his love of nature. His complex technique used overprinted layers of oil colors,

sometimes as many as 21, and eight different wood-blocks for each image

to obtain a deep, vibrant color range and rich three dimensional texture.

 In 1970 disaster struck again, and Domján's studio and home were destroyed by a fire, along with

2 million dollars worth of artworks. Rather than getting discouraged, the artist elected the phoenix

 as his emblem and artistic subject, and declared "I can die or live, I choose to live,

 to create, to rise like the phoenix bird from the ashes once more."

Now recognized as one of the most important color woodcut artists of 

the 20th century, his production also includes a wealth of black and white 

woodcut prints, oil paintings and Aubusson tapestries. 

He also illustrated 40 books, which I'd love to take a look at! Domján died at 85. 

 His works are on permanent display at the Domján Museum in Sarospatak, 

Hungary, and are part of numerous major public and private collections.

For more art inspired by the great Magyar folk tradition, check out

my previous posts about János Kass and Károli Reich.

Revenge of the Lost Dragons

Christophe Durual

Wow, how time flies! (probably not the first time I say this)

I had collected these images thinking of posting them last winter,

but here I am, and the Year of the Dragon is already reaching its end...

Jeff Nishinaka

Wayne Anderson

Hsueh Shao-Tang, 1971

Joseph Domjan

Gek Tessaro

Elsa Klever

Ele Willoughby

Margaritas - Ante Porci

 Thierry Dedieu

Mike Wertz

Young Su Lee

Brian Wildsmith

Javier Zabala

Lisa Evans

I take this opportunity to thank all the readers who have followed, commented 

and e-mailed; I am very grateful for your compliments, encouragement and suggestions!

And a special thanks goes to all the artists, publishers, authors and illustrators 

who have generously and graciously contributed to this blog in so many different ways. 

I have to ask all of you who have contacted me recently, and have been waiting for a reply, 

to kindly be patient. The last three months have seen an unusually abundant outpouring

 of freelance graphic design work on top of my regular 18 weekly hours of teaching.

I sometimes I wonder if my head is going to explode, but I am also quite happy

because, let's face it, I enjoy being busy. And I promise I'll find the time 

to keep the Animalarium as full of life and surprises as ever!

Radiolarian Glory

Ernst Haeckel, portrait by Minouette

The renowned German scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was an early proponent of Darwinism

 who did much to popularize the work of the English naturalist in his home country.
His scientific works were praised by Darwin, even though their ideas diverged on several important points, 
and his books outsold On the Origin of Species. A member of more than 90 learned international societies,
 he was selected as one of the consultants to the Challenger Expedition, the first non-commercial
 exploration of deep-sea environment. He coined the terms "philum", "phylogeny", "Darwinism",
 and "ecology", and was the first to postulate a missing link between ape and man. 

Haeckel was a prolific writer and natural history illustrator, and focused his work on various invertebrates
 such as sponges, medusae and annelids. During the 1860s he published numerous taxonomic
 volumes describing hundreds of species of radiolarians, an order of unicellular marine microorganisms
 that forms part of the Ocean's zooplankton. His 1868 volume Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte
 (The Natural History of Creation) was a great success and gained him world recognition.
 Other titles include Systematic Phylogeny, The Riddle of the Universe, Last Words on Evolution, 
and The Last Link. As a scientist and accomplished artist, Haeckel was fascinated with patterns
 and symmetry, and found his inspiration in Goethe's belief that both art and science 
can lead us to understand the underlying truths of nature. 

Haeckel traveled around the world on his scientific expeditions, obsessively observing
 and drawing aquatic life forms and other creatures. From a series of more than 1000 engravings,
100 colored lithographic plates were chosen to be published between 1899 and 1904 in Kunstformen der Natur
 (Artforms of Nature), one of the masterpieces of 19th century naturalist illustration. 
While Heackel's depictions of higher animals look rather stiff when compared to the work of other 
artists/naturalists, the intricate forms of microorganisms allowed him to display his elegant, dazzling
 graphic talent and indulge in his inclination towards order, organization and geometry.
 Haeckel's delicate pencil and ink drawings were beautifully adapted for the book by the lithographer 
Adolph Giltsch. The subjects of each lithograph were carefully selected and elaborately arranged 
to emphasize the organisms' organization and symmetry. 

There was debate at the time on whether Hackel's marvelous life forms were over-embellished 
and idealized. Their sinuous lines are in fact closely reminiscent of the contemporary Art Nouveau style,

 and he certainly utilised distortion, stylization and geometry in his descriptions of organic
 phenomena, often discarding scientific accuracy in favor of beauty and decorative effect.  

Art Forms in Nature was aimed at the general public rather than specialists, and each plate
 was accompanied by a short and accessible commentary. The stunning illustrations gave the book
 appeal to a wide audience, and in the decades before World War I the tome was a huge success.

Haeckel's scientific reputation was tarnished when some of his theories were questioned and discarded
 due to lack of empirical support, misleading information, and possible data fabrication.

However, his natural obsessions have never ceased to fascinate and inspire artists around the world.