Page 43 - Studio International - February 1966

paradises. They are not in search of spontaneity but the Mannerists, and to the salon art of the turn of the
adventure that was the road of the Old Masters. They century. His works display an extraordinary early-
prefer ability, creativity and tradition to effect, con- Renaissance power coupled with a very clear sense of
temporaneity and mere novelty. Above all, they defy the macabre and erotic. The noble and the diseased are
the requirement that has ruled since Cézanne—a brought together with great style : his works are a black
peinture pure free of all literary, symbolical, and mass celebrated by the spirit of psychoanalysis.
psychological references. They do not believe that the In the paintings of Wolfgang H utter, rococo, Bieder-
formal achieves greatness if it lacks content. They know meier and Art Nouveau combine to form a new and
that art almost always comes from artistry, and they artificial style. With extreme precision, Hutter paints
would wish to measure their ability with that of the artistic gardens of Eden where luscious colours produce
Old Masters, whose works they study in museums. —in spite of all allusions and references—what one
They recall a multitude of paintings of the great years critic has called 'a world where there is no sin and yet
Below
Wolfgang Flutter of the past, notably the styles peculiar to the late no sinlessness'. The world of dolls and chocolate-
Das Blumengefängnis Gothic, Mannerism, Biedermeier, Art Nouveau and boxes, artificial flowers and butterflies and wigs, accom-
(The Flower Prison) 1958
Watercolour on paper Surrealism. panies a technicolour scenery of shapes and figures con-
x 7 in. Ernst Fuchs, for example, is simultaneously related to ceived vegetatively (see The Flower Prison of 1958).
Collection : Milena von Dedovich,
Vienna the Flemish masters of the 15th century, to the What Hutter envisions with his magical forms in a room

Above
Anton Lehmden
Weiblichen Kopf (Female Head) 1959-61
Oil on wood
19 3/4 x 17 3/8 in.
Collection : the artist

'deprived of air', Erich Brauer depicts in what one might
call a 'submarine world'. His figures and representations
in blossoming, flowing colours are akin not so much
to his initial inspiration— Bosch and Breughel —as to
surreal forms of life, which recall phantastic fishes,
dragons, Medusas and aquatic vegetation—the world
beneath the waters.
Rudolf Hausner's individualistic representations of
figures and space recall de Chirico and Dali, and Anton
Lehmden moves freely between the old German
Viennese School of the Altdorfer period and the
realists of the Twentieth century (see Female Head of
1959-61).