Abstract Lines
ADOLF WOLFLI
One of the greatest masters
of Art Brut. Wolfli was a
Swiss draftsman, poet,
writer and composer who
suffered from paranoid
schizophrenia and was
resident in the Waldau
Aslyum near Berne. He
made thousands of drawings
to chronicle his complex life.
Swirling, writhing torrents of
color, fictional language,
drawn sound, and poetic
myth roar and cascade
within his tightly framed
pages. His drawings are
collected and exhibited
internationally and held by
the Adolf Wolfli Foundation,
Museum of Fine Arts, Berne.
Saint-Mary-Castle-Giant-Grape
1915
413 / 8 x 285 / 8 in (105 x 72.8 cm)
ADOLF WOLFLI
T
HE DEVELOPMENT OF WESTERN abstract art at the beginning of the 20th century
significantly paralleled major changes in world thought, belief, and history. The
growing rise of Darwinian ideas coupled with Freudian and Marxist perspectives
forced Western society to reconsider its origins and future. Internal workings of the
mind were suddenly free to find a new language of expression. Artists were given a
different tool—a line threaded directly from their subconscious to their hand—and
with it they began to map a bold new landscape of marks and concepts that would
dramatically and forever change the face of Western art. The fate of Old World
thinking was finally sealed with the brutality of World War I. Afterward, picturing
a stabilized world was impossible and Modernism rode forth with vigor.
However, abstraction is not so easy to define, and it has always been with us. It
was not invented in the 20th century, only rediscovered. From one point of view, all
pictorial representations are abstractions of reality. From another viewpoint, many non-
Western cultures have highly sophisticated abstractions at the core of their art, and
have been making abstract drawings for centuries—Japanese calligraphy, for example,
Indian mandalas, and Aboriginal art. Perhaps in Western culture we bred this intuitive
freedom out of ourselves in our insistence on complex figuration. Outsider artists, such
as Adolf Wolfli, opposite, and young children show us that abstract, expressive marks
and shapes are at the core of natural, spontaneous image-making.
Not everything we know has a physical form in the world. Many concepts and
feelings can only be expressed through marks, sounds, actions, or gestures. An
abstract mark is often a better conductor of a thought or feeling, precisely because it
does not have to represent a physical object; it is simply itself. People are often scared
by abstraction and see it as the enemy of figurative art. It is actually its foundation
and its infrastructure. My own work is firmly centered in figuration, yet my kinship
to abstraction is fundamental. I begin every image by feeling its meaning, direction,
and emotion. First marks, which are essentially abstract, strike the paper to find form.
As you approach the classes in this chapter, don't be timid; be brave and enjoy them.
Abstraction is a direct, liberating, and independent means of communication. It
also underpins and gives strength and unity to all figurative work.
