“And how is your mother doing…?” or “On the road to Murnau” (in Scenes… # 10)

This piece was in part inspired by our discovery of a great artist Gabrielle Münther. In my view she is sadly under-appreciated, though she has produced some wonderful paintings. For a certain period of time she was married to Wassilyi Kandinsky, with whom she co-founded the Blaue Reither (Blue Rider) movement in the 1911-14, and later the German Expressionism, which we love.

In our tour of southern Germany in 2012, we went through a series of small museums in equally small towns south of Munich, and one of them was the house of Kandinsky and Münther (The Russian House) in Murnau, see the photos. It is a charming house, with a small cute Schlossmuseum Murnau nearby.

in Murnau : with the Russian House in center back, The Russian House, G. Münther:Murnau

Our eyes were all on works by Gabrielle Münther, as Kandinsky is on the verge of being in every museum in the universe, that you start being as annoyed by him as by the-most-undeserving-of-it, but still impactful, van Gogh. One of the Münther’s pictures that I liked a lot, was centered around a road nearby with road-side trees and mountains in the background. The other one was focused on the mountains. I liked the breath of the landscape.

Gabriele Münther. Landscapes near Murnau

So, when I started placing a couple of my animal friends, the Rhino and the Cat, I thought they would have enjoyed the surroundings there.

As for Rhino, this is my second try at this beast. The first one was just a single animal piece. I am not the only one fascinated by its looks. However, in this cutout I placed the animal with his back to the viewer. I saw that in Pisanello’s horse in the magnificent 1438 fresco St. George and the Princess of Trebizond in Sant’Anastasia church in Verona.

Pisanello, 1438, fresco, St. George and the Princess of  Trebizond, church of Sant’Anastasia, Verona, Italy.

You would think, at least the cat could have been authentically mine. Think twice. That cat belongs to Ernst Ludwig Kirschner a German expressionist. I saw it recently at an incredible exhibition at Pierre Giandadda Foundation at Martigny, Switzerland, one of the museums in Switzerland that I love most. The painting was a part of a fantastic Merzbacher Collection of modern art, mainly of 1920-1930 (and they allowed to take photos freely !!).

Girl with Cat (Franzi) – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1910

I love the way the cat is turning toward the girl. So I made him turn toward my Rhino. This is how they looked at a maquette and in the final form :

You will recognize that I have stolen the way Münther does the trees, with these square patches. It is very appealing. Clearly, the charm of the original Münther’s painting is unsurpassable, and mine is just a distant shadow, but if you want to know, where my inspirations come from, this is an example.

The name of the piece comes from what I imagine could be a conversation of two acquaintances like the Rhino and the cat. This is a first of a series of cutouts featuring two animals coming from completely different narratives, the two others at the moment are “Meeting Giacometti’s dog” and “Visiting Julia”. I think, what I want to suggest is that people should seek understanding each other despite the fact they may come from completely different backgrounds.