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Friedensreich Hundertwasser's comprehensive, profound body of work makes him one of the most important Austrian artists in the history of post-war modern art. His art is unique. He painted wherever he happened to be. The period in Paris, where he stayed time and again between 1949 and 1960, was extremely inspiring for him. However, the Viennese Art Nouveau with Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele also had a profound influence on the artist. By the end of the 1950s, he had already achieved an artistic maturity that placed him at the forefront of the international avant-garde.

This work, “Der Furchtsame Berg - Der Traurige Berg” (“The Timid Mountain – The Sad Mountain”, 1959), also dates from this period. Starting in 1953, Hundertwasser focused on the pictorial motif of the spiral as a direct expression of the constantly repeating cycle of life, based on a holistic conception of art as something that connects the mind and body as well as nature and culture with one another. That symbolically charged spiral is also found in this work, positioned somewhat off-centre, in vibrant red. A streak of colour runs out from it and continues to form the outline of an orange and yellowish field, which is in turn attractively juxtaposed with the bright blue and white stripes, which come into their own are particularly in the lower left corner of the picture. In addition, the blue serves as border for the white area, which is accentuated with colourful, scattered, lightly applied brushstrokes. Hundertwasser was very fond of using bright pure colours as a significant design element. The artist’s conviction that the straight line is unhealthy for human beings, as it does not occur in nature, also finds expression in this work as a matter of course. The unique style of Hundertwasser’s art continues to hold incredible appeal.

(Sophie Höfer)