Adolf Wölfli (occasionally spelled Adolf Woelfli or Adolf Wolfli) was a Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 who was one of the first artists to be associated with the Art Brut or outsider art

Outsider Art

The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...

 label.

Early life

Wölfli was abuse

Child abuse

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...

d both physically

Physical abuse

Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm.-Forms of physical abuse:*Striking*Punching*Belting*Pushing, pulling*Slapping*Whipping*Striking with an object...

 and sexually as a child, and was orphan

Orphan

An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...

ed at the age of 10. He thereafter grew up in a series of state-run foster homes. He worked as a farm labourer and briefly joined the army, but was later convicted of attempted child molestation, for which he served prison time. Sometime after being freed, he was arrested for a similar offense and was admitted in 1895 to the Waldau Clinic in Bern, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, a psychiatric hospital

Psychiatric hospital

Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...

 where he spent the rest of his adult life. He was very disturbed and sometimes violent on admission, leading to him being kept in isolation for his early time at hospital. He suffered from psychosis

Psychosis

Psychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...

, which led to intense hallucination

Hallucination

A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...

s.

Creative works

At some point after his admission Wölfli began to draw. His first surviving works (a series of 50 pencil drawings) are dated from between 1904 and 1906.

Walter Morgenthaler, a doctor at the Waldau Clinic, took a particular interest in Wölfli's art and his condition, later publishing Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist) in 1921 which first brought Wölfli to the attention of the art world.

Morgenthaler's book detailed the works of a patient who seemed to have no previous interest in art and developed his talents and skills independently after being committed for a debilitating condition. In this respect, Wölfli was an iconoclast

Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...

 and influenced the development and acceptance of outsider art

Outsider Art

The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...

, Art Brut and its champion Jean Dubuffet

Jean Dubuffet

Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...

.

Wölfli produced a huge number of works during his life, often working with the barest of materials and trading smaller works with visitors to the clinic to obtain pencils, paper or other essentials. Morgenthaler closely observed Wölfli's methods, writing in his influential book:

"Every Monday morning Wölfli is given a new pencil and two large sheets of unprinted newsprint. The pencil is used up in two days; then he has to make do with the stubs he has saved or with whatever he can beg off someone else. He often writes with pieces only five to seven millimetres long and even with the broken-off points of lead, which he handles deftly, holding them between his fingernails. He carefully collects packing paper and any other paper he can get from the guards and patients in his area; otherwise he would run out of paper before the next Sunday night. At Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 the house gives him a box of coloured pencils, which lasts him two or three weeks at the most."

The images Wölfli produced were complex, intricate and intense. They worked to the very edges of the page with detailed borders. In a manifestation of Wölfli's "horror vacui

Horror vacui

thumb|Many paintings by [[Outsider Art]]ist [[Adolf Wölfli]] contain space filled with writing or musical notationIn visual art, horror vacui is the filling of the entire surface of an artwork with detail....

", every empty space was filled with two small holes. Wölfli called the shapes around these holes his "birds."

His images also incorporated an idiosyncratic musical notation

Musical notation

Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...

. This notation seemed to start as a purely decorative affair but later developed into real composition which Wölfli would play on a paper trumpet.

In 1908, he set about creating a semi-autobiographical epic which eventually stretched to 45 volumes, containing a total of over 25,000 pages and 1,600 illustrations. This work was a mix of elements of his own life blended with fantastical stories of his adventures from which he transformed himself from a child to 'Knight Adolf' to 'Emperor Adolf' and finally to 'St Adolf II'. Text and illustrations formed the narrative, sometimes combining multiple elements on kaleidoscopic pages of music, words and colour.

Wölfli eventually died in 1930 and his works were taken to the Museum of the Waldau Clinic in Bern. After his death the Adolf Wölfli Foundation was formed to preserve his art for future generations. Today its collection is on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Bern.

Wölfli's work has inspired many composers. Perhaps most notable the Danish composer Per Nørgård

Per Nørgård

Per Nørgård is a Danish composer.-Biography:Nørgård studied with Vagn Holmboe at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, and subsequently with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. To begin with, he was strongly influenced by the Nordic styles of Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen and Vagn Holmboe...

 who after viewing a Wölfli exhibition in 1979 embarked on a schizoid style lasting for several years; among the works of this time are an opera on the life of Wölfli called The Divine Circus.

Audio Recordings

On their web site, The Adolph Wölfli Foundation poses the following:

"Naturally enough, the question whether Wölfli's music can be played is asked again and again. The answer is yes, with some difficulty. Parts of the musical manuscripts of 1913 were analyzed in 1976 by Kjell Keller and Peter Streif and were performed. These are dances – as Wölfli indicates – waltzes, mazurkas, and polkas similar in their melody to folk music. How Wölfli acquired his knowledge of music and its signs and terms is not clear. He heard singing in the village church. Perhaps he himself sang along. There he could see song books from the eighteenth century with six-line staffs (explaining, perhaps, his continuous use of six lines in his musical notations). At festivities he heard dance music, and on military occasions he heard the marches he loved so well. More important than the concrete evaluation of his music notations is Wölfli's concept of viewing and designing his whole oeuvre as a big musical composition. The basic element underlying his compositions and his whole oeuvre is rhythm. Rhythm pervades not only his music but his poems and prose, and there is also a distinctive rhythmic flow in his handwriting."

In 1978, "Adolf Wölfli: Gelesen Und Vertont," the first recording of Wölfli's work ever to be published, was released by the Adolf Wölfli Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts, Bern. Since that time, a number of German musicians have released adaptations of Wölfli's work. A comprehensive list of these artists can be found at The Adolph Wölfli Foundation's music page.

In 1987, musician and composer Graeme Revell

Graeme Revell

Graeme Revell is a New Zealand film score composer.Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A...

 released an LP entitled "Necropolis, Amphibians & Reptiles: The Music of Adolf Wolfli". This was on his own Musique Brut label in London, UK in 1987. This audio compilation was based on the works Wölfli and incorporated digital renditions of Wölfli's compositions, with additional sound effects and ambient soundscapes added to the songs, by Revell, based on the artwork surrounding Wölfli's musical notations. The LP was a collection of musical interpretations by Revell as well as DDAA, & Nurse With Wound.



Side 1:

by Graeme Revell



1. Necropolis, Amphibians & Reptiles

2. Countess Saladine

3. Chimpnags-Apes Of The Union Canada: America

4. Allgebrah

5. Ebony Tower In The Orient. Water Fanfaare No.1

6. The Bälli



Side 2:

by DDAA (Deficit Des Annees Anterieures)



7. St. Adolf's Comet

8. Natural Fhorm Of The Holy-Light-Island In The Pacific Ocean

9. Rahma Margarine



by Nurse With Wound



10. Les Tantaaria

11. Great-God-Father-Niece



This LP came with a booklet with a biography and images of Wolfli's works. Tracks 8 & 9 are combined into one track.

This record was later re-released as The Musique Brut Collection on CD by the Grey Area record label, a sub-label of UK-based Mute Records

Mute Records

Mute is an independent record label based in the UK. It was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller and featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and Fad Gadget.-Beginnings:...

, under the parent label EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 UK. This audio compilation also includes the other Musique Brut LP release "The Insect Musicians". The CD release also contains a small booklet containing pictures of Wölfli's artwork, information about his history, and a brief write-up on Revell's process of converting Wölfli's lithographs into songs.

The Musique Brut Collection is broken up into two sections, based on the themes of the artwork that surrounded the compositions. The first section, entitled "The Insect Musicians," contains songs based on the following works:



1. Nocturne (On An Oriental Theme)

2. The Sleeping Sickness

3. Melancholia

4. La Danse Des Ténèbres (Dance Of Shadows)

5. Variation On The 'Sakura' (Japanese Traditional)

6. Nature Morte (Still Life)

7. BalineseTwilights

8. Phobia (An Australian Theme)

9. Invaders Of The Heart

10. Et Spiritus Sanctus



The second section, entitled "Necropolis, Amphibians & Reptiles," contains only the Graeme Revell works:



11. Necropolis, Amphibians & Reptiles

12. Countess Saladine

13. Chimpnags-Apes Of The Union Canada: America

14. Allgebrah

15. Ebony Tower In The Orient. Water Fanfaare No.1

16. The Bälli

See also

• Outsider art
  Outsider Art
  The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...
  
  
• Henry Darger
  Henry Darger
  Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a custodian in Chicago, Illinois...
  
  , outsider artist who independently arrived at his own illustrated semi-autobiographical epic of many thousand pages
• Mark Beyer
  Mark Beyer
  Mark Beyer is a comic artist known for his bleak storylines, often featuring death, disfigurement, depression, and humiliation, which contrast with his childlike, geometric drawing style. Most of his stories are about the adventures of a codependent yet resentful couple named Amy and Jordan.His...
  
  , comic artist with extremely similar interest in "horror vacui"
• Graeme Revell
  Graeme Revell
  Graeme Revell is a New Zealand film score composer.Revell attended Auckland Grammar School, where he finished his final year in 7A...
  
  , musician who was heavily influenced by Wölfli, and has performed recordings of his work.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica
  Puella Magi Madoka Magica
  is a Japanese anime television series produced by Shaft and Aniplex. The series is directed by Akiyuki Shinbo and written by Gen Urobuchi with original character designs by Ume Aoki, character design adaptation by Takahiro Kishida and music by Yuki Kajiura...
  
  , a naïve-style anime with magic scenes heavily influenced by Wölfli.

Further reading

• Walter Morgenthaler, Madness & Art, The Life and Works of Adolf Wölfli (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992) (= Translation of Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler). ISBN 0-8032-3156-3
• John Maizels, Raw Creation: Outsider Art and Beyond (1996). ISBN 0-7148-3149-2
• Elka Spoerri, Daniel Baumann and E. M. Gomez, The Art of Adolf Wolfli (2003). ISBN 0-691-11498-6

External links

• Adolf Wölfli Foundation
• Article on Wölfi from Raw Vision magazine
• Biography of Adolf Wölfli
• Adolf Wolfli website w external links
• The Autobiography of St Adolf II – article on Wölfli from artnet.com, including images of his artwork
• Review of 'The Art of Adolf Wolfli'
• A selection of MP3 files from the Gelesen und vertont LP (1978)
• The Musique Brut Collection at discogs.com