member of:Observers of the Interdependence of Domestic Objects and Their Influence on Everyday Life


This group has been active for a long time and has already made some remarkable assertions which render life simpler from the practical point of view. For example, I move a pot of green color five centimeters to the right, I push in the thumbtack beside the comb and if Mr. A (another adherent like me) at this moment puts his volume about bee-keeping beside a pattern for cutting out vests, I am sure to meet on the sidewalk of the avenida Madero a woman who intrigues me and whose origin and address I never could have known...
--Remedios Varo


(Slideshow is of Artwork by Remedios Varo)
By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
--Franz Kafka

Saturday, July 4, 2009

A Precursor to Surrealism and Alien Communication

This is Michael Pacher's icon of Saint Wolfgang (painted 1471-1474), a Saint most famous for forcing the devil to help him build a church. Note the devil's other face. No, his other one.

From BLOG PHOTOS

Wolfgang's feast day, and I promise I'm not making this up, is October 31.

He's often (or so it's rumored; I haven't been able to find such an image) portrayed with St. Ulrich, the first saint to be formally canonized by the Pope--on July 4, 993, that's today-- and his contemporary. Where St. Ulrich helped to fight off the much more powerful Magyars with the use of a sword brought to him by angels, St. Wolfgang was the one Ulrich sent to actually convert those Magyars.
St. Ulrich is fascinating to me as a magician, because he had a special sense of humor, as you'll see in the following two stories.
After he died, miracles almost immediately started to occur at his tomb. For example, those ill with malignant fever began leaving Birch rods (apparently symbolic of the fever?) at his tomb, which act then cured them of their fever--the flip side was, if you picked up one of those rods and tried to use it (for example as a walking stick), you came down with the fever yourself. After a while, no one would touch the rods, and they piled up until they were "a nuisance." I'm not sure how the situation was eventually managed.
Also, in a book called "The Open Court," I found this little tale: "In the life of St. Ulrich, we are told of one who declared that the saint had no more power than a dog to work miracles, wherefore, losing forthwith his human speech, he began to growl and bark like a dog, and soon perished miserably."

7 comments:

  1. Great! I like the sense of humor you are adding among your posts with this one, as always what I like the most is that you engage me in thinking...it took me a minute to figure out what other face are you referring to:)Thanks Zoe

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  2. Only after reading Vesna's comment I saw the other face :) . Thanks for the interesting story Zoe

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  3. Well I guess we can all SIT and relax, now that we've found that other face...

    Thanks Zoe!

    Jazz Frisson

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  4. I am very fond of reading saint's lives, and I find this one really fascinating. Thank you!!

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  5. Qué buen blog! Muy pero muy interesantes los dibujos e ilustraciones, me gustan mucho, algunos siguen la línea de H. Bosch... buenísimo!

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  6. me encanta que te gusta! si, creo que la influencia (fantastica) de bosch esta presente en la obra de muchos de los artistas que tanto me interesan...

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