JABRO’S Comments: JABRO’S masterwork here is a TRILOGY representation of her “Graphicpainting’s” three main room-divisions, as well three different stages of life, following the allegoric ideology of existence of the 15th/16th century (e.g. A. Dürer (1471-1528), transferred to the modem industrial and nuclear era.
The topic of conception, birth, life, death is as old as the history of man itself.
But the topic was taken up at all times again and again by artists and has been reflected and symbolically illustrated through various forms of culture and life throughout the centuries, either from a religious-mythological, scientific-realistic or socio-political point of view. The allegoric treatment, using the symbolic illustration and spiritual significance of the particular abstract concept, like Death as skeleton with scythe, or Love/Life in form of the god Amor with arrow, Fortuna with the horn of plenty, the concept of Good through the picture of God as Trinity, the concept of Evil through the picture of the horse-hoofed devil, etc., has been taken up here and is being symbolized and illustrated through the equally abstract concept of the role of protection and protector in the armour of a knight including helmet. The portrait used here of Dr. Conrad Adenauer (1876 till 1967), Germany’s FIRST DEMOCRATIC CHANCELLOR of post WWII, has been chosen from a non-political, purely artistic point of view, since it contains expressively and in a fascinating way a fulfilled, busy working life and therefore does justice to the symbolic value used here of the patriarch, the patron saint. Parallel to it runs the protective role of the old Roman god Janus with the double-faced head, whose forward-turned face here also symbolizes death, but the backward-looking one represents life. The appropriate colouring complies with the contents of each picture, e.g. the forward-turned youthful portrait is that of a deceased, well loved and admired doctor of medicine at his time in his area, the father of the artist, the backward-looking portrait is that of a still living man in his sixties, which has as its theme the idealization of the inter-human relation of man and woman, whose irrational character is not necessarily to be seen as a negation of the given realities. In this two-sided JANUS head illustration, a conscious reference is made to the psychoanalysis of S. Freud (1856-1939), which (among other things) embraces the theme father-daughter and man-woman relationship through the century-old role perception of the respective allocation of JABRO’S invented "contrast-pair" as patriarchal protector role/taking possession, and consequential servile dependence/accepting oppression, a topic which still possesses actual standing now as ever before. Similar to the interpretation and understanding of the contents of Expressionism (1905 Dresden and 1911 Munich, Germany), which mirrors primarily a world picture marked by fear, the portrayal before us also does not forego the reference to death/nuclear bomb = destruction, as well as the symbolic illustration of the abstract concept of evil/ Satan in our mundane world of materialistic things and bodily existence, articulated through a non-political and not regionally viewed conception of values "MONEY" in the form of a DM coin corresponding with today's currency of 1978.
Actually, the here shown DM is the first new currency after WWII and thus has made herewith history. One of its co-initiators was the politically very wise, foresighted and diplomatic Dr. Conrad Adenauer, Germany’s first and most remarkable Chancellor after WWII, who made history too in reintegrating his totally destroyed and struggling country of birth into the International Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In addition, with incredibly political skills Conrad Adenauer was able freeing tens of thousands of German prisoners of war from their deadly war camps in the then communistic dictatorship of Russia’s self-imposed isolation behind the "Iron Curtain", which was the (seemingly) impenetrable barrier of rigid censorship, deadly secrecy and political demarcation between the quarrelling democratic and communist countries! The pictorial, glassy inapproachability (allegoric concept of "Noli-Me-Tangere") of another spiritual symbol, the Christ-Child as a beautiful votive gift of the last century, repeats and complements in this context the complex concept of conception=birth/life/death, coming from JABRO’S invented "picture (with-) in the picture", ©, or "painting in the painting", (©), which represents the complex unity of one body, as "TWO in ONE", ©, consisting of an equal female- and equal male part. Through the waxy and symbolic votive gift, the dubiousness of our mundane existence and actions are pictorially personated, for instance, by the thumb and two severed fingers of the Christ-Child which, extended, symbolizes the spiritual Trinity of "FATHER * SON * HOLY SPIRIT". In addition, the questionableness of our worldly doings are symbolised by the symbol of a partly destructed cross on the depicted globe, as well the crushed value of a worldly ruler’s crown. The hour glass, almost run-out, fits symbolically as well into the thematic representation of the rational sequence of the complementing contrasts life/vitality/love and death/peace/purity, through the dark-red fragrant rose and the waxen, non-fragrant paleness of the lily. Summary: This JABRO masterwork is based in the broadest sense (among other things) on the various idea fragments of Surrealism (starting from H. Bosch 1450-1516, Italian Mannerism from 1520, Goya 1746-1828, Chagall and Breton/Manifest 1924, etc.) through autonomous psychograms, which were recognized and represented in the offered symbolism. The stimulation from the unconscious, the at first unreflected identity of imagination and representation, is taken up, and, in order to find another kind of communication and awareness contents, - contrary to surrealism - through made-aware auto-symbolism, (before the pictorial integration), analogue to a subjective analytically gained consciousness of controlling emotions and passions, appropriate rational-differentiated pictures and value signs were inserted. Construction of painting: JABRO’S masterwork of TRILOGY is divided into three almost equal, vertical rectangles, which can be found repeating themselves in the other elements of the picture.
It is not completely dispensed, by the use of triangular components within them. Work techniques of painting: Contrary to nowadays common practices, the artist JABRO never used for the creation of her masterworks any technical or mechanical aids like an airbrush, stencil printing, photo-reproduction, and so forth.
Instead, there has been used for exclusively old-masterly handcraft through layered and varnished painting. All of JABRO’S "Graphicpaintings", (©), are based on her multilayered “Contrast-Pairs”, ©,and treated homogeneously as visually figurative and invisibly spiritual composition structures. J.A.BRO. © / June 1978, ©. |
