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On the fundamentalist religious zealotry of the art of Ernst Fuchs:
the problem with the ideas behind the art of Ernst Fuchs

Eberhard Urban writes on the artists of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism: "...surrealism was something different from what the Viennese wanted. Some casual surrealistic play was worth, at the beginning, a little flirtation from time to time. But the Viennese group of fantasts had other intentions. The Vienna School of Fantastic Realism is a particular form of fantastic painting, a unique manner which became an accepted fashion." p. 278 DER FEUERFUCHS

Pure surrealism understood as haphazard accidental associations was only ever an hypothetical abstraction which was never a logical possibility. The sentiments of the Viennese fantasts which reject the surrealist dependance on random chance are probably the only ones with which I agree without reservation. Though it must be pointed out that Breton in his second surrelaist manifesto emphasised that surrealism intended to capture the "mysterious powers hidden in the depth of our mind…and then, if necessary, to subject them to control by reason." (p. 22, U.M. Schneede, Surrealism, quoting Breton) Surrealism, contrary to popular opinion, had never purely been a celebration of the triumph of randomness over over reason or aesthetics.

Fuchs goes on to articulate his remedy to surrealism:
"I have moved away from the purely absurd for absurd's sake [surrealism] and from the entirely unbound association techniques of surrealism and I have sought more and more concrete themes - those spheres that are called "archetypes" by Jung." (p. 278) DER FEUERFUCHS

I wrote the following comments with respect to Ernst Fuchs in 2004:

"it is with greater dismay that, overwhelmingly, practitioners of what might be called "fantastic" are artists whose understanding of art is limited to illustrating narrow personal religious pseudosophies which border on, if they are not actually, kooky. One Austrian artist, of albeit stunningly beautiful (though religious) work, is adamant that angels exist, that they may be seen in electromagnetism... 

Much of what is defined as "fantastic" is an artform which exists in spite of, rather than in reaction to, the prevailing currents of modern art theory; that is, instead of acknowledging the history of art for the past 100 years and arguing against it, they ignore it altogether and simply co-exist with it. Most practitioners of what can be termed "fantastic" would be better described as 19th century theosophists who can paint, but have remained oblivious to their surrounds and oblivious to art and theory of the century which intervened between the 19th and 21st.  The best statements articulating the raison d'être of these practitioners was made in the ArtVisionary exhibition held in the city of Ballarat in Australia (2004) in which some very beautiful work was exhibited, but which, in context of the theory propounded, was stuck firmly in 19th century mysticism in which the art was claimed to be "intense" and "visionary" arrived at by "supernatural" means, "the artist as shaman"; essentially mediaeval religious rapture... "

According to Ernst Fuchs.

"images are the language of the spirit, the messages from Heaven, manifesting themselves as they did in the tongues of the prophets. One should not argue that art has nothing in common with prophecy since, after all, the prophecy of the ancient people and art were identical. Prophecy expressed itself through the sisters, music and poetry, serving as forms of revelation... Art is nearness to God, received without effort. This is the concise meaning and basis of a theology of art which is age old and has maintained again and again that jubilation erupts when God is near. Through that jubilation, the artist's nearness to God was brought through creative service without sweat or torment." Ernst Fuchs, pp. 8-10 Quoted from One Source Sacred Journeys; a celebration of spirit & art, Markowitz publishing.

Herein lies the problem: if art is the creation of images, Fuchs uses images to demonstrate the glory of a religion that seeks the destruction of images. By means of his art he propounds a lie.

Fuchs is claiming to be a mindless receptacle for the message of his god imparted by his god as a vision ("revelation"); a medium, whose art is merely an attempt to render in images the vision sent by his god. The objects that appear in Fuchs' drawings and paintings derive from ancient mesopotamia which have been found in archaeological excavations. His claim to be a medium means that his god transmits to him, images of those very objects believed to be created by his Semitic ancestors. In Fuchs' holy book Abraham is the source of wisdom and lived in mesopotamia, in Ur when the god that both he & Fuchs share "revealed" himself as a vision to Abraham. By this kind of circular reasoning, Fuchs' god's existence, and that this god has transmitted ("revealed") ideas from a Jungian ether for thousands of years is believed by Fuchs to be demonstrated.
FUCHS example 1

Samson finds the carcass of the lion, Ernst Fuchs, etching, 1961. Ernst Fuchs Der Feuerfuchs.
Samson, bottom left wears a Phrygian cap. The earliest depiction of a Jew is that of Jehu as depicted on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (reigned 858-824 BC). In that depiction the cap falls backward, not forward as Fuchs depicts it. Fuchs incorporates the vine-like "sacral tree" composed of the Egyptian lotus flower. He places the Eagle of Zevs/Thor on the sacred-tree's branches. The Egyptian lotus flower which in antiquity appears as the double-trident of Zevs is here rendered into a Jewish menorah. Fuchs is using motifs of earlier cultures to claim a Jewish/Semitic origin for all ideas including those which appear in Greece and Egypt (to hence claim a Semitic origin for those ideas?). In this context the Hellenisation of early Christianity by pagan Greeks might be considered by Fuchs to be a reintroduction of ideas which the Greeks appropriated from Semites.



Fig 1. Mithras slaying the bull. Roman. 1st centuries AD. Illus. p.120, Lyttelton & Forman, echoes of the ancient world, THE ROMANS, their gods and their beliefs.

Fig. 2. Detail from the "Black Obelisk" of Shalmaneser III. Claimed to show Israelites bringing tribute. "The incident, which is not recorded in the Bible, occurred almost 150 years before Israel was finally conquered by the Assyrians."
Illus. (and quote) p. 109, V. Skipp Out of the Ancient World ("a history of Britain SH1" series)

Fig. 3. Ivory panel from the Assyrian palace at Shalmaneser showing the king with a lotus tree of life. (Claimed to be of Phoenician workmanship). Assyrian, 8th century BC. Illus. 30, p. 31, Hamlyn ASIAN ART, an illustrated history of sculpture, painting & architecture, Myers & Copplestone, editors.
The elements that appear in Fuchs' drawing above derive from several sources. He uses the Phrygian cap (Fig. 1) & not the "Jewish" cap as depicted on the "Black Obelisk" (Fig. 2). His Menorah is composed of an Egyptian lotus flower as it is depicted on Phoenician ivories of the Assyrian period (Fig. 3). The lotus flower itself is derived from stylisations of the lotus-as-tree-of-life which appeared in Egypt.

It should be noted that the Jewish leader depicted in the "Black Obelisk" is named "Jehu" (the significance of this will become apparent later.)


Fig. 4. Tomb of Sennedjem at Deir el Medina, Thebes 20th dynasty (1185-1069 BC). The sacred tree (left) is clearly derived from Mycenaean models. Illus. 101, Giovanni Garbini, The Ancient World.

Fig. 5. One of two "Dignitaries" who flank a "sacred tree". Ivory. Syria. Ascribed to 8th century BC. Fig. 576, Amiet, Art of the Ancient Near East. Karlsruhe Museum.

Fig. 6. Griffins in stylized tree. Kalhu, palace of Assurnasirpal ii. Ascribed to 8th century BC, Nimrud. (Previously dated to 883-859 BC.) The griffins are rendered in the Minaon/Mycenaean manner which dates to 12th-11th century BC and are still benevolent protectors, rather than fierce monster guards. Fig. 587, Amiet, Art of the Ancient Near East. Photo by Maenod. British Museum.
The "sacred tree" design derives from Kretan (Minoan) models which are found on Minoan vases (not presented here). The lotus is Egyptian. Fuchs claims mesopotamian motifs on behalf of his god to prove his god's continual presence since antiquity.

FUCHS example 2

Under the sign of Moses, Drawing (for painting of the same name). Ernst Fuchs, 1975. Ernst Fuchs Der Feuerfuchs.

 The winged figure, left, wears what appears to be a Sassanian crown (Persian dynasty, reigned 224-651 AD) - though it might be a poor rendition of the "white crown" of Upper Egypt. The figure, Moses, holds before him a snake which is rendered in the manner found on Kassite boundary stones. The representation is of Moses holding the bronze snake of Numbers 21.8-9. In the centre of the drawing is an androkephalic bull of the kind which appeared in Mesopotamia during the "neoSumerian" period. These androkephalic bulls were free-standing guardians to doorways. Fuchs has modified the headdress. Beneath is a dragon/serpent reminiscent of the (horned) snakes found on Kassite boundary-stones which are always placed at the bottom of the stelae. Beneath that serpent is another serpent, this one is either entwining itself around, or being wrestled by a human. This representation appears to be modelled on Herakles battling the Triton from the Athens Acropolis. Fuchs' griffins are rendered in an "eastern" manner. The forest on the left side of the composition is a vegetal version of the ribbing of a gothic cathedral (the Gothic Christian Cathedral as a symbol of Christianity corrupted by non-Judaic elements?). Eve and Adam are shown taking fruit from the tree with a snake overhanging them. At the centre of the composition is a female "goddess", mistress of a serpent which she holds in her left arm. Considering that Fuchs has plundered the visual language of mesopotamia, this is likely to be "demon-maiden" grasping the "snake-which-knows-no-charm" of the Sumerian version of the epic of Gilgamesh (which has been ascribed a date of c. 1720 BC). Incidentally, she could be the Greek goddess Athena with her serpent.

The snake held by Moses

Fig. 7a. Assyrian exorcism - expulsion of dog-faced "demon" Pazuzu.
illus p. 142. Mesopotamia: the mighty kings. Time-Life series "lost civilizations".
OR:
illus 568. Amiet Art of the Ancient Near East.
"exorcism of sick man tormented by the infernal goddess Lamashtu." Assyria 8th C BC. Louvre.

Fig. 7b. Detail of fig. 7a, of the snake & snake-monster held. It is the snake rendered in this manner with a thick body and tapering tail which appears in Fuchs' Under the sign of Moses, (left).

(The snake in this rendition has been anthropomorphised)

Fig. 8a. Kassite boundary stone, kudurru, 13th (?) century BC. "Kudurru of Melishihu, Kassite king of Babylon. Taken to Susa as war booty 12th century." (Amiet)
Kassite rule was from 1595-1157 BC, G. Roux, Ancient Iraq, p.227 (Kassite rule ends at 1171 BC, Ghirshman, Iran, p. 64). The "frontier boundary" was a Kassite innovation. (Roux p. 230).

"Marduk's symbolic animal was the horned serpent" (Amiet p. 173).
Marduk only became head god of the pantheon at the end of the 2nd millennium (1200? 1100? BC) and by the mid 1st millennium had been reduced to a minor role (Andrew George, Epic of Gilgamesh, p.224).
Though Marduk is often equated with the Greek Zevs, Marduk's underworld features; that he is a serpent; and Zeus instead was an adversary of serpents (eg Typhon), means that such associations are wrong. Marduk is claimed to be the chief god of the Epic of Creation. Though no evidence exists to support the claim that the Epic of Creation existed before the 8th/7th century BC, it is still attributed, on a whim, to the 12th century BC (Roux, Dalley et al).
The depiction of what appears to be Marduk on the Kassite boundary stone would agree with the Hurrian Kumarbi and the Greek Pythia - underworld serpent entities. The representation of the serpent around the base of the boundary stone alongside a scorpion shows two different traditions being represented: 1 is an ecliptic serpent; 2 is an ecliptic scorpion. In the Epic of Creation "scorpion men" are at the earth's boundaries and prevent the underworld from rising against the overworld. The ecliptic serpent the Hydra performs the function of boundary-guard for the Greeks. The serpent is a foreign introduction to mesopotamia, though it was common in Elam.
In the Epic of Creation Marduk has replaced the sky gods Anu and Enlil (Roux, p.367). The Greek god Zevs is a sky god.
In a neo-Assyrian stele (fig. 9) the horned serpent, Marduk, is portrayed as being killed by a warrior brandishing European battle-axe. The Assyrian god is adopted by Persians and Jews.

Plate 102 right, Rizza, The Assyrians and the Babylonians. Louvre
The snake in Fuchs' Under the sign of Moses, is based on Numbers 21.8-9. of the Old Testament:

"Moses prayed to the Lord for the people; and the Lord said to Moses, Make thee a serpent, and put it on a signal-staff; and it shall come to pass that whenever a serpent shall bite a man;, every one so bitten that looks upon it shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a signal-staff: and it came to pass that whenever a serpent bit a man, and he looked on the brazen serpent, he lived."


Fig. 8b.
Kassite boundary stone (detail of fig. 8a).


Fig. 9.

This stele, dedicated by an Assyrian king depicts a horned god smiting the horned serpent Marduk. This god wields a European battle-axe.

Pl. 102, Pierre Amiet The Art of the Ancient Near East

An extremely brief and incomplete account of the battle-axe, trident, and menorah can be found off-site here.

Fig. 10a. Sethos i as Osiris with the god Thoth from his temple at Abydos.
Seti I, or Sethi I, or Sethos I (king of
Egypt) In the 19th dynasty (1292–1190 BC)

Illus. 151, Seton Lloyd, The Art of the Ancient Near East.

Fig. 10b. Sethos i as Osiris with the god Thoth from his temple at Abydos. Thoth carries 2 staffs which are of cobras entwined around 2 stylized lotus flowers. One cobra wears the "white crown" of upper Egypt, while the other wears that of lower Egypt.

The concept of the "snake staff" in Numbers 21.8-9 is of Egyptian origin. The name Moses is Egyptian:
Ramesses = Ra-Moses;
Ahmose (Ahmoses, Ahmosis) = A-Moses;
Tutmoses = Tut-Moses.
The Biblical Moses is a composite of a number of Egyptian Pharaohs.

Moses floating down the Nile is taken from the tale of Sargon floating down the Tigris.

King Solomon's Temple description in the Old Testament is filched from that of Nebachadnazzer's dedication of his temple in Babylon, which itself was emulated by (the Persian) Darius with his inscription at Behistun (wikipedia link). It is evident that Fuchs is continuing a tradition of claiming the achievements of other cultures as being the products of his own cultural inheritance.

Sassanian Royal headdress

Fig. 11. Bas Relief Showing Valerian captured by Shapur I
image source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Relief_of_Shapur_I_capturing_Valerian.jpg
The headdress of Fuchs' Moses appears to be modelled on Egyptian, Assyrian, and (Sassanian) Persian Headdresses.

The white crown of Egypt appears modified; as does one of the crowns worn by Assyrian bull-men (fig. 14).

Bas Relief Showing Valerian captured by Shapur I.

Shapur I's headdress (though modified) appears to be the model for Fuchs' Moses.

The reclining androkephalic bull

Fig. 12. Reclining androcephalic bull from Girsu Ascribed to c. 2170 BC
Fig. 403, Amiet, Art of the Ancient Near East.

Fig. 13. Lion Gate Hattusas, ascribed to 14th/13th century BC. Illus. 33, Giovanni Garbini, The Ancient World.

Fig. 14. androkephalic bull-guard from Kalhu, ascribed to the 9th century BC.

Fig. 595, Amiet, Art of the Ancient Near East.
The Lion Gate at Hattusas (fig. 13), capital of the Hittites, guarded the south-western approach to the city. The Lions were built into the door-frame. They were part of an arch and are not constructed as posts with lintels.

The idea of both the arch and the built-in-animal guard appear in the Hittite Empire in the 13th century BC. Prior to the Assyrians making bull-men & lion-men a part of the doorway, androkephalic bulls were stand-alone guardians (eg fig. 12). The doorway-guardians were first built into doorways by the Hittites, who built sculpted lions and sphinxes into their palace entryways. The idea appears in Assyria after the collapse of the Hittites (fig. 14).

Herakles wrestling the Triton

Fig. 15. Serpent-bodied (with fishtail) Triton, being wrestled by Herakles. From the gable of the ancient Temple of Athena on the Acropolis, Athens. Ascribed to c. 570 BC. BW pl. 56 a, Karl Schefold, Myth and Legend in early Greek Art. Athens Acropolis Museum.
At the bottom of Fuchs' drawing is a figure which is either entwined by a serpent, or is wrestling with it. This appears to be derived from the image of Herakles battling the Triton. It is remarkable to think that these images are floating somewhere in Jung's ether for artists like Fuchs to tap into.


FUCHS example 3

Sacrificial altar. Ernst Fuchs, watercolour, 1978. In this image a blade incised with a swastika is shown as the alter on which Jews were sacrificed. This should be considered in the context to the sacrifice made as "payment of ransom" by the jews in their slaughter of the worshippers of Baal, 4 Kings 10.19-28 (Septuagint) 2 Kings 10.19-28 (Jewish). Ernst Fuchs Der Feuerfuchs.

Fig. 16.

"An American soldier stands near a wagon piled high with corpses outside the crematorium in the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp... Photographed by Colonel Parke O. Yingst. Buchenwald, [Thuringia] Germany, April 1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Patricia A. Yingst."
Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Buchenwald_Corpses_60623.jpg

Hitler's campaign to exterminate Jews was Biblical. The passage quoted (right) from 4 Kings 10.19-28 (Septuagint)/ 2 Kings 10.18-28 (Jewish) is one of the many passages which extoll the murder of those of other religions as an act of great virtue.

on Hitler's Christian/Judaic principles (off-site)

Septuagint 4 Kings 10.19-28 (Jewish OT: 2 Kings 10.18-28)
On the slaughter of the worshippers of Baal:
 "...Iou brought the people together and told them, Ahab served Baal a little, Iou will serve Baal much... [summon] the prophets of Baal call all...servants and priests to me...for I have a great sacrifice to offer to Baal; everyone who shall be missing shall die. But Iou did this in subtlety, that he might destroy the servants of Baal. And Iou said, Sanctify a solemn festival to Baal, and they made a proclamation. And Iou sent throughout all Israel, saying Now let all Baal's servants, and his priests, and all his prophets come, let none be lacking: for I am going to offer a great sacrifice; whosoever shall be missing, shall not live. So all the servants of Baal came, and all his priests, and all his prophets: there was not one who came not. And they entered into the house of Baal; and the house of Baal was filled from one end to the other... And it came to pass, when he had finished offering the whole-burnt-offering, that Iou said to the footmen and the officers, Go ye in and slay them; let not a man of them escape. So they smote them with the edge of the sword, and the footmen  and the officers cast the bodies forth, and went to the city of the house of Baal. And they brought out the pillar of Baal, and burnt it. And they smashed the pillars of Baal and dedicated this as a ransom to this day. So Iou abolished Baal out of Israel."

(Notes:
In the Greek Iou is written Ιού; is transcribed as Ju by Lancelot C. L. Brenton in his translation of the Septuagint; and is rendered as Jehu by the translators of the New International Version of the Jewish OT.
In 4 kings 10.27 of the Septuagint, the destruction is dedicated in the Greek as λυτρώνα (lytrona), Greek for ransom. In the Jewish OT it is transliterated without being translated as latrine - which indicates that the Jews who transcribed the Septuagint into the Jewish language were unaware of the meaning of the word. This should form the etymology of the word "latrine" in English. Instead an alternative etymology is proffered for the word in the english language (Apple Leopard OS 10.5.5, Dictionary):

latrine |ləˈtrēn|
noun
a toilet, esp. a communal one in a camp or barracks.
ORIGIN Middle English (rare before the mid 19th cent): via French from Latin latrina, contraction of lavatrina, from lavare ‘to wash.’

In his DER FEUERFUCHS the biographical "sketch" on Fuchs is written by Eberhard Urban:
"Ernst Fuchs was born on the 13th February 1930 in Vienna. In addition to his parents, his grandfather, a devout Jew, created a feeling of security for the child... The time of the great terror began after the brown-shirted barbarians' [Nazis] invasion in 1938. The father [of Fuchs] had to flee, the mother stayed in Vienna with the son, custody of her child was withdrawn, Ernst Fuchs was put into a transit camp for half-Jews, a station on the way to Thereseinstadt or Auschwitz. The mother got divorced for the sake of appearances and was allowed to take care of the son again. Aged twelve years, he felt he had a mission to be an artist... Ernst Fuchs was baptized." pp. 275-276

The problem with the art of Ernst Fuchs lies in its celebration of the Jewish faith, even if it is the neo-Judaism otherwise known as Christianity.
His art is (generally) an elucidation of his belief of the centrality of Judaism in humanity's rise to civilisation. In the Sacrificial Altar (above), he depicts a knife's blade with a swastika inscribed on it, in condemnation of the culture which exterminated 6 million Jews. Judaism then, in Fuchs' art, is meant to represent the founding principles upon which Christianity was built, and is part of Fuchs' own racial inheritance. His art therefore, is stating that where not Christianity rejected by the Germans, or Christianity corrupted by principles alien to Judaism, then the extermination of 6 million people would never have been possible. Fuchs' art is an exorcism of those elements alien to Judaism that have become a part of the neo-Judaic faith which is otherwise known as Christianity.

The divergence of the neo-Judaic faith (Christianity) from Judaism is a consequence of the Greek, pagan, ideas that were infused into that religion which have no precedent in either the Old or New Testaments. And it is these elements that Fuchs is exorcising. A limited number of the Greek-derived ideas that are claimed to be Christian but are alien to it follow:

1/ Left to the principles of Judaism, as extolled in its sacred text(s), the existence of God is demanded be accepted solely on faith. With this understanding in mind, accepting on faith that thunder is is the voice of god: "...the sound of his roar; he thunders with his majestic voice... he does great things beyond our understanding. He says ... to the rain shower, 'Be a mighty downpour.' So that all men he has made may know his work" OT, Job 37.4-7. (That is: one must have faith that god exists, that he created all that exists, and so all that exists is always proof of his existence. This is circular reasoning and proves nothing.)
The New Testament asserts faith, without proof, to be the foundation of god:
"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made of what was visible." Hebrews 11.3. It was the Greek, pagan, stance that held that the divine should be capable of being demonstrated philosophically that came to be adopted by Christians, in opposition to "faith" as demanded in the New Testament. The idea that the God of the Jews (for it is the same god in both Testaments) could be demonstrated by applying reason is absent in both Testaments, and appears only when Greek, pagan, converts infuse the new faith with the ideas of their former religion. The New Testament is antithetic to Greek reason: “...the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight... The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 1 Corinthians 3.19-20; and “... ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.” James 3.15. This is an expression of ideas which predate the Hellenisation of "Christianity". The current belief held by some today that god can be arrived at by the application of reason is a feature of the religion of the Greeks.

2/ The modern Christian belief has it that the souls of all who die will ascend to the gates of heaven to be judged, with a concomitant expectation that upon one's own death, one will be reunited with loved ones in heaven. This idea is alien to Judaism/Christianity. This idea is a Greek, pagan, belief in the soul's judgement by Minos or Rhadamanthys upon the death of an individual. Jewish belief in both the Old and New Testaments has it that the dead are as dead as dust and will lie in that state until ressurrected and judged by YHWH at the world's end.
Old Testament: "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel 12.2
New Testament: "[the] time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his [YHWH's] voice and come out - those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." John 5.28-29

3/ One of the commands of the god of the Judaic faith was the prohibition to make a "likeness" of god. For Josephus, who wrote on the subject in his Contra Apion, the creation of statues of gods by non-Jews was asserted to be not the creation of statues-as-symbols (much like "YHWH" is a sound-symbol for the Jewish god and not the god himself), but a mistaken supposition held by those who created statues that they were creating a stone god to worship.
"The Greeks, with some other nations, think it right to make statues... our legislator [YHWH] ... forbade the making of images, alike of any living creature, and much more of God, who... is not a creature." Contra Apion, ii.74-76 (translated as Josephus, Against Apion, H. St. J. Thackeray, LOEB no. 186).
Judaism's prohibition of representations of the divine and its intolerance of any other faith meant that Greeks, pagans, were persecuted by practitioners of the neoJudaism, Christianity:
"Next [Justinian] turned persecution against the 'Greeks' ["pagans"], torturing their bodies and looting their property. Many of these decided to assume for appearance' sake the name of Christian in order to avert the immediate threat; but it was not long before they were for the most part caught at their libations and sacrifices and other unholy rites." Procopius Anekdhota (translated as "The Secret History", 11.26, p.98 G.A. Williamson, Penguin);
"In the month of June in that indiction [561 AD] Hellenes were arrested and paraded around. Their books were burnt in the kynegion, together with pictures of their loathsome gods." (Chronicle of Malalas, Book 18.136, E. Jeffreys, M. Jeffreys, and R. Scott translation);

That Christians ever came to make visual representations of god and the divine, or rendered biblical tales in images (as well as in words) was only because, the pagan non-Jewish traditions became part of that faith, most likely being introduced by stealth by those Greeks, pagans, who, as forced converts as described by Procopius, took on the appearance of being Christian to avoid persecution. The idea that concepts could be rendered via visual symbols was Greek and remains anathema to Judaism. This was not an attitude that was limited to antiquity, but one which with monotonous regularity is restated, until it finally becomes central to the religion of Islam.

In the Greek Orthodox version of the neoJudaism authors provided justifications for the rendition of biblical ideas to be expressed as images, such as Agathias (c. 550s AD) and the "anagogic" argument (Refer LOEB no. 67, GREEK ANTHOLOGY, I http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/L067.html ). Essentially these defenses derive from Plato's concept of an IDEA which pre-exists actual objects or their representation - which Jung has restated as "archetypes" and claimed it as his own. During the period of Byzantine iconoclasm a defence of icons was made by (St.) John of Damascus (c. 730s AD) in his Three Treatises On the Divine Images. These defences of the image were based on and included "long extracts from Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus. John's quotations are from a treatise against the Jews [written in the 640s AD]... to defend Christian practice [of venerating icons] against Jews, who accused Christians of  idolatry because of their veneration of the Cross and icons..." p. 12, Andrew Louth, introduction to his translation of the Three Treatises ( http://www.amazon.com/Treatises-Vladimirs-Seminary-Popular-Patristics/dp/0881412457 ). And it is this Jewish attitude which condemned images, the word for which is εικόνα (eikona=icon) in the Greek, that was adopted by Islam:
"We gave Moses and Aaron [the Scripture] that distinguishes right from wrong... We bestowed right judgement on Abraham and We knew him well. He said to his father and his people, 'What are these images to which you are so devoted? ... You and your fathers have clearly gone astray... By God I shall plot against your idols as soon as you have turned your backs!' He broke them all  into pieces..." Koran  The Prophets 21. 48-57 M.A.S. Abdel Haleem translation.

Though not unanimously accepted, the evidence as recounted by Greek (Byzantine) chroniclers who wrote toward the end of the iconoclastic dispute (such as Theophanes), attribute the destruction of icons to an adoption of Islamic intolerance to the icon because of the superstitions of the Byzantine emperor Leo who came to believe that Byzantine setbacks against the Muslims were a consequence of a lack of fidelity to Judaic/Christian scripture by Christians.  
The Judaic position was and has always remained a condemnation of symbolic thought expressed as image, because it is a religion that never quite understood that ideas can be expressed by a variety of means; that even words themselves are symbols - and not the objects themselves. Judaism and its derivative was hardly a product of reasoned thought. Psalm 115.4-7 reads:
“their idols are silver and gold,
made by the hands of men.
They have mouths but cannot speak,
eyes, but they cannot see;
they have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but they cannot smell;
they have hands, but they cannot feel,
feet, but they cannot walk;
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.”

Had the religion celebrated by Fuchs succeeded and had it remain unmodified, then he would not be producing images; or had he decided to create images at all he would have been tortured and persecuted for doing so.

The art of Ernst Fuchs is a lie.
There is a belief among fundamentalists of Judasim/neoJudaism (Christianity) that for humanity to have ever evolved into high culture that it could not have done so had not the "wisdom" of the Jews come to be known. According to Josephus wrting around 2000 years ago, the children of Adam's son Seth "were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order" (Antiquities 1.68-69); that "the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another's sacred and accustomed rights" until Abram set them straight (Antiquities 1.166); that "He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for before Abram came to Egypt, they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and hence to the Greeks." (Antiquities 1.167-168) Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, William Whiston translation. Fuchs' art is a reinvention of Josephus' writings.

Fan of the Fantastic Art genre, Christian De Boeck, considered Fuchs to be the greatest living artist (for example, in the screenshot of an email sent to me by de Boeck in 1999 in which he wrote "if I had a top category for living, contemporary artists who work in the fantastic vein there would be very few names that would qualify, but among the "GODS" would be Ernst Fuchs, Odd Nerdrum, Jose Hernandez, H.-R. Giger, Werner Tuebke and a few others, and then the rest." I am still unsure why non-entities like Tuebke and Nerdrum are worth mentioning). On the basis of Raison d'etre of Fuchs' art, I cannot agree with claims of his greatness.

This page has been criticised by de Boeck, see details here.

Link to Ernst Fuchs' site.

Demetrios Vakras 8/11/2008.
graphics and text © demetrios vakras
paintings reproduced here remain the © of the artists (or their estates) and are reproduced here on the principle of fair use.

 

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