Renate Falke
Our life is just a shadow
„As a priority (...) the artist should try to alter the current situation by acknowledging his duty towards art and thus also towards himself and not consider himself to be in control of the situation, but rather to serve the bigger purpose, be a servant who’s duties are precise, many and sacred. He has to educate himself and deepen himself in his own soul, nurture and develop his soul, so that his outward talent has something to coat and is not like the lost glove of an unknown hand, just the empty, meaningless image of a hand.“ Wassily Kandinsky “Über das Geistige in der Kunst”, 1912, 8th Edition, Bern 1965, Benteli
This year’s summer exhibition of the Loibach gallery „Galerija Falke“ is dedicated to the most essential and definitely last works from the estate of Hermann. These paintings were created between January and May 1986. In February Hermann had given his very thoughtful and serious answers to the questionnaire by Proust. It was an extremely dramatic time in his life, as already at the end of the year 1985 he had suffered from numerous angina pectoris attacks, which finally led him to have a cardiac check-up at the hospital of the canton Saint Gallen in Switzerland in January. The results were clear and made a bypass operation inevitable.
Thus, the famous choral motet “Our life is just a shadow” by Johann Sebastian Back had become palpable reality for Hermann.
„In a secretive, mysterious and mystic manner the true work of art is created “from within the artist”. Liberated from him it has its own independent life, becomes a personality and an autonomous, mentally breathing subject, which is a creature.“
Still before his operation Hermann created numerous water-colors on old paper. These were assembled by himself next to each other and partially over each other, as he had already done so for an exhibition in November/December 1985, into two to three art works, using a passe- partout to make them look almost like altarpieces. As if Hermann had known that this was the last phase of this life and period of artistic work, he introduced some sort of time-pattern in his painting, depicting months by lines with Roman numbers. Additionally, he often added the fully written name of the month to his signature. His brushstroke lost the calmness and sensibility of the early 1980s. He mostly picked dark blue, brown and red tones. The paintings appear very fragmented and seem to depict hardly there, almost dissolved creatures of the shadows.
„And as always, in times when the human soul leads a very strong life, art also becomes more alive, as the soul and the art have a connection with each other; they complete each other“
Hermann experienced the phase between life and death very consciously. The anesthesia, the operation, the opening of his thorax, the extraction of veins from his leg, the working of the heart-lung machine and the intensive care unit were subjects that dominated his conversations and paintings. Thus, he created documents about his feelings already while still in the hospital in Aachen, Germany. Intensive, dark colors, mostly blue, violet and red mirror the menace towards and the dissolution of the body. In a small, plain sketchbook he captured this world of wishes, dreams and reality characterized by the gradual regaining of his own strength, resurrection and re-erection.
His stay at the hospital for cardio-vascular illnesses of Berleburg forced Hermann to undertake therapeutic exercises. He, who had always loved to ski in the Sauerland (region in Germany) or the Alps, only accepted medically necessary activities like swimming, running, exercising and Kneipp baths reluctantly.
In his very scarce free time he painted water-colors even during his course of treatment, limited by his small room and his sketch book of 36 x 48 cm. Only the weekends, which he was allowed to spend at home, gave him the possibility to work on large-scale paintings. He started his last two acryl paintings on 200 x 140 cm big Finnish wood cardboard. The titles of the water-colors and ink drawings, which were created at that time, clearly interpreted his state. “My heart is ready”, “Atropos with life’s thread”, “Tumbling, Hunting, Joking, March 1986”.
In the middle of April he finally returned to his mill in Schmallenberg, returned to the world of music and meditation. However, the atomic catastrophe of Chernobyl darkened his mind again. The threat he felt was made visible in the eight-part-cycle “Media in vita”.
A deep and dark knowledge of the last things to come could be felt. I experienced Hermann to be equally devastated and hopeful at that time.
Marked by his illness he finished his last paintings “Loving Approach to God” and “Where do we go?- Always home” using the last of his strength.
Catalogue: „Hermann Falke- Our life is just a shadow“, Gallery-Galerija Falke, Loibach / Libuče, 1997