Hortensia und Groß=Keiser Tritten von Seelen=Wald, im Hortensia=Zorn 1917

Adolf Wölfli made this drawing, Hortensia und Groß=Keiser Tritten von Seelen=Wald, im Hortensia=Zorn, and it's like stepping into the wild world of someone’s imagination, isn’t it? I mean, look at the intensity of the lines, all those colors jammed in together—you get the sense that Wölfli was just letting it all out, a total visual explosion. The guy was in his own world, creating his own language, his own rules. I can imagine him hunched over this drawing, lost in his own thoughts, wrestling with these bizarre figures and symbols. That frame, too—it’s like he's building a fortress around this vision, guarding it from the outside world. When I look at this drawing, I can feel the guy's energy, his passion, his raw, unfiltered creativity. It reminds me of Klee or maybe even some of the Surrealists, but Wölfli had his own thing going on. He's in a world of his own.