Vogeesen=Thal, Elsaß, Lothringen und Rhein=Pfaltz 1916

Adolf Wölfli made this drawing, Vogeesen=Thal, Elsaß, Lothringen und Rhein=Pfaltz, with colored pencils. It’s fascinating to look at all these shapes and figures crammed together in such a small space. I can imagine Wölfli bent over the paper for hours, filling every corner with obsessive detail. The architectural borders, the rainbow arches, and the funny little faces peering out from their cubby holes. There's a kind of folk-art sensibility mixed with something else, something raw and untamed. The flatness of the image gives it an immediacy, like it's all happening right now. And the colors vibrate against each other, creating this kind of visual buzz that just keeps you looking. I wonder if Wölfli was aware of other painters at the time? It almost doesn’t matter, because whatever he was doing, he was totally in his own world, which is so inspiring. And that's the beauty of art, right? It’s like artists are always talking to each other across time and space, riffing off each other's ideas, and making something new in the process.