Aloys Zötl

Aloys Zötl ( born December 4, 1803 in Freistadt, Upper Austria, † October 21, 1887 in Eferding, Upper Austria ) was an Austrian master dyer and painter.

Aloys Zötl settled in Eferding as a master dyer down, and devoted his life to the creation of an encyclopedic bestiary ( fantastic animal watercolors ). His work was rediscovered decades after his death, by André Breton (1896-1966) referred to as the most magnificent animal book that the world had ever seen. Zötl was taken next to Henri Rousseau by Breton in the list of " avant la lettre Surrealists ". This Zötl is the only " officially " recognized Surrealist, which Austria has produced.

Biography

For a long time was known about the key figures also do not know much about Zötls biography.

Quoted in " The Bestiary " is Vincent Bounore who was looking in archives and registers for details. The data contradict itself z.T. with those riding Feininger ( S.U. ).

Zötl was born in 1803 in Freistadt, a town in the foothills of the Bohemian massif. His parents were Francis Xavier Zötl, master dyer and Clara, nee Gruber. The parents stood in the line Hafner # 13, it is no longer available. Zötl had several brothers, his brother Cajetan settled in Lower Austria, Johann Michael was a bookseller in Freistadt. Aloys was dyed, painted the side as a hobby. He then went on tour throughout Europe, eventually lived a long time in London. ( Was not that rather his brother - S.U. )

After his return, he married Theresa Edtmeir and moved his activities as a master dyer to Eferding, a town about 60 km from Freistadt, located upstream of Linz in the Danube valley. There he spent the rest of his life, about which nothing further is known. On August 18, 1874 his wife died, he even 13 years later on October 21, 1887 " after a long illness ." His last watercolor " Exotic shells " comes from the October 3, 1887

Reitinger are reproduced in the FAZ as:

Zötl enjoyed as a child, as well as his brothers, an excellent drawing lessons. The father made ​​for his children even two albums with pictures of animals according to ancient woodcuts and engravings on. Zötl has never traveled far, in contrast to his brother Joseph, of the natural history cabinets described him in letters in Germany or England and him from London, finally, one of the first watercolor paint boxes of the company " Ackermann & Co. " brought.

The Bestiary

Between 1831 and 1887 made ​​Zötl to his watercolors and dated them to the day. His work consisted of four behind -bound albums with a total of four hundred leaves.

He worked only for himself, he has never sought an audience for the watercolors and also separated by any single one.

While Breton (and probably others) saw a certain surrealism in his pictures, Zötl pursued even more encyclopedic goals. This is suggested that he systematically first mammals, then fish, then molluscs, then reptiles, then birds, then insects, then Batrachian ( ancient name for amphibians such as frogs and salamanders ), then painted the coelenterates. It was not until his last year, where he painted a lot more than in the time before, he painted a wide variety of topics.

In the catalog of works and nine watercolors 1854-1864 appear arisen with the anthropological representation of people. But these are untraceable and are probably only be assessed as an intermezzo.

The " visionary apparatus"

While Breton in Zötl a " visionary apparatus" suspects out of which he has painted the watercolors, Zötl has in fact painted templates that some are even recognizable. Even animals, the real occurred in his environment, he painted for templates.

A descendant Zötls received us his library, it consists mainly of natural history and ethnographic works and travel books, mostly illustrated.

Zötl himself gave as Favorite Books of Ovid's "Metamorphoses ," Schutz's " geography " and Buffon's " Natural History" to. " In fact, this picture cosmos leads closer to his work as zoom Bretons, visionary apparatus ': It is more like a fantastic collage of the dreamlike sceneries Ovid, the two-dimensional maps of the geography and the stylized animals Buffon. How Reitinger can prove in some cases, Zötl added some animals like puzzle pieces found landscapes in one, not shearing to size ratios or zoological accuracy. In animal and landscape one thinks glow to see the wanderlust of the eldest son, who, in order to embark on the last follow-up in a sinking family business, had to be a home at heart. "

This connection between animal and landscape, some of his pictures seem really almost like a Rousseau, but also by a very special " aura " that goes beyond a purely encyclopedic presentation.

The rediscovery of the bestiary

The bestiary has been known only by a series of coincidences at all posterity.

320 of his watercolors were auctioned on two sensational auctions in Paris between December 1955 and May 1956. Prominence of art and business acquired works of unknown Shooting Stars at exorbitant prices, Andre Breton wrote an enthusiastic catalog preface and could in the second auction itself already afford any more plants.