Hundertwasser
“We live in a chaos of straight lines, a jungle of straight lines. If you do not believe this, take the trouble to count the straight lines that surround you. Then you will understand: you will never finish counting.”
SEE THINK WONDER
What do you see in the picture? What do you think is happening and what was the artist trying to tell you with this picture? What does this picture make you wonder about?
About the artist
Friedensreich Hundertwasser on his ground in New Zealand in 1998
Friedrich Stowasser (15 December 1928 – 19 February 2000), better known by his pseudonym Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser, was an Austrian visual artist[1] and architect who also worked in the field of environmental protection.
Hundertwasser stood out as an opponent of "a straight line" and any standardization, expressing this concept in the field of building design. His best known work is the Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, which has become a notable place of interest in the Austrian capital, characterised by imaginative vitality and uniqueness.
Though Hundertwasser first achieved notoriety for his boldly-coloured paintings, he is more widely known for his individual architectural designs. These designs use irregular forms, and incorporate natural features of the landscape. The Hundertwasserhaus apartment block in Vienna has undulating floors ("an uneven floor is a melody to the feet"), a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. He took no payment for the design of Hundertwasserhaus, declaring that it was worth the investment to "prevent something ugly from going up in its place".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedensreich_Hundertwasser
Hundretwasser's themes in art:
Hundertwasser is best known for his use of “bright, dark colors” and organic lines, including hi shamus spiral shapes organic forms, love of nature, individualism, spirals, onion domes, 'lollipop' style trees, windows of different shapes and sizes and rejecting straight lines. He called straight lines "the devil's tools" and considered them 'ungodly'. He also disliked the monotany of the colour grey saying "Colourfulness, variety and diversity are by all means better than the grey, the average grey.
Assignment2
Project 1: Create a 6"X6" work inspired by the themes in FH work.
Using the reference materials, choose 2-3 themes from the work that inspire you. Think about how you want to see the outside world when you are drawing Is your world magical, orderly, full of shapes, labyrinthian, sunny, cute, dark, creepy? Choose the motifs that FH created to make your own world.
2. We will use light pencil to do our initial drawings. The entire page must be incorporated into your composition.
3. Go over your pencil line with marker/pen to give emphasis to the line. You can pay attention to line quailty here: dark or light, thick or thin, wavy or jagged...never straight!
4. Using colored pencil, color in your picture. Think about how your color will enhance your drawing. Will you use all cool or warm colors, all darker colors with a bright focal point, leave part of the paper white?
Project 2: Creation of a building (to be used as a planter)
Project 3: create your own theme and visual vocabulary to create a work of art
Project 2: Create a 6"X6" work inspired by the themes in FH work using your own visual vocabulary.
Make a list of 5-10 things you like: hobbies, sports, symbols etceteral.
2. We will use light pencil to do our initial drawings. The entire page must be incorporated into your composition.
3. Go over your pencil line with marker/pen to give emphasis to the line. You can pay attention to line quailty here: dark or light, thick or thin, wavy or jagged...never straight!
4. Using colored pencil, color in your picture. Think about how your color will enhance your drawing. Will you use all cool or warm colors, all darker colors with a bright focal point, leave part of the paper white?
Project 2: Creation of a building (to be used as a planter)
Project 3: create your own theme and visual vocabulary to create a work of art
Paintings
Irinaland over the Balkans
Blobs Grow in Beloved Gardens
Snail Sleep of an Austrian Landscape (1957)
Artist as Architect (buildings)
"Waldspirale" in Darmstadt, Germany, which nicely illustrates his love of the spiral and colour and different shaped windows.
Above: Hundertwasser's koru flag
A koru flag was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser in 1983 and proposed as a secondary flag for New Zealand.[1]
As black is a traditional colour of the Māori, the flag has a black strip on the left side. There is a fern green spiral which starts by taking up the entire width of the flag but decreases gradually, splitting it diagonally and finally curling up into a spiral on the right side. This curling fern is based on a Māori pattern known as the koru, and the corresponding white spiral alludes to Aotearoa, a Māori name for New Zealand meaning Land of the Long White Cloud. Hundertwasser also saw the design as representing humanity in harmony with nature.
Other Lessons
Black glue and watercolor: http://afaithfulattempt.blogspot.com/2011/05/hundertwasser-houses.html
styrofoam printing http://marymaking.blogspot.com/2011/03/hundertwasser-inspirations.html
cool and warm painted paper collage https://www.deepspacesparkle.com/hundertwasser-art-lesson-for-kids/
Why this lesson
In this lesson we will explore how a passion for a subject can lead to a body of work; in this case, how Hundretwasser was inspired by man's relationship with nature and Hundertwasser's unconventional reaction to uniformity and straight line. The class will discuss how different people react to the work and message of an individual.
Hundertwasser not only created paintings, but used those as a basis to design buildings. What is the influence of his architecture on the society and the envrionment in which it was built?
This unit explores how a visual vocabulary is created and used. Students will discuss what is import to them and create a theme with a visual vocabulary of their own to use to make a work of art.
Standards
BCPSS curriculum: Cycle Two: Working in a Series
Big Idea: Artists innovate and generate ideas using a variety of strategies.
Anchor Standard 2: Organize and Develop:
E:3-5:1: Through guided practice, experiment and develop skills in multiple art-making methods to demonstrate quality craftsmanship.
A2E:3-5:2: Identify, describe and visually represent places and/or objects that are personally meaningful
Vienna
1960s building redesigned in the late 1980s
Top features include the huge golden chimney ball, giant rooftop cap, and classic Hundertwasser façade
Super photo opportunity & easily reached by public transport
Award-winning sausage stand outside
characteristic architecture, both inside and out, with its tree tenants, curved walls and floors
exhibition, which chronicles Hundertwasser’s artistic evolution with the help of numerous works of art and similar
The in-house café offers something a little different to the more traditional Viennese establishments. Go to the toilet while there (trust me on this).
The Kunst Haus Wien also hosts, for example, regular special exhibitions of contemporary art along a green theme, fitting the Hundertwasser ethos.
Germany
Waldspirale, Darmstadt, Germany. It has 1048 windows and NO TWO ARE THE THE SAME. See more: themindcircle.com/waldspirale-one-tree-for-each-resident/
