The Garden That Never Withers
I spotted this etching at an estate sale this past weekend, after I had paid for a collection of treasures. I certainly did not NEED another piece of art, but it spoke to me. The young man reduced the price to $40 – a tad high for my thrift store sensibilities, but I decided to splurge. I am glad I did. As I have been mulling all week what I wanted to post for my 100th blog post, this artwork offered some interesting thoughts.
The artist, Gross Arnold, was born in Romania in 1929, and died in 2015. While studying art, he fled to Hungary in 1947 when Romania was taken over by Communist Russia. He is considered a “graphic artist” and is well known in Hungary for his copper plate etchings. This particular artwork, titled “The Garden That Never Withers”, depicts a sunflower field and is dated 1962. I actually hadn’t noticed the date until I enlarged a section to show the details! It is dated and initialed on a small rock.
The work is remarkably detailed, especially if you realize the artist carved the image into a copper plate, printed it onto paper and then hand colored the image. Each one is unique, and thus there is not the edition numbering often seen on prints (i.e. 179 out of 250 would show as “179/250”). Arnold has depicted the sunflowers as unique faces, and filled the foreground with a large array of fairies, birds, bugs and quirky creatures. The overall vibe is a surreal, fantasy environment, with a child-like sensibility.
I suspect some viewers will feel the work is ‘creepy’. I think this comes from the minimalist tree and vast, mostly empty sky. These create a striking backdrop to the over-filled sunflower field. The colors are also muted, though that may have more to do with the work being painted over 60 years ago, with the watercolor paint fading with age. The ability to create “atmosphere” with a copper plate etching is limited to lines, so I sense Arnold added the smiling ‘man in the moon’ and a few faint fairies darting about to offset the ominous blank sky. The sky was simply a background for Arnold, as he spent all his energies filling the curved earth with details.
And oh my gosh did he enjoy creating a community of flowers. Each one is unique, with quirky facial expressions, some clearly feminine and others masculine. Some young, some old. The petal ‘hairdo’, the ‘leaf’ outfits, and the flowers tilting this way and that. There are a few female flowers with long flowing hair with ‘ribbons’ of leaves atop their heads. Note the gentleman on the far left with a bowtie! There are numerous fairies scattered about in the field as well a pair of ‘bee’ folk. A dark crow on the far left, as well as numerous ducklings climbing over the rock.
One of the books I loved as a child was the large Grimm’s Fairytale collection my parents had, with its gory stories and illustrations. The history of fairytales is fascinating, as they reflect old folklore, morals and human fears. My parents also had books on mythology, and all those ancient Greek tales fed right into my enjoyment of human foibles translated into stories. Arnold’s garden of delights does not seem to be ‘saying’ anything particularly, but the one young boy sitting at the front of the image seems to be Pinocchio, with his much-desired human heart, but slightly elongated nose.
When I began researching Arnold I came across a number of quotes which summed up my enjoyment of his art. He wrote “we are surrounded in the world with so much trouble and horror, they should not be allowed into the art” (https://www.kollergaleria.hu/kiallitas/arnold_gross). He was often referred to as an “eternal child”, filling his art with childlike wonder and joy. Having lived through WWII as a child, escaping Communist Russia’s invasion as a young man, and settling in a foreign country might make someone bitter and sad. He chose to play with his art instead.
The sunny colors of sunflowers tend to make us all smile, with their bright hues and oversized charm. It is hard to be sad in the face of such charm. Arnold’s artwork reminded me of a daughter-in-law as her favorite flower is the sunflower. As a wedding gift, I created a quilt to reflect the couple’s Colorado home, with a field of unique sunflowers, pieced and appliquéd over the mountains. (For those interested, the sunflowers were created using a technique designed by Robin Ruth for mariner’s compass blocks https://www.robinruthdesign.com/)
While I did not create ‘faces’ on my sunflowers, I did hide a few secret images to reflect me and my love for the couple. Having children, building relationships, creating art and love is truly work. But it is the best of life’s ‘work’, and as I come across vintage artwork, I am always inspired by the artist, and the impact the art has on my emotions. I found an (unattributed) quote about Arnold’s work which sums up its appeal to me: his work is “fed by the joy of play, the enjoyment of nature, the appreciation of loving human relationships and the respect for the values of classic art and literature”. That is really all there is for me - a garden of love that never withers.