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This gorgeous art book is part of a series from the Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry edited by Sander L. Gilman and
George Makari. It is a “coffee table,” gift-type book containing nine excellent essays edited by Elka Spoerri. Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), the classic Swiss master of Art Brut, or Outsider Art, was multitalented. He spent the last 35 years of his life in a mental hospital in Bern. Until now, his psychiatrist Walter Morgenthaler's (1921/1992) monograph was the only one available about him, and its 1992 English translation by Aaron Esman and Elka Spoerri was reviewed by Gilbert Rose (1994) in this journal. Wölfli's works have been shown in the United States and Europe since 1976, and a foundation in his name was formed in Bern in 1975. In this book, his work and his texts are analyzed for their place within the context of art history.
The text of the book concerns itself with analyses of Wölfli's extensive elaboration of number systems and with his philosophical concepts as related to his cosmic experiences. He was diagnosed at the time as paranoid schizophrenic, a diagnosis that has since been challenged. (Esman thought him to be manic-depressive, and I tend to agree with that assessment.) It is generally agreed, however, that he was psychotic. I found the book's illustrations of Wölfli's art, heretofore unknown to me, to be so compelling that it was difficult for me to get down to the actual reading of the book. There are glorious pages of colorful, balanced patterns unlike anything I am familiar with, handwritten phrases, calligraphic examples and numerology. The images summon up those in Egyptian wall paintings and hieroglyphics, American Indian drawings, and in the mandatas of (also Swiss) compatriot Jung that illustrate his theories, as well as the works of Klee, Kandinsky, Ernst, and the pictograms of Gottlieb and Pollack in his early phase. It is ornamental art that looks much more finished than most of the Outsider Art I have seen. It