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December 2024

- December Days in Milan -

While hundreds of thousands of visitors crowded through the gigantic halls of the Milan exhibition centre, my friend Chris at our stand withstood the noise and the crowds with stoic equanimity. I, on the other hand, took a break on three consecutive days off from ‘L'Artigiano in Fiere’, Europe's largest sales fair for handicrafts, which takes place in Milan for nine days every year at the beginning of December. I simply wanted to visit Milan Cathedral, this magnificent Gothic cathedral with its thousands of sculptures and spectacular walk-on roof, paint its impressive façade and see the exhibitions of artworks by M.C. Escher, Rubens and the Japanese artists Hokusai, Hiroshiye and Utamaro in the Palazzo Reale. On the first day, I disappeared into the strange sculptural world of the cathedral, which was later only slightly surpassed by Escher's fantastic worlds in the museum. Some of the works I saw there seemed extremely lively and of timeless beauty, others modern, reduced and abstract, even though these figures were also from the Middle Ages. On the second day, I painted the façade of the cathedral in the hustle and bustle of a public square, before later immersing myself in the calm yet impressive paintings by Rubens.

On the third day, I joined the long queue of people waiting early in the morning to finally discover the Japanese art of the 18th and 19th centuries. I remember looking at the works of Utamaro and Hiroshige with interest and suddenly being completely blown away by the colour woodcuts of Katsushika Hokusai. It had never happened to me before that art touched me so deeply in my soul. It wasn't the landscapes but the people in his pictures that fascinated me so much. He had depicted every single person in lively movement and with an individual pose.

What, this was art from the 18th century? So incomparably different from the paintings I usually associate with this era. I could hardly tear myself away, but kept looking at his "36 Views of Mount Fuji" again and again. In each scene, the mountain – sometimes up close, sometimes from a distance – was at the centre of an everyday scene. Fishermen in a boat on a stormy sea, farmers in the fields, craftsmen at work, traders, market women – people doing things. And then the books of his motion studies, the forerunners of manga – I was enthralled.

Inspired by Hokusai's pictures, I later began to see the people around me with different eyes on the cathedral square, in the underground, even at the trade fair. With more attention and interest and the desire to really recognise their individuality. Sometimes – and that's the great thing about art – it can change the way you look at your own world.

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