My past lies a great distance from my present here in New York City, where I have lived for most of my life. I was born in Hungary. My family moved briefly to Belgium, then came to America when I was ten. Growing up I lived in the moment. The past meant little to me. However, when I became interested in art that changed. I was passionately drawn to Northern European Gothic and Renaissance artists like Master Francke, Stefan Lochner, Rogier van der Weyden, Jan van Eyck, Hugo van der Goes, Hieronymus Bosch, Matthias Grünewald, Albrecht Dürer, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Pieter Bruegel. Perhaps my weird Eastern European psyche explains this. My father was an upper class Hungarian urban Jew, who survived Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. My mother was Catholic and came from a poor rural family. Both my parents are gone now. I was deeply alienated from my father and never really got close to my mother. I have no family left. Yet something from the past haunts me. Fading memories, cultural iconography. Faint recollections of Hungary, more striking ones of streets, buildings in Brussels. Above all, the feeling of an old, darkly magical Europe, the Europe of the above-mentioned painters, who gave in to the spiritual forces overwhelming their time. Peasant revolts leading to Martin Luther and the transformation of Christendom. The strange, haunted internal landscapes of Hieronymus Bosch. Yes, it is the internal landscapes of Bosch and the spiritual intensity of Matthias Grünewald that impacted most. Over the years I’ve processed/animated scans of Bosch and Grünewald paintings. Through Facebook I became aware of modern Latvian artist/printmaker Nele Zirnite. She also seems influenced by Bosch and Grünewald. I could not help but be pulled into her work. Thus I created an animation rooted in three of her images.
Animation duration: 42.9 seconds, before looping.
Peter Schmideg