Otto Eglau (1917-1988), Spirits Of Watts, 1982

Otto Eglau (1917 Berlin - 1988 Kampen), Wadden spirits, 1982. Aquatint etching, 14.5 cm x 18 cm (plate size), 32 cm x 33.8 cm (frame), signed “Eglau” and dated “[19]82” in pencil lower right, inscribed “Wattgeister” in the center and identified as no. 232 / 250 on the right. Attractively framed.
- Three minimal foxing spots in the white margin, otherwise in very good condition  



- The imagination of the beach -


In this puzzle, ghostly faces intertwine with the mudflat landscape, which is interwoven with rivulets of water that enliven the entire sandy surface. Other faces emerge from these faces, creating a puzzle within a puzzle. These ghosts, each with their own character, transform the floor into a turbulent image, and the work also reflects on the art of "looking" into linear structures.



About the artwork

A wide river landscape stretches out before us, its horizon line running across the upper part of the picture, creating the impression of enormous depth. The depth is further extended by the dark tree trunks, most of which spill into the picture, and at the same time rhythmized by their different positions. This sequence of movements gives the landscape a strong dynamic moment. Indeed, the landscape seems to be "fleeing" from beneath us. To keep the gaze on the foreground alone requires a real visual effort. By looking at the foreground, we have already arrived at the background. Therefore, we cannot speak of pictorial grounds in the classical sense. Rather, we are confronted with a structurally rhythmic continuum of space, the dynamics of which are further accelerated by the cut tree trunks in the foreground and the upright trunks in the background, which function as target marks. Since the narrow strip of sky has the same white tonality as the ice, this area also fits seamlessly into the spatial structure, so that a deserted "structural landscape" unfolds before us. The structure, however, is not - as in the case of Piet Mondrian - completely abstract and thus something that exists independently of itself, removed from the time of natural space. The structures that Otto Eglau discovered in nature remain bound to it, which is why they exhibit a temporality that corresponds to the 'course of things'. Even if they correspond to an architecture of nature brought to representation, the structures are not substantial, but contingent. Artistically uncovered, they present themselves to Eglau at the very moment he captures them. In nature itself, these structures will never be repeated in the same way. Panta rhei - everything flows, even if the flow of time is frozen by his artistic representation and the image, for all its dynamism, radiates calm at the same time.  


"The structures I put behind things, and the lines that hold my paintings, are signs of transient life. They are random like the trace a wave leaves in the sand, blurred like the border between sea and land, ephemeral like the life of a shell I hold in my hand."

- Otto Eglau