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PORTFOLIOS



SIEBEN MAGISCHE BLÄTTER
Portfolio clothbound with leatherback, 56 x 48 cm
Seven etchings
on handmade paper, 54 x 46 cm

1. UROBORUS
2. JANUS BIFRON
3. DAS GRAB DES OSIRIS
4. DIE VIER ELEMENTE
5. PENTAGRAMM
6. DIE MYSTISCHE HOCHZEIT
7. DIE HARMONIE DER WELT



You have ruled everything by measure, numeral and weight
( Salomon, book of wisdom XI )

Everywhere in creation you will find relations of numerals, which seems to be miraculous. In cult ant art, numerals have a great importance. Numerals developed, together with the language, as a medium of human communication and very early they had a metaphysical meaning in all religions. Deduced from observations of nature, of the sky and of all manifestations of earthly life, especially of the human body, numerals were accepted to be the base off the cosmic order and harmony. Already the Greek philosophers Pythagoras, Platon and the new Pythagorean school of Alexandria developed the mystic of numerals to a high level.
So they came by Christianity and Islam to Europe. The numerals, a real tool for measuring of space and time, became the prerequisite of creation. The church father Augustinus said: "all beings have forms, because they have numerals, take them those away and they will be nothing."
The most simple kind of embodiment of numerals are the geometric forms. During the hole medieval times, above all in the 12th and the 13th century, the symbolism of numerals had an effect on thinking and acting of men. At this time numerals were not so important as a medium for construction and composition, but rather understood as symbols related to the universe. Every work of art, specially architecture, could only be constructed as a reflection of the universe, bound for measure, numeral and weight. The Creator as an architect, surveying the universe with the divider as he is also shown in the "Bible moralisée" 13th century ( Vienna, Nationalbibliothek ). In the bible as well the symbolism of numerals, above all because of the speculative interpretation of the apocalypse, plays an important part.
Peter Proksch, who very often is concerning with the symbolism of numerals in his work, presents with this "Sieben magische Blätter" a series of etchings which are of high artistic quality, not only for the mastery in drawing up and creation, but especially for the interpretation of the symbols and the mediation of spiritual contents.
For the artist, the knowledge of the symbolism of numerals is the key for understanding the world. The secret of the numerals is the mystery of creation. The symbols lead from the very first beginnings to the sense of growing and passing, they show the genesis as well as the determination of men. But above all they manifest an incomprehensible, fundamental and ordering force.

This is the message, the artist Peter Proksch will transmit through this work.


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e-mail: atelier.proksch@fantastic-art.at
Copyright © 2008 Peter Proksch / All rights reserved
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