Max Weiler – Wie eine Symphonie

Max Weiler (1910–2001) created the monumental masterwork Wie eine Symphonie (egg tempera on canvas, 500 x 630 cm) at the age of 80, for a listening space at the Salzburg State Exhibition Mozart – Bilder und Klänge shown in 1991 at Kleßheim Castle.
The Salzburg Festival long wished to be able to exhibit Weiler’s homage to Mozart to a large number of music and art lovers in one of the Festival buildings. The fact that the Private Max Weiler Foundation is now giving the painting to the Festival as a permanent loan, for exhibition at the Karl-Böhm-Saal beginning in the summer of 2008, is a welcome occasion to revisit the many aspects of this complex work and to recall Weiler’s long-term friendship with Clemens Holzmeister, the Festspielhaus architect, and his relationship with the City of Salzburg.
As a permanent loan from the Private Max Weiler Foundation Vienna, the painting Wie eine Symphonie (1990) will not only be on view during the intermissions of all performances at the Felsenreitschule, the Haus für Mozart and other events. Wie eine Symphonie can also be viewed as part of the guided tours offered by the Festival Shop (Hofstallgasse 1).

January through May: daily at 2 p.m.
June, September: daily at 2 and 3:30 p.m.
July, August: daily at 9:30 am, 2 pm and 3:30 p.m.
October through December: daily at 2 p.m.
Tel.: +43(0)662-849097

The Anton Pustet Verlag is taking advantage of this occasion to publish a richly illustrated book by art historian Thomas Zaunschirm. In his text, he also explores the complex relationship between painting and music in modernity. (Thomas Zaunschirm, Max Weiler: Wie eine Symphonie – Hommage à Mozart • German/English • 96 pages, numerous color illustrations • 16.50 € • ISBN 978-3-7025-0592-9)

www.maxweiler.at

Art historian and author Wieland Schmied noted his first impressions upon re-encountering the painting Wie eine Symphonie at the Festspielhaus in Salzburg.

Wieland Schmied

The Painting Wie eine Symphonie by Max Weiler

Max Weiler (1910–2001) called his 1990 mural – measuring 5 by 6.3 meters and designated for the exhibit Hommage à Mozart of that year – Wie eine Symphonie . With this title, he places his work in the context of a series of paintings he created during the 1960s, entitled Wie eine Landschaft . It was a most impressive painting, executed in egg tempera on canvas, and is convincing in many ways.
We should take the title seriously. It is not a coincidence; Max Weiler chose it on purpose. Just like a composer wishes to express the entirety of the world in his symphony, Max Weiler tries to encompass the entire world in one single picture, and he tries to achieve this exclusively through the means of fine art, or more precisely: through his own means, developed by himself, with which he was able to touch upon “the spiritual in nature” – as Gottfried Boehm expressed it.
Music, expanding in time, knows only the order of successiveness. Painting, which uses space, creates order among its elements side by side, and we perceive them simultaneously; in any case, we are able to let them affect us simultaneously. If only for this different effect of music and painting, it seems futile to look for direct analogies between the two media in Weiler’s painting. In principle, colors are devoid of all symbolism in Weiler’s work. In his late work (and the mural Wie eine Symphonie is part of the late work), forms have no concrete and definable meaning. There can be no thought of representational associations. Color and form are abstract, like the sounds of music, and in their abstractness, they correspond to the abstractness of music.
Even when it is used outside the field of music, the term “symphony” implies an all-encompassing gesture, combining everything it touches in a sensible and harmonic way. Since such a gesture encompassing all phenomena cannot be achieved “in one fell swoop” and uno actu, the musical form of the symphony is divided into individual movements, distinguished through their sequences of sounds, tempi, rhythms, sometimes also their instrumentation, but at the same time remaining interrelated through their recurring (and recognizable) leading motifs. If one tries to approach the world as a whole, in order to understand it in ever new ways, the world reveals itself like Wie eine Symphonie. It is too rich and varied to be encompassed by one single act.
In calling his mural Like a Symphony, Max Weiler rises to the great challenge set by the musical form. The composition of his painting also features individual “movements”. It is made up in a highly complex way of individual sections, and their characters are respected, despite the artful way in which they are entwined. Thus, blue is clearly the dominant color on the bottom right of Weiler’s painting, while a purple tone dominates the upper right, green on the left and red in the upper middle. The color spectrum encompasses the entirety and the variations of a spiritualized world. Even if there are transitions, overlays and interlocking of colors, one realizes clearly: Weiler respects the individuality of each color and treats it with love. This is one of the secrets of this painting: Weiler clearly separates the colors and allows them to dominate the region that he has chosen for them. He knows to combine them without mixing them. Therefore, they retain their unmistakable characteristics, their own sound, and at the same time, together they create a harmonious picture which expresses a common vision and a togetherness. Max Weiler tells us that we are allowed to accept this world. It is infinitely rich, if only we know to observe it attentively.

In Salzburg, art historian and author Wieland Schmied is well-known as the President of the International Summer Academy (1980–1999). From 1988 to 1993, he was Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and from 1995 to 2004, President of the Bavarian Academy of Arts. The Salzburg Festival expresses its gratitude for the permission to reprint this text here.