gross - net

gross - net
Oil on canvas
2007
240 x 160 cm

The chairman of the EKD (Protestant church in Germany),Wolfgang Huber,as quoted from 5.11.2006:
"Man today is seen merely as a consumer.This is downright cynical in respect of the ever increasing poverty in Germany."

These days,all areas of life are dominated by financial laws.In my painting "gross - net",I have transformed this diktat of the current zeitgeist in to ethical and psychological categories:

gross                        - net

raw                           - pure
negative                   - positive
evil                          - good
lie                            - truth
chaos                       - order
madness/intoxication - reasonnft
vice                          - virtue
Hell                          - Heaven
hatred                      - love
aggression                - peace
body                        - mind
IT                            - super-ego

Those two terms,gross and net,are really not mere opposites but they also act as two sides of a coin,they are mutually conditional and interpenetrate.That is why I have configured this painting axially-symmetrical (vertically as well as horizontally) like a (double) mirror image.
A further inter-locking of both half parts of the painting (top and bottom) is derived at through the large-scale structure of the winding of the leaves spread over the whole canvas
a. in oval shape as well as
b. in the shape of the number 8,
through which the centre of the picture becomes accentuated as a compositional and,as regards content,central i.e. focal point,a watershed between God and Evil.

Of the four (classic) elements,I have assigned Water and Air to the net field and Earth and Fire to the gross field;they subdivide the vertical height in to four parts in a ratio of 3 (Air and Fire) to 2 (Water and Earth)(Equivalent to the picture ratio of 3 (height) to 2 (width).
The individual fields of the elements pervade vorious different leaves: Ivy (at the bottom) stands for Fire,(above that) fig stands for Earth,(yet above) wine for water and (top) oak for air..

The picture has,as regards content,a psychoanalytical level:
Net resp. the element Air at the top stands for the super-ego,

gross resp. the element Fire at the bottom stands for the IT.
In the middle are Water and Earth for the self which is searching for the balance between both poles..
Likewise,the central double figure,a hybrid creature consisting of female,eagle and snake (the two tails of which are bound together in the centre of the picture) also stands for this ambivalent,conflicting self.This figure I have borrowed from Albrecht Dürer.
The dragon figure in the middle of the gross field,with its seven heads and ten horns,is derived from Albrecht Dürer´s Apocalypse Cycle.I have allocated the animal heads to the seven capital sins (from left to right: Idleness,Envy,Gluttony,Wrath,Lust,Greed,Pride).
The pendant in the middle of the net field is a mixture of fruit tree and flower.The large fruits stand for the seven virtues.
In the top corners are (left) Benevolence and (right) Wisdom,at the bottom (left) Envy and (right) Greed.