(Hall, Tyrol, 1910–2001 Vienna)
‘Welt des Wachstums’, signed and dated Weiler 87, titled on the reverse, egg tempera on canvas, in 4 parts, each on a stretcher, each 180 x 180 cm, the collocation of the individual parts set out on the reverse on the stretcher, overall size 360 x 360 cm, (K)

Provenance:
Collection, Vienna – directly from the artist

Nature is not only a surface which presents itself – although it is this too. For anyone who can see – and Weiler can see – it is a place of transition, a corridor between the visible and the invisible, between the palpable and the ominous. For Weiler the mountains were a particular paradigm of these metonymic-metaphorical qualities of nature. We have dealt extensively with their role in his painting. However, Weiler formulated a special scenario from them in his diaries. Towering, striving vertically, they link above and below, thus marking a balance in the world. It is the Tyrol, the place of his birth, and at the same time symbolic of the world.

…’I am a man of the world, grown up amongst mountains, like those in Africa, America, Asia, Europe and the Antarctic. Perhaps all such people share something similar. Perhaps?’ (9.8.1971)

The question mark disappears on another occasion: ‘My work is spiritual. It links me with streams of thought found in mountainous countries from China to the Tyrol. A delicate, thin skin, fear of forces. The huge shadows of the mountains, the narrow sky, the impenetrable forests…’ (4.10.1972)

Weiler writes (in italics, in his diary), From: Gottfried Boehm, Der Maler Max Weiler, Das Geistige in der Natur, published by Springer, 2001