Adolf Wölfli
(1864–1930)
His pictorial compositions suggest an ideal reading from above. Flattened out like maps that he would often call “plans,” they depict endless parades. These intricate landscapes are overcrowded with conscientious curving script, musical staves, avenues, buildings, and the figure of St. Adolf II, Wölfli’s alter ego. He explained that his hand merely translated the testimony of the tireless travels dictated by his memories, claiming that he really found and visited these places. Morgenthaler wrote that “Wölfli was of the kinesthetic type: he thinks with his pencil. It is often the gesture that provokes his thinking.”
Wölfli, who designated himself an “ear = musical = direct,” also composed and played music, which is a major component of his monumental narrative. Morgenthaler testified that he “makes music by blowing into horns made of thick paper bags, performing his tunes, marches, waltzes, polkas, and mazurkas. Rhythm is essential. As soon as he has developed a melody, he writes it.” In a rare archival document, Wölfli is photographed holding a roll of paper, and in another he is posed alongside two of these rudimentary instruments. His songwriting style is divided into two categories: compositions using notes and staves, and compositions displaying an alphabetical system of his own—what he called his “Algebra”—based on solmization (the attribution of syllables to notes). Since the 1970s, many composers have attempted to adapt Wölfli’s system. Some segments have been decoded, demonstrating that they were not purely decorative notations.
Adapted from Valérie Rousseau, “Adolf Wölfli” in Valérie Rousseau (ed.), When the Curtain Never Comes Down: Performance Art and the Alter Ego (New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2015).