Josef Scharl (German/American, 1896-1954)

In the last years of his life, Josef Scharl became increasingly ill with depression. He chose to isolate himself from the outside world and, confined to his bed, confronted various philosophical theses as well as religious writings. Despite his mental and physical state, Scharl had one of his most creative phases during these final years; the Requiem Zyklus being a prime example. Composed of seven paintings, the Zyklus was inspired by and makes reference to Mozart's liturgical Requiem, the last piece the great composer wrote. The parallels go even further; as not only were both artists sick while they created their respective works, but both also found comfort in the deep religiosity of the original liturgical text.

As opposed to Mozart's music, which conveys the strict religiousness of the Requiem text, Scharl started from the Latin version, which he copied many times together with a German translation but then included further writings and citations by Greek philosophers and contemporary scientists. Through writing and drawing, sketching and studying his ideas became more and more abstract and ultimately evolved into the final seven paintings. Each work stands for one of the seven original liturgical texts, representing in a metaphysical and abstract way their original titles.