Label Type
Object LabelLabel
Moessel created his own distinctive visual language with unique symbols serving as the vocabulary, and meaning expressed through densely-packed compositions. He called some of his recurring symbols—the foundation of this special language—“Atoms,” which were essentially the philosophical building blocks of a concept, as he saw it.
In this piece, Moessel revisits a repeated symbol of his: the caterpillar in the claw of a scorpion. This symbol is often found in his densely arranged depictions of hell to represent people that abuse their power. In many of his works, the scorpion will attack a human when their back is turned; in this case it is preying on a caterpillar that is not powerful enough to fight back. It is unclear why this image relates to his Atom of Consciousness, as it is not described in the note he left behind.
“Atom of consciousness - Nucleus= √₋1 - the impulse of the urge to know. Surrounded by three quarter - moons, representing ¾ truth. Cogito ergo sum - the consciousness of being.”
(from a typed note he titled "Explanation of My Atoms," 1951)Label Type
Artist BioLabel
Julius Moessel was born in 1871 in Fürth, located in the Bavaria region of Germany. He went on to study at the Munich Academy and, by the 1900s, cemented himself as one of the most venerated architectural painters and muralists in Germany. His detailed, ornamental work, including intricate scrollwork frescoes and botanical decoration, was in demand by leading German architects. Perhaps most famously, he was commissioned to paint the jury room of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, where many of the World War II war crime trials later took place.
Once at the precipice of wealth, prosperity, and high regard in his field, World War I left Moessel desperate for work as Germany's economy deteriorated, greatly impacting his commissions, career, and prestige. When he could no longer support himself, let alone maintain his comfortable lifestyle, he moved to Chicago where he began a new career as an easel painter. Despite his emigré status, he quickly rose to acclaim again, exhibiting in sixty exhibitions in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan. As his reputation for being the idiosyncratic character of the Chicago art scene grew, Moessel continued to break free of the constraints that tethered him to architectural painting— instead, he would shock contemporaries and critics with the pluralist nature of his work.
Moessel painted a wide array of subjects ranging from horrific Boschian scenes of Hell and suffering, to botanical paintings of animals peacefully interacting, to Surreal or Symbolist works of politics and religion. Despite the extremity and incongruity of his work, it captivated one of Chicago's most esteemed art critics, C.J. Bulliet, who wrote for the Daily News and Art Digest. Bulliet was adamant in his endearment to Moessel’s work, writing that “Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí might sit profitably at his feet for a few hours to learn the secret of the awe and wonder” Moessel so easily evoked in viewers of his work. Bulliet even went so far as to dub him “one of the living masters of the world.”
Even during periods of popularity, Moessel rarely sold his paintings. As such, hundreds of his works sat collecting dust in his studio instead of being safely housed in museums, galleries, and private collections. Being a confrontational and callous man with divisive opinions and a fiery temperament, he would often dissolve relationships with curators and patrons and shirk opportunities that could have potentially brought him the success he knew in Germany. With dwindling business relationships and publicity, Moessel descended into anonymity and died in poverty, largely forgotten, even in the historical archives and memories of Chicago and Fürth, where his reputation would not adhere itself to history.