Painting as a Prayer: Mystical Threads in the Art of Heinrich Tischler

Heinrich Tischler, a German-Jewish artist from Breslau (now Wroclaw), was for a long time considered to be mainly an architect. His graphics and paintings, although well preserved in many of the world collections, have been presented to the wider public only recently. Many of them, especially those concerning spiritual and religious content, are still shrouded in interpretative mystery. His two folders of Prayers, versions from 1916 and 1920, as well as his illustrations for the Zohar and composition of the cycle of life and death represent a wide range of mystical symbols and threads – kabbalistic, Chassidic, Christian as well as those stemming from the current philosophical thought. The artist himself claimed that for him creating art was like a prayer, and the very nature of painting and its mystery is close to the fathomless nature of God. In his approach he represented the world-view of other Jewish expressionists for whom the quest for mystical experience through art was one of the most desired goals.

In my paper I would like to focus on the mystical content of Heinrich Tischler’s works. I will analyze their possible sources in Jewish and Christian mystical tradition, artist’s personal ideas as well as influences by contemporary Jewish thought and philosophy.