The Cover Section Editor: M. Therese Southgate,
MD, Senior Contributing Editor.
The German painter Julius Bissier (1893-1965) was born and raised in
Freiburg im Breisgau. His ties to the area were deep: his mother’s family
had farmed in the Black Forest area for generations and his father’s
people were craftsmen in the town. Bissier’s interest in drawing began
during childhood. After completing his schooling in Freiburg, he went to Karlsruhe
Academy where he began his formal art studies at age 20. Within months, however,
he was conscripted into the military when World War I began. At war’s
end he chose to study on his own and, in 1920, had his first solo exhibit
in Freiburg. The decade would be important to the development of his ideas.
Early on, he met the art historian and psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn, who directed
his attention to the writings of the mid-19th-century Swiss historian and
mythologist Johann Bachofen. Later, he met the eminent sinologist Ernst Grosse,
who was also the author of a monograph on East Asian India ink drawing. Grosse
would interest Bissier in ancient Chinese thought and in drawings based on
contemplation. Finally, in 1930, in Paris, Bissier met the Romanian-born sculptor
Constantin Brancusi, who reinforced the meditative aspects of the practice
of painting. Painting, he taught Bissier, is first a state of being, and then—and
only to a much lesser degree—a state of doing.
Southgate MT. Rondine 5. März 62 g. JAMA. 2005;293(11):1300. doi:10.1001/jama.293.11.1300