Paintings with stories

“Tales from the jungle”

Whom can we expect in any jungle?

Tarzan of course with Jane and Boy, the latter presenting a football to his adopted parents,which he has found in the deepest part of the forest.

Jane suggests that it might be edible if she was permitted to boil this strange object.

The wise Tarzan ,however, has his own explanation to this mystery :

It may be a representation of this world, for they say that it is round. The black parts would be the continents and the white could be the sea.In any case it would not hurt to boil it, maybe the juices contain hidden forces.

This reminds Boy of the dream he had that night: Lo and he saw a magnificent Virgin who told him to bring this football to Soccaria, the island of Eternal Soccer.

Fame and fortune would be his reward.

This confession was overheared by the couple behind Boy, one of them is Dulcinea del Toboso and her little brother Salvador. Dulcinea is

the adored mistress of Don Quixote de La Mancha who is just coming along on his famous steed Rocinante, well fed and trained this time.

No wonder, the horse was designed by Andrea del Verrocchio(1436-1488) the teacher of Leonardo da Vinci.

The rider was a notorious warlord by the name of Colleoni, the monument stands in Venice/Italy. I changed him into Don Quixote who is still popular today wheras… who knows Colleoni?

Salvador has heard something about Quixote’s aspirations so he keeps a close eye on his beautiful sister, especially with all these half naked savages around.

The leopard, held by Boy on a leash does not make those two feel at ease, though the turtle in the pond before them, which symbolizes eternity, does not fear it, neither does the mouse in the foreground.The turtle is confident that Boy’s arm is strong enough to control the beast, so is Mickey, the mouse.Nobody seems to notice the crocodile in the left pool but we all know from many Tarzan-movies that the moment it opens its mouth, the Lord of the jungle will strip naked and jump into the water to wrestle with this monster. This , Theophil, the crocodile knows as well from the cinema so he keeps his mouth shut while Tarzan is around.

Boy’s pet -leopard is just wondering, how come that the whole Tarzan-clan is dressed like himself. He suspects that this is where his mom and dad went, but he has no proof until he gets the chance to smell it close up. Especially Jane’s Bikini cought his attention , Boy’s little loincloth struck his fancy as well but Tarzan seems to him to be slightly overdessed for the jungle in his spiffy suit.

But back to the knight in shining armour with a real globe in his hand.He wants to swap it for Boy’s football so he can earn fame and fortune by bringing it to the Island of Eternal Soccer himself. He does not know that over there, he would have to take off his shining armour and become a soccer-player. Neither does he suspect that he has a passenger behind him on the horse. It is of course Eve, the mother of all mankind, recognizable by her nakedness. Western artists seldom got the chance to paint naked women and Eve is the only excuse to paint one.The prussian sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850), famous for his horse-drawn victory cart on top of the “ Brandenburger Tor” in Berlin has once said that he liked best to sculpt naked women ,to his disgrace he mostly had to sculpt men with hats instead. Michelangelo ( 1475 – 1554) on the other hand found enough excuses to paint a whole nudist- beach in the sistine chapel , for the cardinals to enjoy while they elect a new pope ,which is where this Eve comes from. There she is actually reaching out for the forbidden fruit but in my context she holds the famous knight on a leash like Boy his leopard.Somehow she seems to control the warrior.I wish that there would be a women behind each warlord! There would be less killing. The famous steed Rocinante is being held from trampling all over the scene by the prospect of a succulent ripe banana, being offered by Chitta, the chimpanzee- member of the Tarzan-clan.The monkey holds himself on the first street-lantern of the jungle, being installed there by the develloping-company who will turn this place into a holiday-resort,with Don Quixote as general manager.The function of the two jungle birds remains to be explained: The owl stands for the wisdom of the tour operators who are to get the tourists here . The Ibis has fled from Egypt , being a pagan deity,where he had been venerated way back in Pharao’s time. He just has to wait until the country turns pagan again. The happy end you may think up yourself if you are so lucky as to purchase this work of Art. When it hangs on the wall of your drawing room above the mantlepiece you have all the time in the world to think it up,everyweek a different one.

Juanita came from Cuba and works in a night club in Playa del Inglés as a stripper.

Before she moved to the Canaries, she had been dancing in a Samba group at the Carneval of Rio de Janeiro.

This little angel at her side she found in Dresden/Germany ,when she did her all- Europe tour. There he was, painted by Raffaello Santi (1483- 1520),at the bottom of a large painting , depicting Mary and child with two Saints,one on either side of her. It is probably the most famous representation of the Virgen, called “ Sixtine Madonna”

Back on Gran Canaria,as she was strolling along the nude beach of Maspalomas, dressed up as we see her here, she caused a scandal by attracting undue attention . Many a man had to turn on his belly or run in the water until a policeman ordered her to either take off her bathing suit or come with her to the headquarter.

Carmen just looked him right in the face ,into his watery eyes , that did it. He took off his hat, covered his insurgent flesh with it , ran into the ocean to cool off and got himself transferred to a less dangerous environment.

As Carmen ajusted the golden rings of her space suit after this encounter, she discovered little Raffaello , an angel, hiding behind a sand dune. She instantly knew that it was him, the one from Dresden and she wanted to have him as a pet.Angels, however, don’t make good pets, Carmen should have remembered this from sunday school, but she did not. All she remembered was the parson’s gigantic belly. He mostly talked about Hell ,fire and brimstone and what became of those who did not do what he, the clergy wanted from them. From little Carmen he wanted a lot and she was most obliging so she would not go to hell.She still remembers the smell of his armpits.

From Heaven she heared very little from the priest,so she was glad to get some first hand information from an insider. She made an application at the town hall to adopt this orphan child as her private altar boy but this was not granted because the boy had wings and had to be examined by medical specialists concerning this abnormal anatomy. This was enough, too much for Carmen . She took her whip from her belt and evacuated the building in two minutes. She then mounted the angel’s back and together they flew far away to Spain, to the jolly banks of River Guadalquivir. Here they took a bath together, close to the famous roman aquaeduct near Segovia. The place she knows from the five €uro note, that’s why she keeps coming back here. While little Rafaello is drying his wings from the bath, Carmen can’t get enough of the moisture and keeps standing in the water. Rafaello has found a little desk to support hinself and make notes while listening to Carmen’s instructions about mankind.

She always had this golden symbol dangling on a chain around her neck and squeezed between her remarkable breasts until Rafaellito got all his courage together to ask his mistress what the symbol meant. She told him about the easter marches , the atomic bombs ,Hiroshima and all that and that the bomb has not been banned is still threatening to destroy all life on Earth. For short that mankind is in a worse mess than it had ever been, destroying its home planet if not by wars then by human greed. The angel had known before that this planet is doomed, that’s why he came here to save it but had no idea that it was that bad.

Back in the painting in Dresden he had only seen tourists with clothes on and headphones over their heads , listening to the speech of the tourguide in their language or passing comments about hin, how cute he looks.

After a long silence the angel turned around and put the final question to Carmen : When I grow up, will you marry me? I don’t want to be your tiger, tigers play too rough ,

don’t want to be your lion , lions are not the kind ,

just let me be your teddy bear.

Eve and Apollo are spending their honeymoon on a secluded beach of Gran Canaria. Assuming that they are all alone , they took off their clothes and talked about bees and flowers until they became hungry. So Apollo, the Greek God of Poetry, Music and Art climbed into the banana-plantation close to their love nest but could not cut a single banana bunch because he had no knife with him, naked as he was. However, after looking around for some time, he spotted a bunch, which was already cut and prepared to be taken away. It was a temptation too strong for a Greek God to resist : He pilfered the whole bunch and slung it on his back. But lo and behold: What did he find underneath the bananabunch? A football, so he took that one as well, maybe it can be used for something. Upon returning to Eve he proudly presents what he has found, putting his left foot on the ball like a hunter presents himself to the camera with a slain elephant. With the bananas on his back he pretends not to feel the weight but is aware, that his back becomes sticky.

The lovers soon realize, that their hideout is not as secluded as they would wish.

Just next to the banana plantation is a soccerfield with view of the Teide . This field is populated not only by soccer players but also by hundreds of fans of our team and of the guests from Tenerife . All these people are in an uproar. Joe Soapsimmer from Bubble-On Tub in Cleanshire was so unfortunate as to shoot the Holy Leather out of the field and into the banana- plantation. They had already gotten in touch with the owner, a tycoon who lives on Hawaii. On the telephone he promised to bring this issue up at the next shareholder assembly in two years but sorry, he gave them all his sympathies but -alack- his hands were tied.Just as the two teams had decided to collect money from the spectators for a new football, the left quarterback Fernando from Las Palmas lifted his eyes from the ground and there he saw, what he was not used to see , being brought up as an altar boy and his face turned all purple. He saw human flesh without fabric interruption, did not trust his eyes, looked again to where a bathing suit should be and all he saw, was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. There she sat , Eve as juicy as THE LORD could create her. From his lips escaped a groan : Michelangelo!( 1475-1464)No wonder, the Greek Gods had already put up bets on who of them would get her first. Apollo was the lucky one . For years He had been standing in the national museum of Florence/Italy in the pose Michelangelo( 1475-1464) had invented for him but as air tickets became cheaper, he booked for all- inclusive holidays on Gran Canaria and Eve was included in the deal. He had sent her husband Adam away on an errand to the United Nations, concerning a national anthem which he, Apollo had composed for the Soccarian Empire.It would take Adam years until he could first get used to wearing a tuxedo and then to be allowed to make his speech before the illustrious assembly. In the meantime his wife is having fun with the God Apollo, who covers her with his self-made hexameter- poetry, sings to her at night and paints her likeness during the days in oil on canvas.

Quarterback Fernando, when he had seen enough flesh, had spotted the football under Apollo’s foot.

He dashed forward, trampling ofer three spectators and the goaley from Tenerife and screamed :

“I found it “ Hundreds of eyes and feet followed him to see, what IT was and when they saw what the quarterback had seen , their faces turned pale and their ears turned red from exitement. Only after a while they saw IT, the Holy Leather under the foot of this naked geeser.Quarterback was the first to reach the scene. Panting and foaming he demanded the ball from Apollo.The latter would not be a God if he let any mortal yell at him. Just now, lovely Eve, well develloped and fully ripe as she is offers her younger lover a ripe banana as a hint to “ ripe and sweet ”, while the quarterback is still yelling. Apollo should give this mortal anything? As soon as he had swallowed the first mouthful, he told the guy to come back when he has put his petition into a poetic form , hexameters please,until then he may go to hell . Here, Fernando realized that a God had spoken to him. He fell on the ground and kissed the stone beside the divine feet. Like him , all bystanders prostrated themselves before Apollo and sang the anthem of their team. This sounded rather odd, the two anthems at the same time. To end this torture, the God finished his ripe banana and let go of the ball, but maybe he didn’t.All we know is that he is still chewing to his heart’s delight and a new ball had to be bought.

Something you have not seen before

Maybe you remember the horses from St. Marc’s cathedral in Venice, those are golden, well, guilded over there.Here on Gran Canaria, although we are bathing in tourist crowds,we had to scratch the gold plate off to pay our dept with the European Union.

Out came two white mares and two sorrel stallions for political correctness.

The names of the horses are ( from left to right ):

Rolling Thunder

Greased Lightening

White Ash

Troya

The latter being the one presented to the Troyans by the retiring Greeks as a fare well present.

Barbie is riding Troya, lifting one leg like a dog, marking his territory.

Barbie is probably this year’s champion and will receive the laurel wreath , offered by her mother Barbara, who runs a face lifting shop in downtown Chicago.

The laurels are organic. After the celebration the wreath is cooked with Canary Stew ,an ethnic dish of the province . All the people in the pit get a spoon full . Those, who lift their finger apply for a second helping.

The frog in the right lower corner gave the name for this painting :

“La Fiesta de la Rana “

“ Rana “ in Spanish means frog and “ Rama” means branch.

On Gran Canaria “ La Fiesta de la Rama” is celebrated in July with processions of ships and a lot of noise, but this here is “ La Rana” the frog like our friends in Quebec.

“Victoria “ is the name of the frog which sounds in Spanish “ Rana Victoria “ which is just barely missing “ La Reina Victoria” , our blessed Queen Vic, who at no time in her life would suggest any similarity with a frog.

Behind the frog rises our popular waitress, Farah from Morocco with five pints of Ale . One for each champion and one for Victoria.

Mephistopheles, riding “ White Ash” beside Barbie is more aware of the exited crowds at their horse’s hooves than of the laurels above. He knows too well , that the winner of this contest has been established long ago by the Festival Committee , making sure, that nobody is discriminated , neither for their inclinations , chromosome patterns ,ethnic genes or facial hair.

So this year it should be Barbie , if she does not make a complete mess of her act. In this case Mephistopheles stands a fair chance to win with all the money and lobby behind him.

However, there is Sally at his right side, the native Indian girl from the black hills of Dakota. She is the only one to ride without a horse’s collar . Greased Lightning is, as the name suggests, a slippery affair and to lift a leg like Barbie is a perilous endeavor.

Her neighbor, Dr Clint Northwood on “Rolling Thunder” is just pointing out the perils of her act. Sally however does not believe a word that geezer says but suspects Clint of trying to make her insecure. She knows a lot about Clint’s inferiority complex connected with “Rolling Thunder’s” blood curdling neighing .

Who gets the prize ?

It not only consists of the stew- spice but a free airline ticket to all the war zones on this planet. This trip will take five years , all inclusive and if the lucky winner is still alive when he or she is brought back to Gran Canaria , he or she will get a lifelong job with the administration of the future celebrations. So far, nobody came back from that trip , mostly eliminated by friendly fire so we stand a fair chance never to be outnumbered by newcomers.

Don’s worry: As long as nobody in this picture moves, no winner will be proclaimed, but if this is not done soon, there will be no more wars to visit and they have to make do with soccer championships. The chances to survive those are higher than under friendly fire.

80x52cm oil on canvas 2014

Laokoon was a Troyan priest who had warned his countrymen before a Greek strategem.

For this,the Goddess Athene ,who supported the Greeks had sent him some Python-snakes to strangle him and his two sons.Three sculptors from Rhodos had designed, modelled in wax and cast this group in bronze about 200b.C : Hagesandros, Polydoros and Athanadoros

It depicts the deadly struggle of the priest and his two sons.

A costly enterprise and nobody knows who paid for it and why was it made.

Certainly not because it looks so lovely when people are strangled by snakes .Crucifixes don’t look all that pretty either but they stand for a message, for this they are made.The message must be simple to be understood: If you warn your countrymen of the CIA for example , the agency will send you something to shut you up.

The original bronzecast has never been found, maybe the metal was recycled, but there exists a roman copy of it which can be seen in the “Skulpturenhalle” of Basel/Switzerland.

The Romans apparently had the same problem like the Americans with whistleblowers so they were motivated to get a copy made in marble for everyone to behold what happens to critics. This copy has survived and was found in Rome in the 16th century. Some arms were missing and art historians are still wondering, what position they might have had. Recently a piece from the priest’s right arm has been found and put into its place, still leaving lots of space for our imagination .

What we see here are female descendants of Laokoon, Irish itinerants from Limerick, born in a horse drawn barreltop caravan at the side of the road.Mama O’Conna and her two daughters Eileen in the red bikini and Nora, the wild one.

One day , mother O’Conna decided to sell their caravan and the horse to some rich hippies and the python snakes to the Dublin zoo. With the proceeds of this deal, they purchased tickets on a Viking ship bound for Gran Canaria.

They have just disembarked. The other passengers from the ship , all squeezed together on the right side of the picture and are trying to touch our charming model Carmen on the tiger skin .She comes from Las Tricias , a village on the island of La Palma. As a little girl Carmen used to tend her father’s goats. Now she looks after Mahatma Gandhi’s Goat Sally, milking ,feeding and cleaning her every day and putting the cream all over her lovely body so she smells like Sally. This, as you can see, attracts the vikings from the ship and Carmen is relishing every minute of being the center of attention. Of course she pretends to be utterly bored by this rough company, but this in turn exites the boys even more. Soon they all will be summonded by their tourguide and ushered into their all inclusive resort , not to be let out again until they have spent their last Kroner inside.

Mother, La O’conna on the other hand has quickly set up her family in the pose of their forefather , old Laokoon for people to take photographs and pay.

The snakes ,as we know,had been sold but they would not be Irish itinerants if they could not help themselves in any situation and make do without the beasts .

Mama for example is throwing a tennis ball at you, ready to send you the ball back with her racket, if you ever get it. She is waiting patiently for you to change into your tennis- outfit, get your racket and an entrance ticket for the tennis court.

Her fidgety daughters Eileen and Nora are not as patient as their mother .

Nora is just taking her clothes off to take a swim among all those nordic heroes but her attention drifted away as soon as she saw this beautiful butterfly landing on her hand.As long as the butterfly is talking to Nora, she will not move. It may therefore take some time until she is as naked as immortal Marilyn Monroe here in front in her famous pose for bachelor’s dens.

The Mahadma Gandhi at her side will notice Marilyn, as soon as he gets his spinning wheel spinning again. He studies the manual so carefully that he does not see that Eileen O’Conna is holding a thread which keeps the wheel from turning.

We have no tennis net , as you can see this is why Gandhi is spinning the thread for our net. As soon as his wheel is turning again , he will talk to Marilyn about the virtudes of homespun fabrics and how lovely they would look on her. Soon she will buy herself a spinning wheel and shall contribute thread for our tennis net in the years to come.

In her leasure time like now, she puts herself into an atrractive pose, which is comfortable for her. This one she holds for sixty years now and forming part of this picture here, she may hold it for much longer.So it was a wise decision of La O’Coonna to sell the snakes before coming here because it would have been an utter desaster to our tourism industry if it were known that pythons had strangled some of our precious tourists.

Text for:” Leonardo da Vitruvius”

1.) O yes, Leonardo da Vinci on the €uro- coin from Italy,the famous double man posing on the wheel of Life . If you take a closer look ,you distinguish three people behind each other. The front one is King Leonardo I , wearing a fabric only those can see which are fit for employment in the king’s circumlocution office .

2,) The wheel of life came to a sudden halt, as Agathe ,the reclining virgin in the foreground,caught a hold of it in order to study its contents in peace.

Sir Francis Drake, the guy on the back seat takes the opportunity to start a flirt with a Venus from way back in Classical Greece.

3.) In her time the painted statue by Praxiteles (400-330 b. C.) was so famous, that people traveled for weeks and months to see it and to pray to the Goddess . Being the Goddess of Love ,people would not ask her for wisdom nor money , health, obedient children or vodka.

1. Praxiteles , the Athenian sculptor had been commissioned by the people of the island of Kos to create a statue of Venus. Kos was a prosperous little island just off the southern Mediterranean coast of today’s Turkey. Not knowing the taste of his clients , he created two versions of Venus: one all dressed up and one stark naked. As a model, this famous sculptor could afford the most beautiful and seducing lady of Athens, the famous Phyrne. This was her nickname and means toad- what an understatement- referring to the slight olive tone of her skin.

5.)The role of Venus suited her so well, that she had to pose for another famous artist as well, the painter Apelles, the court painter of Alexander of Macedonia. He painted Phyrne as “ Anadiomene”, meaning the Venus rising from the foam of the ocean. None of this painter’s works have survived the centuries, we just know of them through the exited descriptions from contemporary travelers.

1. Phyrne was a courtesan of the highest standard, being able to choose her clients among the rich and famous so she knew a lot and had a lot of enemies, who at one point succeeded to to have her brought before the Areopag accused of some crime, tax evasion no doubt.

7.)The Areopag was the assembly of wise old men who had to distinguish between guilty and innocent. When the passionate discussion had reached a climax, Phyrne’s lawyer loosened a clip of her tunic which slowly fell to the ground, exposing a stark naked body so perfect that the judges forgot their duty and dropped all the charges against Mrs. Wonderful.

Well, some of her best clients sat in this noble assembly, with flashing eyes and tongues sticking out, she had them all wrapped around her little fingers, the fat ones around her thumbs.

8.) So the “Toad” appeared every day in Praxiteles’ workshop in Athens and held this pose for many hours. Inside the towel a stick was hidden so the model could rest her arm on it, that’s why the cloth appears to stiff as if she was pulling at it.

When the delegation from Kos came to see the finished work, they faced a tough decision :Every one of them would rather take the naked version but they voted for the dressed version for fear of what the neighbor would think of them. The statue was paid for and shipped to Kos, where a temple had already been built for it, nobody knows the fate of this temple with its puritan statue.

9.)Just south of the island of Kos is a peninsula sticking out from the Anatolian mainland and here the merchant community of Knidos prospered as a city state .The magistrate got wind of the deal with the two statues and bought the naked version, built a temple for it , thus attracting tourists from all over the world, they even stamped their coin with the image of this statue and today nobody would know anything about Knidos if it were not not for this work of Art .

10.) It was the first statue of its kind which is meant to be contemplated from every angle. Of course it was painted lifelike, not by the sculptor himself but by a professional painter . Praxiteles was so delighted with the painter’s work that he admitted , his figure has gained from this treatment. She looked so lifelike, that some rich merchant of Venice bribed the priests to let him spend a night alone in the temple . The statue certainly multiplied after this, hundreds of copies being shipped all over the Empire. Most of them are lost, but in Italy they produce them by the hundreds. In any size. An old one made it into the Vatican- Museum to the joy of the celibate clergy.

11.) So Sir Walter Raleigh on the back seat managed to touch Aphrodite and is about to get off the wheel but the emperor Leonardo in front orders his servant to behave like the civil servant he is. Therefore the Lady can keep pulling at the towel which covers the water jug and dry herself. The water in this jug is by no means ordinary tap water . This one restores the Goddess’s virginity.

12.) In former times she had a full bath in it, as it sprang from Heaven. When she had to travel on business matters ,twenty slaves would carry her golden bathtub and hundred the water.Crossing the desert one day they ran out of drinking water and the slaves drank all the magic water, converting them all into virgins . All Aphrodite could save for herself was kept in this jar, wrapped in her towel, tucked underneath her bed. From then on, she learned to use less and less of this precious liquid for her miracle so she still has enough to get her through loads of virgin lovers until she gets back home to Knidos to refresh her store.

13.) At the moment she is so preoccupied with the advances of Sir Walter Raleigh on the back seat that she did not perceive the arrival of her little sister Befrodite, who tries to imitate big sister in everything. Just now she is aping her pose , only the jug and the towel are missing.

She did order them at the reception desk but is still waiting for the room service and this may take some time since the complete staff is cramped into the canteen, watching this horse race without jockeys, a novelty sponsored by CNN and opposed by the RSPCA.

14.) These golden horses have been eager to start from the moment the Greek sculptor had them cast in bronze . For over a thousand years they patiently waited on a prominent spot in the stadium of Constantinople, watching the races, the election and abdication and execution of Byzantine emperors until, in 1204 the Doge of Venice, Enrique Dandolo ( 1107-1205), ninety years of age and blind as a bat succeeded to convince the valiant knights of the 4 th crusade to make a little detour on their way to the to the Holy Land .The Venetians where the ones, who supplied the ships and advanced the funds for this pious enterprise so he was in the position to tell them , what to do. Despite the protest of the Pope, Constantinople was sacked and the orthodox emperor replaced by a catholic one, a puppet. VAE VICTIS ! Voe to the defeated !

15.) The pious knights mostly cherished relics , bones and teeth from Saints , nails and wood from the Cross, which would raise the importance of any church, attracting pilgrims and working miracles. Their sense of beauty, however was somewhat underdeveloped and like the Spaniards three hundred years later,when they saw gold, they had to melt it down, regardless of its shape.

16.) Not so the blind Doge: He had a sense of beauty so he appointed a team of specialists and art historians to sift through the spoils and lay their hands on any artifact which would be worth the transport. The four gilded bronze horses somehow refused to co- operate. It remains a mystery why the transport crew could claim their inability to move the horses in piece and get away with it. When a rich city like Byzantium is sacked and the victors are quarreling about the spoils,the whole place is in turmoil and whatever you take away, you must be quick about it. This may explain the butchery , the heads were cut off, and one horse’s leg was lost. When that at last was found,the Turkish government refused to sell it to the Italians, claiming that the horses were stolen and they should return them.

In 1204 bronze parts could not be welded together like today , they had to be riveted and held together with a ring like a collar around their necks.

17.) They were installed on the balcony of St. Marc’s Cathedral in Venice and there they remained for five hundred years until someone Bonaparte saw them ,wanted them and had the means to take them to Paris. They were hoisted on top of the triumphal arch in the garden behind the Louvre, the “ Arc de Trionphe du Caroussel” for the victorious army to march through. After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo the French had to return the horses to Venice,where a set of replica was cast and installed on St. Marc’s balcony while the originals are kept in the museum.

18.) The horses on this picture are the original ones,which served as model for the Greek sculptor, well it was only one which he modeled in four different poses and that was lent to him by the man who commissioned the work of Art. When it was completed and paid for, the sponsor was so delighted with the result, that he gave the horse to the artist as a gift.

19.) The names of the horses, of the sponsor and the artist are long forgotten but the name of the artist’s wife is still remembered by every schoolboy as Lady Go- diving.

She fell in love with this horse and rode it bareback in the nude, until the local RSPCA filed a complaint at the local circumlocution office,they are still waiting for a reply. The horse she is riding here is no horse at all but an albino mule and she is not naked as you can see . Secretly she is confessing to Leyla , the Irish belly dancer,why the famous horse was not available for this painting. When it saw the four bronze horses , it simply freaked out ,the Lady landed in the mud.

20.) This pitiful incident she told Leyla, which the powerful Doge keeps from falling off the battlement and crashing into the easter eggs below. Yes, you discovered them too and they are hidden everywhere. If you don’t pick them up and eat them, they shall be there till next year’s Easter celebration.

21.)On her albino mule Lady Go diving feels quite safe now so she, while whispering secrets to Leyla can comb her abundant hair which not only suffices to cover her entire body but that of the horse as well so the latter has to take care not to step on it which would provoke an apocalyptic scream and send the bronze horses into a stampede, running over Agathe and leaving the picture altogether. With her albino mule this can not happen so we are safe as well.

22.) The Doge however insists, that she covers herself with her hair again lest she would catch a cold because it is winter on Gran Canaria as you can see : There is snow on Mount Teide of Tenerife and it is Carnival time when she will appear as Drag Queen to the excitement for everyone who thinks, she is a man.

23.)As we turn our attention again to Befrodite, we notice a few boats on the water beneath her and the passengers who are mostly occupied with each other but when they look up , they are confused about what they think they see. A heap of living flesh, no doubt , no wrinkles, a young sample of that unknown species, from their point of view no sensible person would dare to assume that this is the incarnation of female beauty so they form their own legends, including the mysteries behind the red curtain which they will never reveal to any living person.

1. We will never know,what will happen if Agathe lets go of the Wheel of Life again and if the Emperor Leonardo and his valet have to stand on their heads but as long as we look at the picture it is not going to move a lot unless we turn the whole picture upside down or lying on one side. Being a square format, nobody will know the difference and the complaints, being filed at the circumlocution office will remain there safely.
2. Above the dominating square with its circle rises the triangle into which Albrecht Dürer’s “ Field hare “ managed to sneak in . It is waiting for its daily carrot but when it is munching and chewing it is no longer as picturesque. Therefore it has to wait as long as you look at the picture .At night, when all the lights are turned off he gets his carrot , can go to the bathroom , do a few push-ups or race the hedgehog and his wife and keep loosing because Mr. Hedgehog is stationed at the start and Mrs. Hedgehog is waiting at the finish line . Mr Hare is fooled by the couple because he can not distinguish one from the other. Running in the deep furrow he can not see his opponent. When he is out of breath , he is happy to crawl into his triangle again and wait for the next carrot.
3. The gentleman behind the curtain is of course the Doge of Venice. Not the one who had the golden horses captured from Constantinople . That one was so ugly , that the only painter , who brought it over himself to look at him long enough to paint his face in oil had to be payed royally. Everybody loved the painting except the Doge himself for he was blind and had to rely upon the judgment of specialists , bribed by the painter so everybody was happy.
4. This Doge is not depicted here because the creator of this painting refuses to paint things he does not like to see.
5. Instead he painted His eminence in all His glory , adhering to his cherished belief that He is the one who pulls the strings of this show.
6. We leave him with this opinion because it keeps him happy despite the fact that his prisoner Giacomo Casanova had just fled from his led chambers under the palace roof, hiding behind the Emperor Leonardo I and his valet on the wheel of life.
7. Ever since Casanova has thus established diplomatic relations with the Crown, he could freely engage in the traffic of cloth which can only be seen by persons who are fit for public employment as civil servants.
8. Not only His Majesty is following the new fashion, even Agathe in front who holds the Wheel of Life, even she is wearing a fancy bridal dress. If you can not see it, , you are not fit to serve His Majesty. Only when you realize what to think and say in public , we find employment for you with a finger-licking retirement plan .
9. Casanova on the spare wheel has yet to convince the almighty Doge to buy this exquisite fabric . He insists, that his hat must be visible to the riff- raff, the ordinary mortals . This “ phrygian cap “, later used by the French Revolution to symbolize freedom was by no means the sign of liberated slaves as Robespierre made us believe.
10. It was a warrior’s cap made by the people of today’s Ukraine, recycling the private parts of bulls so as to make the wearer as strong as a bull. The design became quite popular among Persian troops , up to their king Darius ,the one defeated by Alexander. Even gods used to wear it like Mithras , most popular among Roman soldiers. The cap underwent many changes, from Santa Claus to the plastic garden dwarf.
11. So this is what His Highness is wearing, held in place by a solid band around the head , adorned with precious stones like a crown. To avoid that this monstrous contraption scratches the venerable head of His Eminence ,he wears a white cap underneath with ear- flaps against the cold sea breeze and the permanent drought in his sumptuous palace. Besides it keeps Him from hearing the complaints of his subjects.
12. His right hand rests on the curtain rail to make sure, the wind does not blow in . His left hand holds Leila , our professional belly dancer from Ireland with the pompom on her leprechaun’s cap. She kisses his forefinger and keeps a tight grip on his little finger so He will not let go of little herself ,just because she has a little chat with Lady Go- Diving on her albino mule.
13. Some art- historians believe, that they have discovered a smart phone in the lady’s hand . Heated disputes broke out when Professor Doctor Knowitall came up with his theory , denying any contact between those two ladies. He believes that the lady takes a photograph of you and sends it to the central investigation unit of the CIA ,where your image is stored for all eternity together with this picture in case it becomes illegal to look at Works by Peter Matthias Kraus.
14. A strong fraction of Art Critics held against this far fetched theory that INTERNET coverage is impossible inside the frame of a picture . Allowing that the CIA can hack itself into any mobile phone, even a painted one, it is certain that the lady never received any money from the ministry of defense apart from her widow’s pension.
15. Wild speculations popped up around the enigmatic group of the four women behind the Doge’s back. All four of them are the one and only true love of Giacomo Casanova,the dealer of invisible cloth, sitting on the spare wheel behind Sir Francis Drake, the valet of Emperor Leonardo I on the Wheel of Life. The four ladies are discussing ways to free Casanova from the lead chamber under the roof of the Doge’s palace and are not aware of the fact that their lover had already escaped his solitary confinement, selling lottery tickets to the King of France and to his one thousand and three fiancées in Spain as Mozart tries to make us believe.
16. Immortal Wolfgang had cast an eye on Leyla , the sexy leprechaun in the hand of the Mighty One. She would not mind starting an affair with Mozart,who has nothing to offer her except eternal love ,whereas the boss is rich and powerful. So she rather keeps kissing his finger and secretly flashes her eyes towards the musician.
17. Somehow the divine composer seems distracted , because he has discovered strange patterns on the lawn upon which Agathe’s pretty body lies. Sometimes he sees faces on the lawn . Some observers claim that they have seen them too but the vast majority just sees bushes and easter eggs,insinuating that Mozart had been eating poisonous mushrooms , administered by his competitor Salieri. Since the composer’s pauper’s grave was never identified , we can not check the truth of this theory . But if you keep seeing faces on the lawn, you better consult a shrink.
18. Just recently an Indian dancer escaped from a temple in the jungle and stole herself into this picture. Somehow she gained some control of the Wheel of Life , because time goes by even though Agathe holds the Wheel. This we call Eastern Wisdom.