Artistic Works
Natterer was one of the "schizophrenic masters" profiled by Hans Prinzhorn in his field-defining work Artistry of the Mentally Ill. His drawings are attempts to capture the "10,000 images" of his April Fool's Day hallucination, and are always rendered in a clear, objective style, like that of a technical drawing. This may be due to his background as an electrician.
Natterer once claimed that Axle of the World, with Rabbit, which can be seen to the right, had predicted World War I. The rabbit represented "the uncertainty of good fortune. It began to run on the roller... the rabbit was then changed into a zebra (upper part striped) and then into a donkey (donkey's head) made of glass. A napkin was hung on the donkey; it was shaved." (Prinzhorn 1972, p. 168)
Read more about this topic: August Natterer
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