Once, I was almost four years old, I found, while playing in the woods, a weathered light-coloured skull covered by autumn leaves. In the evening, I proudly carried my freshly cleaned treasure home showing it to my father, who said: This was an old sow, a wild sow. What?, I yelled out. Yes, he noted, in the past it was a living wild sow.
As we lived at the edge of a forest, I had seen quite often wild sows from afar. My grandfather had told me that wild boars have large sideward teeth intended to impale children. So, I really was frightened of them. They always seemed to me angry, also malcontent, they always nuzzle in the earth for something eatable and are able to run pretty fast. Even decades later, they chased me through the dark forest in a nightmare.
But this shall be the rest of a wild sow? I felt great sadness. More should not remain when animals die? Oh, there are some more bones, my father said. You didn't found them all. My hushed question was: And we, we humans, what will remain from us? Erm, who really knows that?, was his answer. It was time for supper and I felt silent for the rest of the day.
This was my first encounter with death. Many others should follow. But I never forgot this first intensive feeling and wanted to tell this experience in a painting someday. So, long time I was looking for a wondering boy in the age of four. I did not wanted to paint myself.
Some years ago, my wife brought back home a skull from a wild sow from a walk with mother's-in-law dog. As no anthill was nearby, I boiled off the skull. It stank badly.
The boy in my painting I met years later. He is a son of my wife's colleague. When he was sitting for the painting in my studio with the skull in his hands, I was telling him my story and that the skull was in the shelf in my nursery for years. Somehow, his hair stood on end and I saw a mixture of astonishment and horror.
When Bosse saw the emergence of the painting, he said: You are painting me, but I didn't sat, never I sat in that forest with such a big tree. I was sitting in your studio!
Yes, that is painting. Everything is possible and in some way every painting is also a self-portrait.
The structure of
imprimitur, underpainting
and glazes
Bosse in
the studio
in Wismar
Bosse in the Woods