The Monk

‘The Monk’, courtesy Smithsonian Institution, Washington (photograph Rosamund Purcell)

In his book on the subject, Kenneth Gross writes about the ways in which puppets can create both delight and fear. They may evoke the innocent play of childhood or become part of ritual magic, summoning ghosts and gods: ‘Puppets can be creepy things, secretive, inanimate while also full of spirit, alive with gesture and voice’.  Their power, he explains, lies in the skilled movements of the hand, through which a lifeless object seems to become infused with intelligence or soul.

Even though they are not enlivened by human touch, automatons can be just as weird and uncanny as puppets. In their fascinating book Miracles and Machines - A Sixteenth Century Automaton and its Legend, Elizabeth King and W. David Todd describe the history of a small mechanical figure of a friar, which was possibly made by the royal clockmaker Juanelo Turriano at the court of Charles V of Spain and intended to be a votive likeness of San Diego de Alcalá. It is believed to have been created to commemorate the bizarre cure of young Prince Don Carlos, heir to the Spanish throne, who was brought close to death by a severe head wound. The story relates that the corpse of Diego de Alcalá, a Franciscan lay brother, was transferred to the bed of the dying prince, who soon returned to health. Unsurprisingly, the Prince’s father, Philip II, repeatedly asked the Roman Catholic church to recognise his son’s recovery as a miracle, and in 1588, as a consequence, Diego was sanctified by Pope Sixtus V.

The automaton’s wooden body, which contains a clockwork mechanism of hand-forged iron, has a strong main-spring and a lever that will keep the figure still until it is released. When activated, ‘the monk’, as he is generally known, starts to walk and follow a prescribed path, beating his chest with one hand and raising and brandishing a wooden crucifix with the other. His head and eyes turn to gaze at the cross, then at the watchers, and once more at the cross. His mouth opens and closes as if he is speaking; from time to time he brings the cross to his lips and kisses it. The automaton still works well and with rather alarming intensity, although it is very obviously old and worn. The flesh-coloured paint on his head, hands, and feet is cracked and chipped; there are now only traces of red on the lips, brown on the eyes, eyebrows and sandals. The original Franciscan tunic, cross, and rosary disappeared long ago and have been replaced.

Old wood puppets and automata have influenced the contemporary German artist Paloma Varga Weisz, with whom I worked at the Douglas Hyde Gallery some years ago. In one of her installations a puppet-like wooden man with flexible joints, his expression remote and forlorn, was suspended from the ceiling on ropes; in another there were two articulated wooden figures, a man and a woman, in a dark hut, their sexualised actions set in motion by cables. Many of her works have unsettling and ritualistic undertones, but others, especially her small carvings, are more ethereal and recall religious statuary of the past; they include women in cowls or old-fashioned headdresses, and men in monk-like habits. While their mood may at first appear to be grave and serious, most of the sculptures are odd and somewhat surreal; this is especially true of the more fantastic people and beasts that populate her artistic world.

Varga Weisz’ artistic roots are unusual: her Hungarian father, also an artist, was an early source of inspiration; at first she thought that she might become an actor but went instead to a small school near the Alps, where she learned traditional woodcarving. After three years she studied at a conventional art college. Although she still likes to make art in simple ways, often with only a piece of wood and a knife, her work has become more complex; she now thinks of herself primarily as a storyteller, her tales being told through sculpture. In a recent exhibition she used coloured glass - amber, blue, green, lilac, grey - to create small and beguiling figures that kneel, lie, or sit cross-legged. Pensive and remote, they are caught up in thought or contemplation. A continuation of her long-running series of Wilde Leute (‘wild people’), the sculptures are particularly responsive to changes of light, which emphasise their mercurial translucence. The surfaces of these fanciful and oddly animated figures are softly smooth, flawed, and beautifully mysterious; as one reviewer nicely put it, the trapped air bubbles within them seem to evoke breaths they have taken in previous lives. And as she often does, the artist added to the scenario a variety of watercolours, some of them gently peculiar, others sad or humorous.

For further exploration:

Kenneth Gross, on puppets: https://press.uchicago.edu/books/excerpt/2012/gross_puppet.html

‘Miracles and Machines’ by Elizabeth King and W. David Todd : https://automatonmonk.com/

A video of ‘the monk’ in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kie96iRTq5M

Paloma Varga Weisz, ‘Man, hanging’: https://www.palomavargaweisz.com/works/haengender-mann-man-hanging-2018/

Paloma Varga Weisz ‘Glory Hole’: https://www.palomavargaweisz.com/works/glory-hole-2015/

Paloma Varga Weisz: https://www.palomavargaweisz.com/

Paloma Varga Weisz exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ: https://www.sadiecoles.com/exhibitions/963/installation_shots/

Current listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us5JFGeKRQo

Glass figure by Paloma Varga Weisz, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ