Mertz M.

Dept. of Ophthalmology and Eye Hospital "rechts der Isar", Munich University of Technology, Ismaningerstr. 22, D-81675 München

Background: Friedensreich Hundertwasser, well known artist, was born in Vienna in 1928 and died last year on board of the "Queen Elizabeth". In contrast to his chosen name (his original name had been Friedrich Stowasser), his childhood was tearful, and so was his youth, too.
Problem: So the question was whether one could find those tears - in a morphologic or symbolic way, in poor or overwhelming presence - also in his colourful work.
Method: Digital images were stochasticly taken from most of his paintings in the huge collection of Vienna´s Hundertwasser museum. Camcorder: Sony Mini DV Handycam C/´/ 16K DCR-TRV 9E PAL. Movie-cutting afterwards was not performed due to a historical or exhibition-linked order but to the increasing impression of tear contents.
Results: The film leads our souls from painted deserts of dry eyes to overfloating flows of tears.
Summary: At first being confronted with awfully dry eyes, then recognising drops, lakes, streams of tears, at last swallowed by spirals that look like an endoskopic rush down into a tear ocean, an ophthalmologist may learn about the gigantic world of Hundertwasser in a most specific way.

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