The Knapsack

and the painter's womb

“The Knapsack” oil on canvas 36” x 70”circa 1970s by Benno Kollegger

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The knapsack holds precious things...

                              A rag in a pocket hides a chocolate. 
                              that he must not eat.
               He wraps the rag around a stick and the sack
               holds the chocolate safe.

My Benno, the Austrian wanderer of the Alps is the boy stealing into moonlight clutching the chocolate he never eats. The chocolate comforts. He feels its shape in his leather pocket. He knows he has food during the peril of his climbs.

In case I’m hungry it is there, Benno says.

Countless nights Benno would steal away from his bedroom in Rutzmustl, the Roman stone laid farm house in St. Bartolome, Austria.

Many of Benno’s paintings reveal the human figure enclosed. Then breaking through the womb, the knap sack, a boundary.

Benno didn’t like containment.

Yet he recalls the midwife spitting on his face to revive him when he passes from his mother’s womb. Many years later he’d tell his Mutti of this memory. Shocked she is he knows this. Yes its true your umbilical cord strangled you blue.

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Yes it has been nearly 13 months since Benno passed. Grief informs my hand and mind but Art Does It is not about my personal grief. I thank all subscribers for their continued support.