Loosely based upon the Gustav Mahler song cycle used in the last movement of his Fourth Symphony,“Das
Himmlich Leben (A Child’s View of Heaven)”. The songs were inspired by a book of German folk poems
“Das Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn)” - the central figure of this painting.
The painting tackles issues of assimilation, conversion and the often terrible consequences for Jews.
The painting is presented as a contemplation of death from a child's perspective akin to Peter Pan's
'awfully big adventure.' The sadness of death contrasts with the peaceful content of the child's paradise.
Mahler, a Jew who converted to Roman Catholicism in order to secure the job of director of the Court
Opera in Vienna, is portrayed as the nursery rhyme character ‘the cat and the fiddle’, innocently playing
for child victims of the Holocaust.
Himmlich Leben (A Child’s View of Heaven)”. The songs were inspired by a book of German folk poems
“Das Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn)” - the central figure of this painting.
The painting tackles issues of assimilation, conversion and the often terrible consequences for Jews.
The painting is presented as a contemplation of death from a child's perspective akin to Peter Pan's
'awfully big adventure.' The sadness of death contrasts with the peaceful content of the child's paradise.
Mahler, a Jew who converted to Roman Catholicism in order to secure the job of director of the Court
Opera in Vienna, is portrayed as the nursery rhyme character ‘the cat and the fiddle’, innocently playing
for child victims of the Holocaust.
Gustav Mahler & The Youth's Magic Horn (A Child's View of Heaven)
2006, Oil on Canvas, 48" h x 84" w
2006, Oil on Canvas, 48" h x 84" w
