Angel painting in Fire Walk With Me

[LostInTheMovies]

Does anyone know if this is an original prop created by Lynch or someone else, or if it's actually a reproduction of an older piece? Been talking with another Twin Peaks fan who thinks it might be an early 20th-century illustration. Would love to hear feedback on this - thanks! And if anyone can link to sources that would be great (unless the source is simply contact with the crew who confirmed it, of course).

[dugpa]

I asked Lynch this once and he responded that it was an existing work but he didn't remember the source.

I spent many hours trying to find this piece. I am guessing it may be artwork done for an old vintage Christmas card collection but again have never been able to track the source.

[wAtChLaR]

interesting timing

this person says Austria 1923 per his tweet:

https://twitter.com/prophit19701/status ... 2917173248

[LostInTheMovies]

interesting timing

this person says Austria 1923 per his tweet:

https://twitter.com/prophit19701/status ... 2917173248

I know, that's what inspired me to start this thread! He also sent me some really fascinating further thoughts & discussion on it. At this point looks like it's mostly educated guesswork; wondering if anyone has any concrete information on its source...

[LostInTheMovies]

I asked Lynch this once and he responded that it was an existing work but he didn't remember the source.

I spent many hours trying to find this piece. I am guessing it may be artwork done for an old vintage Christmas card collection but again have never been able to track the source.

Ah, thanks! For some reason I had initially suspected it was created for the film. But this is really, really interesting & also makes me wonder how it was found. Was it something that was stumbled upon and took a life of its own? Or was it more a situation where Lynch decided he wanted an angel picture and then searched out an appropriate one. (And obviously an artist would have needed to create an image of the picture without the angel for the "disappearance" scene.) I also always wonder when the decision was made to incorporate it since AFAIK there was no angel picture in the script.

[dugpa]

There was a story that Pheobe Augustine told around her initial reluctance to return due to the script being written with Ronette and Laura's fates being so bleak. As the story went a few days after discussing with Lynch, Pheobe received a telephone call while she was at the chiropractors office from Lynch informing her that her character would be receiving an Angel.

I won't speculate if it was her reluctance that brought the idea on but it could very well be that it did spark the idea.

[laughingpinecone]

And picture, if you will, the faces of the costuming department when they were asked (more or less last-minute, I presume) to provide two angel costumes, but like... kitsch. Fake. Reeeal fake. Worst-looking wings you can manage without actually making a cardboard cutout. When in doubt, reference this Austrian painting from the Twenties.

[dugpa]

Then also throw a pair of monkeys in there...

[prophit]

Thanks to Richard Marcum for the productive Facebook exchange that led to much of this material;
and to James of Obnoxious & Anonymous for starting a search with me 14 years ago.



Closest match - unnamed artist.


Compare: angel wings; and girl's features


Certainly the same artist


Compare toy cars and carpets.

The car in Laura's picture only shows up in a very orange shot, which is why the bottom row of her picture looks that way in my full-length version.

Hypothesis: Illustrators draw their own furniture. Like the neighbor kids, their own furniture is immediately at hand, available, free to be used in the art.


I am fairly certain these are not American furniture designs.


Finally, a potential name: Zabateri
http://www.akpool.co.uk/postcards/24084 ... cke-kinder


It turns out that Zabateri was one of several names used by the artist Hans Zatzka.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Zatzka#Artwork

Google image search for: Hans Zatzka Zabateri Bernard

Some thoughts:
- clothes and hair point to the year.
- An angel, rather than their mother, feeding children in the 1920's in Europe
suggests to me that they are orphans of The Great War.
- the distant background is fascinating, very uncommon, a sophisticated misty landscape.
- Is this a composite? I go back and forth.

The picture is a series of planes: the cat on the seat; the girl; the other figures and the table; the room; the landscape.


The career of German genre painter Wilhelm Menzler Casel 1846-1926 was decades too early - but look at those planes, the exploration of depth. That far distance reminds me of Laura's angel picture.


--------------------------------------------------------

That's most of the best of what I know; but also,
the two different versions of the picture without the angel.





I de-skewed and pasted one variation onto the other.


- Trichome

[N. Needleman]

I'm just excited to see Trichome. I remember lurking on alt.tv.tp when I was in high school.

[frahm9]

Outstanding research, prophit. I agree that the other examples must be by the same artist.

Not sure about Zatka though. He seems to have a better knowledge of perspective, and his painting has more contrast and detail.

[LostInTheMovies]

There was a story that Pheobe Augustine told around her initial reluctance to return due to the script being written with Ronette and Laura's fates being so bleak. As the story went a few days after discussing with Lynch, Pheobe received a telephone call while she was at the chiropractors office from Lynch informing her that her character would be receiving an Angel.

I won't speculate if it was her reluctance that brought the idea on but it could very well be that it did spark the idea.

This combined with Sheryl Lee's account - at the UK TP festival in 2014 - of repeatedly talking with Lynch about a more redemptive arc for her character makes me feel like her and Augustine played a huge role in this development. I wonder ifLynch running across this particular painting/illustration in a thrift store or book or something was the third ingredient.

From the sound of this anecdote,'it seems that the conversation took place before the production began, am I right? After the shooting script was solidified but before shooting began? I'm always so fascinated by the mysterious timeline of FWWM's development and the changes that took place.

[LostInTheMovies]

Loving this thread. So glad prophit transferred that research here.

[prophit]

Outstanding research, prophit. I agree that the other examples must be by the same artist.

Not sure about Zatka though. He seems to have a better knowledge of perspective, and his painting has more contrast and detail.

Zatzka painted under several pseudonyms: H. Zabateri, P. Ronsard, and J. Bernard.

Numerous leading art dealers from around the world that specialize in late 19th and early 20th century European genre paintings have come to the conclusion that the painter signing his works Bernard Zatzka, Joseph Bernard or J. Bernard is almost certainly the artist Hans Zatzka. The consensus seems quite plausible when comparing works known to have been executed by Hans Zatzka together with similar works displaying the signature; Joseph Bernard, J. Bernard or Bernard Zatzka.

The use of pseudonyms in the world of art was prevalent at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, particularly for painters working under contract with specific dealers and galleries. Rather than be limited by the amount of works they could sell under contract, painters would sign some of their works with a pseudonym. This allowed them to expand their sales base and avoid breaking their contractual agreements with their distributors.

source: Claudio Boltiansky, chief executive of Jan’s & Co. Fine French Antiques Inc. in South Los Angeles

Ronsard/Bernard/Zabateri/Zatzka played the artist's game, using different names to sell religious frescoes, boudoir postcards, and mythical fantasy art. He was a genius at his high academic style, and he could do less sophisticated work as well.

He kept his brands so clean and separate, art historians have not put his full story together. There is room for the angel postcards and Laura's picture to be by Zatzka... but I'm an amateur using Google images, not a professional art historian. Laura's angel could be the work of a student or follower, but I am certain we are chronologically, nationally, stylistically approaching the source.

Laura's picture is better than it needed to be, with those flowers and the distant view. It feels halfway between the postcards and Zatzka's high art.

- Trichome

[frahm9]

Agreed, whether it's him or someome very close.

Found an interesting article about it, have you come across it? http://www.wikiwand.com/de/Schutzengelbild