How does an artist depict the human spirit’s journey? The Austrian Baha’i artist Claus Mayrhofer, who adopted the artist’s name Barabbas, attempted to do just that throughout his career.

Barabbas was an extreme individualist in his work as a painter. No art historian has been able to assign him or his work to one of the existing art movements.

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Born in Vienna, a cosmopolitan city known for producing unique works for centuries in music, painting, and science, Barabbas was fascinated by the avant-garde jazz scene there as a young man. In 1967, he became a Baha’i, and the principles of his faith were reflected in his impressive paintings.

In 1986, Barabbas moved to Bali, where he spent three years as part of a UNESCO transcultural exchange program sponsored by the Ministry of Education, working with Udayana University in Denpasar. He then moved to Australia, where he lived in Bendigo until his death in 2009. He was also a member of the Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’i community in the greater Bendigo area. Barabbas’s visual work has been shown in 45 exhibitions in Australia, Germany, France, and Austria.

What inspired Barabbas and made his paintings so unique? Let him speak for himself from his diary entry dated November 22, 1990:

From the beginning, my painting had nothing to do with pop art, psychedelic art, etc. My painting developed through my engagement with the carvings of the Papuans on the Sepik (River), with Maori tattoos and with Hundertwasser. I also immersed myself in the art of Gauguin — who directed my attention to the Pacific region — Kandinsky, Kupka, Paul Klee and Klimt.

Barabbas worked as an artist in an extremely individualistic realm, in which Native American folk art, the magic of the Orient, the primitive, fairy-tale quality of the naive, as well as abstraction and pop art, all flowed in. As he himself emphasized, Barabbas was concerned with the “timeless capture of the unmeasurable,” for which he coined the term Overground in the 1960s. For him, Overground meant a counterpoint to “underground” — signifying subtle spirituality, unity in art, and the desire to integrate this artistic inspiration into all areas of human life.

Berthold Ecker, art historian and curator of modern art at the Vienna Museum, described Barabbas as the most paradigmatic Austrian painter of the 1960s and 1970s, saying that his art reveals a powerful, thoughtful, and consistently developed body of work in which playful lightness and the primal power of the forces of nature are in a tense exchange.

The Baha’i writings explicitly value art and our engagement in it very highly — as an expression of the spiritual. Abdu’l-Baha said:

All Art is a gift of the Holy Spirit. When this light shines through the mind of a musician, it manifests itself in beautiful harmonies. Again, shining through the mind of a poet, it is seen in fine poetry and poetic prose. When the Light of the Sun of Truth inspires the mind of a painter, he produces marvellous pictures. These gifts are fulfilling their highest purpose, when showing forth the praise of God.

While Barabbas initially painted small-format pictures, in the 1970s, his attention turned to the creation of monumental, large-format works. In 1975, he created the 200 square meter painting “Big Bang,” also called “Genesis,” which is dedicated to the unity of humanity. It was exhibited in 1975 and 2013 in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. The realization of the unity of humanity, a coexistence of all people in peace and harmony, is one of the essential ethical principles of the Baha’i Faith. 

Barabbas symbolically depicted numerous Baha’i principles in this gigantic painting, whose rediscovery Gerhard F. Schweter described in his speech at the opening of the exhibition in the Vienna Künstlerhaus in 2013

The ’Big Bang’ had an extremely dramatic fate, and it is only thanks to the initiative of a few committed people that the monumental painting is hanging here at all. After its first exhibition in 1975, it was stored in the basement of the Künstlerhaus, was forgotten, did not appear in a later inventory and was rediscovered in 2011 thanks to the persistence of family members. So it was as good as gone for 36 years. This is not the only reason why it can be compared to Gustav Klimt’s ’Beethoven Frieze’ from 1902. In the extraordinary giant painting ’Big Bang’ we experience the painter Barabbas as a deeply heartfelt mystic and partly also as a romantic. He shows us a concrete utopia based on the writings of a new universal religion whose ultimate goal is the unity of humanity.

Today, Barabbas’s painting “Big Bang” is the property of the City of Vienna, displayed in the depot of the Vienna Museum.

Barabbas worked on the mammoth painting, as he called it, for three months. He later commented on it in a letter: 

You have to remember that I painted the giant picture like a scroll (from right to left), but never had more than five to seven meters of canvas in front of me to work on. In other words: what I had previously painted was rolled away so that I could continue working. 

Accordingly, the painting can be viewed as having three distinct parts: right, center, and left.

The Right Part of ‘Big Bang’

On the far right, Barabbas depicted the creation of the universe. Then man appears. His first cry is indicated in the stylized symbol of the sunflower, slightly to the right of the center, which represents the beginning of life. Further development is symbolized by the stylized representation of the formula of Einstein’s theory of relativity: E=mc². This is followed, in the left quarter, by a double figure walking forward, representing the dual nature of humans as both physical and spiritual beings.

The Middle Part of ‘Big Bang’

In the middle of the painting, the path of life leads through trials to the goal of the incomprehensible, depicted as the yellow light in the center. Without conscious effort, this journey of life into the light is not possible. First, we must climb the mountain of purifying our ego.

After passing spiritual tests and overcoming the mountain of the ego, the path continues through a gate — also a symbol for The Bab, Baha’u’llah’s herald and predecessor, whose name means the gate. This represents the birth of a new spiritual existence. Those who are not attached to worldly and material things, symbolized by the two pastel-colored sunflowers, show that only light and transparent beings can float through this gate.

Attracted by the light, the purified person immerses himself in the eternal mystery — the tabernacle, the proximity of the Creator. In the innermost core, emitting dazzling and radiant light, is the Baha’i symbol of the “Greatest Name:” “Ya Baha’u’l-Abha” — which, in English, means: “O Thou Glory of Glories,” and refers to the prophet and founder of the Baha’i Faith, Baha’u’llah. (This sacred symbol is not visible in most photographs and can only be seen in the original painting.)

This Baha’i message of the oneness of humanity refers to the beginning of an age of global unity. From this bright center, nine rays emanate in all directions. In a sense, the concept of the Big Bang is repeated here, but this time on a spiritual level — a new humanity is created, and the impetus is given for a further step in human evolution.

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The Left Part of ‘Big Bang’

In the “Big Bang,” everything begins anew from the center, and everything is in flux. The future leads to a new beginning, and a new world is created. The left side — the end of the picture — is actually not an end. The large, hanging yellow drops on the left side mean that the spiritual development of humanity continues and always will. Barabbas said: “Actually, the whole picture drips and runs from my longing heart. It is dedicated to the unity of humanity.”

Also, on the left side of the painting, on the way to the future, a house by a lake, mountains, and forest appears in an air bubble. On the far left of the painting, one of Baha’u’llah’s “Hidden Words” appears: “O Son of Man! Rejoice in the gladness of thine heart, that thou mayest be worthy to meet Me and to mirror forth My beauty.”

With this work, Barabbas wanted to depict the cycle of life and creation, full of intense colors like precious stones, along with the mysterious labyrinths where we can each go on an external and internal journey of discovery, indulge, dream, and find our true selves.

This essay was initially published at: https://www.perspektivenwechsel-blog.de/bahai-artikel/barabbas-kuenstler

(The rights to all images in this article belong to the author.)