Adolf Wölfli's Medical Faculty (1905). Photo courtesy of the American Folk Art Museum

You can look at the art of Adolf Wölfli (1863-1930) on many levels. Beautiful, intricate, complex, sophisticated, layered, metaphorical, and spiritual are all descriptive adjectives. But you cannot regard it even briefly without asking major questions about life's meaning. You see, Wölfli, diagnosed as schizophrenic at the age of 31, spent his remaining 35 years incarcerated in what was then known as a mental (or, even, lunatic) asylum near Bern, Switzerland. (Today it is known as the Psychiatric University Clinic.) Despite this--or perhaps because of it--he went on to produce over 29,000 pages of text, and several thousand drawings, paintings, and collages.

On the one hand, we can regard this as a tragedy; on the other, as a triumph of the human spirit, and the healing power of a life in art. Orphaned at an early age, Wölfli was forced as a child to work as an itinerant farm laborer for abusive landowners, managing, despite the odds, to complete a formal education by the age of 15. He continued this manner of work for many years. But his lonely existence, compounded by a star-crossed love affair, impelled him to behave in increasingly antisocial ways. After unsuccessful attempts to molest young girls, he was first jailed and then hospitalized. At Waldau Mental Hospital, Wölfli was fortunate enough to meet a psychiatrist, Walter Morgenthaler (1883-1965), who took an interest in the artistic work he had been doing since his arrival. Previous doctors had merely tolerated what they termed Wölfli's stupid output, but Morgenthaler encouraged him, providing him with colored pencils and paper, and eventually documenting much of the artist's work.

The Herdsman-Rose of Australia (1911). Photo courtesy of the American Folk Museum

Wölfli's art falls into three main categories: his early drawings from 1904-1907; "brotkunst" or bread art, made throughout his career, literally to sell; and five bodies of narrative book works.

The present exhibition, the largest ever of Wölfli's art, is arranged chronologically. Its overall title, "St. Adolf-Giant-Creation," refers to his five-part magnum opus, consisting of books with text, drawings, and collages. The first book, From the Cradle to the Grave, is an imaginary autobiography. This is followed by Geographic and Algebraic Books, Books With Songs and Dances, Album Books With Dances and Marches, and The Funeral March.

The exhibit begins on the fourth floor of the museum, with early pencil drawings done on newsprint. Although he couldn't travel, Wölfli was given magazines, which clearly fueled his imagination. Among the landscapes and inventive fantasies are strange depictions of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the Hotel Windsor in New York, made in 1905. Equally bizarre and inexplicable is a drawing of the same year, titled Medical Faculty. It bears no resemblance to a building, but consists instead of a giant butterfly shape set phantasmagorically, as if in jewels, among semi-symmetrically placed decorative borders. Carl Jung, who later owned this and two other early drawings, suggested that the type of mandala shapes used by the artist could be viewed as helpful for the relief of chaotic states. Several of the drawings also include musical staves and notation, but these are thus far indecipherable and totally idiosyncratic.

A detail of The Heavenly Ladder (1915), from Book 13 of Geographic and Algebraic Books. Photo courtesy of the American Folk Art Museum

The third floor continues with more imagery from his fantasy autobiography, From the Cradle to the Grave. In his mind, the artist traveled all over the world, seeing weird and wondrous sights and meeting marvelous people. Places range from a Dragon Rock and Bridge in China, to Cambridge, England, to the Amazon and beyond. And among the people are an air pilot, a railway engineer, and the fanciful "Her Princely Grace Princess Olivia and His Princely Highness Prince Evian," as well as the "Herdsman-Rose of Australia." This last character, perhaps a self-portrait, wears a kind of skirt and boots and has a cross on top of his head. This is topped by a sort of halo and surrounded by multiple petals or peacock-like feathers, which metamorphose into barred windows, eventually with a face behind the bars.

The second floor continues the saga. The Heavenly Ladder (1915), from Book 13 of Geographic and Algebraic Books, is emblematic of many. A strangely garbed figure in a dark blue, short dress stands with large legs and stylish looking boots, holding onto the rung of a ladder. Surrounding the figure and central ladder are quadrants with other figures, a huge border of musical notation, and decorative stripes and repeated geometric shapes. All the figures are androgynous, with crosses on their heads. Is this Jacob's ladder? Fellow inmates? St. Adolf, Wölfli, himself, apotheosizing into heaven? Wölfli sometimes referred to himself as a composer, and most of the works are covered with his unique musical notation, as well as Swiss-German writing.

After taking in the entire exhibition and thereby sharing the artist's life, I had to ask myself, what drives a person to create so prolifically and fiercely? What does life mean, lived in an asylum? Was this necessarily a bad thing? Wasn't it a bit like an artist colony for Wölfli, providing him with all he needed? Was his life a better or worse one than he would have lived outside of the institution? What if he had been cured? What if? What if? Wölfli's world makes us think of Calderon's 17th-century play Life Is a Dream and Pirandello's modern Six Characters in Search of an Author. We ask ourselves, what is real, and what is a dream? Is life a dream, indeed?

Wölfli saw himself as a great artist--and he was. He predicted that his art would some day be worth millions, and he was right. So, what is it all about, anyway, and where does one go when one knows no limits and has no concept of correctness? Yes, you will find yourself asking question after question but, at the same time, vicariously enjoying the artist's imagined adventures, and his absolutely glorious art.

"St. Adolf-Giant-Creation: The Art of Adolf Wölfli" is on view through May 18 at the American Folk Art Museum, located at 45 West 53rd Street. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; it is closed on Monday.

Art historian Greta Berman has been on the liberal arts faculty since 1979.