Johfra Bosschart

About

Johfra Bosschart, born Franciscus Johannes Gijsbertus van den Berg on December 15, 1919, in Rotterdam, Netherlands, was a Dutch pioneer of surrealism and fantastic realism.[3][4] He adopted the pseudonym "JohFra" in 1945, using the first three letters of his first names in reverse order.[3] Much of his early life was spent in The Hague, where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts and showed great artistic abilities from a young age.[3] During World War II, most of his early work was destroyed, but after the war he was exposed to surrealist masters like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, and Max Ernst, whose influence shaped his distinctive style.[1][3] Bosschart described his work as "Surrealism based on studies of psychology, religion, the Bible, astrology, antiquity, magic, witchcraft, mythology and occultism."[4][6] Rather than painting fantasies, he viewed himself as mapping the invisible geography of the human soul through what he called "Fantastic Realism" or "Meta-realism"—rendering spiritual and psychological realities with the technical precision of a Dutch Old Master.[2] Heavily influenced by Carl Jung's psychology and Rosicrucian hermetic traditions, he believed that archetypal symbols worked as precise keys to the psyche.[2] In 1962, he and his wife Ellen Lórien established themselves in Fleurac, Dordogne, France, where they remained for the rest of his life.[4]

Surrealism, Fantastic Realism, Meta-realism, Occult Surrealism