Category: Projects

MONOLITHS

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

 Monoliths is an ongoing collection of separate artworks on seasons and time containing: Neoplatonic, Memoria Technika (5 images), Capsula: Young Lovers, Capsula: Cistern, Tabes, Currere I, Currere II, Concanate I, Concanate II, Esker, Luna Cascade, Anaphora, Omniscient, Under the Sun, 30seconds of Lake Michigan, Melody, Undulation.

 

NEOPLATONIC, 2018, Film exposures digitally joined. Limited Edition of 25: 50 x 35 cm. Limited edition of 8: 70 cm x 45 cm.

 

 

MEMORIA TECHNICA, 2015 – 2017, a series of 5 monolithic images, sizes vary, recent exhibition of the monoliths measured 90,64 x 180 cm ( 35,68 x 70,87 in ), Film exposures realized as seasons, axiomatically marking the vertical landscape in relationship with the human body in magnetic resonance imaging. Reflected and refracted rays form a curvature filled and hollowed by literary translation of tactile qualities associated with the four seasons. The monolith as markers in chronoception – the sense and perception of passage through time.

 

 

 

CAPSULA: YOUNG LOVERS, 2017, Film exposures arranged as a horizontal monolith. 

 

 

CAPSULA: CISTERNS, 2017, Film exposures arranged as a horizontal monolith. 

 

 

TABES, 2017, Four Film exposures digitally joined. 

 

 

CURRERE I, 2016, Film exposures digitally merged as a monolith. 

Limited Edition of 25: 35 x 50 cm ( 14 x 20 in ) Limited Edition of 8: 44 x 70 cm ( 43.7 x 59.5 in )

The Print Ateliér represents this artwork (external link).

 

 

CURRERE II, 2016, Film exposures digitally merged as a monolith.

Limited Edition of 25: 35 x 50 cm ( 14 x 20 in ) Limited Edition of 8: 44 x 70 cm ( 43.7 x 59.5 in )

The Print Ateliér represents this artwork (external link).

 

 

 

CURRERE, 2016, Film exposure. 

Limited Edition of 25: 35 x 50 cm  ( 13.6 x 20 in ). Limited Edition of 8: 70 x 45 cm  ( 27.213 x 40 in )

The Print Ateliér represents this artwork (external link).

 

 

CONCATENATE I, 2016, Film exposures digitally joined. 

 

 

CONCATENATE II, 2016, Film exposures digitally joined. 

 

 

 

LUNA CASCADE, 2016, Film exposures digitally joined, Edition of 25: 37.6 x  50.8 cm ( 14.8  x 20 in ), Edition of 8:  74.9 x 101.2 cm ( 29.5 x 39.83 in ) The artwork can be printed on various art papers, etched in glass, sublimation printed on textile or woven in fabric. Contact the artist for custom size and exhibition inquiries. The Print Ateliér represents this artwork (external link).

 

 

ESKER, 2016, Film exposures digitally joined. 

The Print Ateliér represents this artwork (external link).

 

 

ANAPHORA, 2015, film images printed on single surface, 103,91 x 84,79cm (40,91 x 33,38in). 

The Print Ateliér represents this artwork (external link).

 

 

OMNISCIENT, 2015, 101.6cm x 304.8cm ( 40 x 120 in ), monolithic image and text: A monument of future history. The image stands as a totem for the change in social structure toward the wisdom of water. Water emerges as the discourse for the emotional body. The emotional body serving as the pathway for the wisdom of intuition. In the new world, emotional suppression as poverty and polluted waters cease through the cleansing of pain into ecstatic expression. Responsibility for water comes through the reverence of its high wisdom. Sacred in the new society, water is respected, protected, cherished and shared freely among people to create humane societies upon all lands. A reverence for water solidifies the respect and preservation of the emotional body constituting a humane society for humans to exist in.

 

 

UNDER THE SUN, 2015, 5 image panel, overall size 215 x 71 cm ( 85 x 28 in ), Film exposures arranged as a horizontal monolith as turns on time. Vertical images mark points of the sun in relationship with a blank journal and vision of the viewer. Perception of positive and negative spaces, curvature, shadow, mark a sense of perception of passage through time.

 

 

30seconds of Lake Michigan, 2015, triptych, images on acrylic panel, overall size 215 x 71 cm ( 85 x 28 in ), Film exposures arranged as film. The horizon shifts to create the sense the viewer is standing on boat. This is one of the artworks close to the immediacy of presence in the temporal qualities of lived experience and memory. When mounted in space or on a wall, light passes through the images and create a shadow of the plane behind the image.

 

 

MELODY, 2014, 5 image panel, overall size 215 x 71 cm ( 85 x 28 in ), Film exposures arranged as film strip. 

 

 

UNDULATION, 2014, diptych, Film exposures, 104 x 85 cm (40.9 x 33.4 in) Accumulated layers of frozen water exposed on film and arranged into a formal diptych. The work is one in the ongoing series: Monoliths. The artwork can be printed on various art papers, etched in glass, sublimation printed on textile or woven in fabric. Contact the artist for custom size and exhibition inquiries.

 

 

PATTERN RECOGNITION

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

 

PATTERN RECOGNITION METHOD, (teaching and artistic process), meditation, drawing, movement, writing, video. This method began developing from 2014/2015 through 2021 and is protected by intellectual property rights; for interest, permissions of usage, contact: rachel@rachelwolfe.com

A process for multiple applications: art making, teaching and workshops, psychology and counsel. Pattern Recognition was built alongside artistic research projects Solfége Souche, Afjordance, and Magnetics In-Material. Pattern Recognition Projects apply principles and ideas in John Haugeland’s book on Artificial Intelligence through methods of learning through doing. Designed to develop critical thinking skills while forming healthy relationships and understandings with terrains and temporality, the methods can serve as means for new connections and realisations with the practitioner. Pattern Recognition is involved with the field of Embodied Cognition. The Pattern Recognition projects work dynamically with memory, behavior, lineage, choices, and agency with individuals through the Vision and Body Relationship, including coordination and motor skill development. There are presently 6 Segments developed in this method with the realisations including workshop/student experience and professional artistic work.

 

 

 

 

SEGMENT ONE

The first step is to experience a sensitised exploration of the environment. Through meditation and movement to go into contact with intuition. The intuition guides the gathering of materials from the environment.

 

 

SEGMENT TWO

The second step is to draw materials from the environment. Following an axial rotation similar to the scientifically reported rotation of the earth, the faces (planes) of the dimensional materials are drawn. In this example, drawings were made, the tracings make the under-layers visible on the new top layers of tracings. The concept is to make the impressions of the dynamic modes of axial rotation visible. The practice brings awareness to the memory and sensory ways a visible detail can fade in visibility but remain within the under-layers.

 

 

 

SEGMENT THREE

The third step is involves Visual and Somatic Memory. The lines drawn in the previous exercise are performed as body movements. Exercises are practiced independently, leaving room for personal interpretation. A group environment affords the opportunity to coordinate independent movements into a group arrangement of movements. Records of these practices are used for reflection and to witness development of reflexive awareness over time.

 

 

SEGMENT FOUR

To experience nature and nurture concept of impression and transference, two transferrable materials are used with water and pigment. Other materials can be useful. For the sake of providing an example, gouache paintings with two pieces of paper follow 2 different impulse. 1 impulse to paint from memory. The 2nd impulse to paint from a photo.

To look at the difference between making something look like something else or using memory (embodied sense of experience) – the gouache painting exercise was carried out by making compositions based on memories of witnessing detailed areas of water flow, and composing paintings based on looking at a photograph. Viewers could immediately see the difference.

The gouache paintings were done on the “wrong side” of Japanese Washi paper, to transfer the pigments onto acid-free, black papers. The pigments left traces similar to the way a memory becomes a trace of lived experience or ways communication of forms become transferred onto what is underneath or nearby.

In addition to discerning difference in how forms are made by hand from referencing external or internal referents, is also considering the process of transfer. As the original can become a symbol for reading-as reading a book or remembering a book, the paint transferred to the surface under becomes the information absorbed.

 

 

 

 

SEGMENT FIVE

A mirroring exercise, completed with language and/or illustration. By writing a letter in reverse, to see how it appears through a material and in a mirror. The practice is based on the mechanics of a single-reflex camera and the way the eye perceives reality directly which is then flipped in the brain. This practice develops understanding of communication and the two-way nature of the way read symbols are transmitted and interpreted.

 

 

SEGMENT SIX

A relational exercise, completed with vision, drawing, space and relating. Participants have each a drawing tool and paper. They interlock arms and being to draw a portrait of the other simultaneously. While drawing the awareness of space, cooperation, coordination, patience and additional soft qualities are activated. After the process is complete, a portrait reveal and discussion follows the activity. This practice develops understanding of the dynamic relating skills people engage with their vision and experience of reality. 

 

SEGMENT SEVEN

 

The method builds a process to be performed. The activity can be performed as a solo, duo, or in a group organisation. There is no limit to the number of participants, only that the processes are done a priori to the perfuming of the lines and learnings with the body. The next two segments can be one or the other, or both of them. The performance is to be recorded. The performance can be done in private or to an audience.

 

 

POST: PERFORMATIVE SEGMENTS

Based on the recorded performances, there can be used intersections of A.I. research, algorithmic sound composition, witness/viewer feedback. Through the performances the memories of the performer are recorded and reflected. The aim is to not procure an echo chamber or simply encouragement of future performace, but to engage in a process of understanding lines between fiction and reality. With regards to intelligent technologies, subjects of agency, lineage, and space for all stories and perspectives is aimed for the realm of tolerance and expansion. This questions the validity of violence, even subtle violence, as a form of ignorance while also engaging in the questions about integrity and vulnerability such that an individual does not lose their personal agency or embodies other people’s ideas- but rather is allowed to have their own.

The following documentation highlights the use of technology for feedback review.

 

SOLFEGE SOUCHE

 

 

AFJORDANCE 

 

 

 

 

TEXTILE SEGMENTS

 

Based on visual records of geological data from magnetic resonances created by rocks in places of the earth and radiation, the data is used to create textiles. These textiles are used for tapestries, scenography, costumes. The working title for the Textile Segments are: Magnetics In-Material and are intended to engage in material and resources research.

This segment weaves aesthetic movements from the perspective of earth’s history. A history informed by geological time and now amalgamated from technological sensors. This history has the potential to be conflated as human history but remains also problematic as the machine sensor differs so widely from the bodied sensors.

Magnetic emanations from the earth are woven to form visual representations. The textiles create an earth-based narrative from a geological perspective of time. Demarcated by textures and colours woven based on the recordings from the earth, the invisible forces from within the earth become Visual, Sensual (tactile), and Actual (woven). The textiles reveal understandings in human relationships with nature and present iterative opportunities to make textile(s) of the magnetic records at a variety of sites. Potential themes could be, but not limited to, locations of cultural and historical significance such as shrines, pilgrimage routes, or political and humanitarian organisations such as NATO and UNESCO.

 

 

 

MAKING SENSE

https://rachelwolfe.com/making-sense/

The foundation of this research is based on the graduate research project for MFA at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California (2015). Making Sense dealt with the way memory, temporality, liminal space are navigated by the body, and the various ways senses and affect can alter reality to create fantasy or be used as a tool to bring about clarity.  The research took up obscured stories from WWII history in the development of imaging technologies. The apparatus and history of photography proved to be a ripe area with often looked over nuances useful for agency and understanding.

 

 

 

 

SECURITY BLANKET (TROUBLEWEED)

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

 

Installation with Security blanket (troubleweed), 2015, installation, Bolsky Gallery, Los Angeles, California, traveling object. Materials: Photographic print on bathing towel (troubleweed), wooden monkey, dried roses, clear plexi, twine, golden clamps, cotton bags of salt labeled “take me.” A few left with visitors to the exhibition.

 

The installation explores symbolic and literal functions of narrative. Symbolic objects specifically arranged to materialise ideas, or cognitive “things”: Boundary, Grief, Security, Transparency, and Choice.

Troubleweed (photographic print on bathing towel) was sent via USPS & photographed by artists, continuing the installations thematic elements: Trust, Transparency, Choice, Cooperation, Resource. The tumbleweed, as an associated symbol of the western desert, found its way into the Los Angeles River during a drought. During a time of environmental drought, the representation of a prickly ball on a soft surface continued to travel across the United States, depicted by artists in their location and within the relationship of their praxis of art and ways of living.

The traveling Troubleweed bathing towel looks at the question: Can an inanimate object traveling through space and time, via the interdependent wills of artists offer insight into the values which constitute a nation?  

After the installation transformed into an ongoing body of work, the archive became an accumulation of bodies of labor, in the time of the internet, where communication and the quality of sincerity is questioned to exist and critiqued as sentimental. The travel archive and final resting place of the work, extends the original metaphor and metaphysical propositions of the original installation.

There were no time constraints on the project. The premise of not having a time constraint looks at the line or levy of personal will. The USPS, once carried by horse and now by horse power and machine sorting assistants, still require the human as critical points within a functional system. The project works as an aggregate of an experiment. At each destination, the towel encounters photographic documentation. The act of imaging as a personal motive and labor are made as free choice.

As much as records provide proof, the archive seeks to underline the existence of motives rooted in: care, play, trust, and free-will, within systems of commodity and capital. Connecting people across Time (zones) and Space (geography), factors often considered to destroy human bonds, the Troubleweed bathing towel project reveal the peculiar value ascribed to an inanimate object is not in the object itself, but in the intangible values that constitute its traverse through Space and Time. As Douglas Adams once described in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.

In 2020 the Troubleweed bathing towel, hitchhiked through the labors of artists, found its resting place in Santa Rosa, California, where the towel found a home. Alas the story inevitably continues, though outside the parameters of surveillance the record of archives the traveling component of this work imposed .  

 

 

Original film image of an Ojai tumbleweed in the Los Angeles River at Culver City.

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel photographed as hypothetical bathing towel at Bygdøy Sjobad, Oslo, Norway, 2016.

 

 

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Mark Uhalley, Los Angeles, California, 2017. Mark’s Vimeo channel.

 

 

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Bryan Bankston, Richmond, Texas, 2017. Bryan’s Photography page on Facebook.

 

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Stephanie Larson, Fort Myers, Florida, 2017. @wellspringwonder

 

 

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Christina Song, Chicago, Illinois, 2017. @softycreamy

 

 

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Maggie Meiners, 2017. @maggiemeinersphotography

 

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Justine Genevieve Bianco, Palo Alto, 2017.

 

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Brett Manning, Royal Center, Indiana, 2018.

Brett’s Instagram & Etsy Shoppe.

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Maren’s Celest, Chicago, Illinois, 2018.

Maren’s Instagram and her new album on Spotify.

 

 

 

 

Troubleweed bathing towel by Yulia Morris, Los Angeles, California, 2019. Yulia’s Instagram.

 

 

 

FINAL RESTING PLACE

Troubleweed bathing towel by artist Peter Alan, Santa Rosa, California, 2020.

 

 

POWER PLANTS PIANO 2015

Posted on by Rachel Wolfe

POWER PLANTS PIANO, 2015, Installation, Culver City, CA. “Death of the Artist” installation involving: Blue paint, two square mirrors, 8 potted palms, 7 potted mums, tree bench covered in epoxy, Casio piano on stand, skylight. Note: Play the video with sound on to receive the “that’s too real” conversation. A writing and HC Andersen story follow the mobile phone video documentation.

 

 

What does “artist” mean? There was a time it means becoming incredibly skilled and creating something deemed valuable. Thanks to pre and post modern theorists, authors created the ability to think about the structure of life based on a multitude of awarenesses. During the last several decades, the demand for Master degrees as a certification to be eligible to teach or attain certain jobs, created an identifiable social phenomena: artist as identifiable myth. The story of where the artist came from, how that is tied their practice (as if in a perpetual state of never becoming a professional), is not only assumed to be the way for an artist to carve out a career but if a person making art goes against it, they may be cast aside from the “canon.”

 

In this perspective, art became both advertising and war. Instead of a ballistic material, the art object becomes a transitory object of the artists’ identity. The notion “anything can be art” opened up the field of art so much as to making anyone who questioned the blatant obtuseness of artist productions subject to being labelled in a sociologically negative way. Labels such as “rural”, “dull”, “unsophisticated”, became backed up by a strange blend of European philosophies, the Europeans themselves did not understand. This canon as often marked as having virtue by being related to the prestigious Frankfurt School, tactically warned even describing the obvious nature of what is going on would be cast out (perhaps expelled by the institution receiving cash or federal loan money), and if not then, then cast out of further legitimised work opportunities.

 

This idealogical apparatus became increasingly apparent as social media and the internet found ways to weaponise media. As every body with a mobile computer device became an unprofessional videographer, photographer, podcaster, editor, reporter or journalist, the space between abject emotional experiences to public viewership collapsed. Instead of clarity, a period of confusion arose. The obtuseness of “art” and the silencing nature of “ssshhhh, you shalt not speak unless degreed” created a scenario as Tom Wolfe writes in The Painted Word. A bit of a complicated version of the children’s story, The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen; in other words the emperor had no clothes on and no one dared say.

 

Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, sent forth the notion the author is not the matter in the book. The reader takes from the signs on the page and imagines scenes and recreates a story that may or may not be related to the authors intention. The focus on the nuances in temporality may lose the attention of some readers yet clarifies an important aspect into the way the idea an artists’ history and identity is taken up by society. Artist then becomes some kind of signifier of class or virtue; which sucks out all the air from the post-modernist idealism of agency, authorship, freedom  because in post-modern ideals there is no objective truth or reality, and technology and scientific are merely avenues for power. The logos of post modernism becomes a logic unto itself, a closed loop or solipsism. This monocle with which to see the world simultaneously promises rewards (work or income, food and housing) while disregarding and disposing of the bodies and identities used. In this way, artists and their works become stones at which gallerists and societies throw stones at the other. 

 

In this exhibition, a wall is painted blue; an aqua reminiscent of the colour chosen as the painted bottom of a pool, or the backdrop in a butterfly enclosure. 8 Palms are lined in their shipped pots, spaced with 7 chrysanthemums, sided by a log bench, and an electric piano facing the audience of plants. Two mirrors in the corner of the enclosure, reflected sunlight during a specific window of time the sunlight cut into the roof of the building by the artist inhabiting the space prior to the current installation. (Perhaps viewers would draw meaning from these refracted lights or maybe they would not). The piano was left plugged in and on, and was played by whoever wished to. Instead of a pianist, or a painter, or a performer, the viewers became the witness to the Death of the Artist. While the elements in the room were chosen somewhat autobiographically, the awareness such identity really did not matter. As the exhibition was situated in the graduate exhibition event for the college, in Los Angeles a city noted for a wave of artists working in Institutional Critique, it would not be until several years (nearly a decade later), the work would be written about. 

 

 

The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen

Many, many years ago there was an emperor who was so terribly fond of beautiful new clothes that he spent all his money on his attire. He did not care about his soldiers, or attending the theatre, or even going for a drive in the park, unless it was to show off his new clothes. He had an outfit for every hour of the day. And just as we say, “The king is in his council chamber,” his subjects used to say, “The emperor is in his clothes closet.”

In the large town where the emperor’s palace was, life was gay and happy; and every day new visitors arrived. One day two swindlers came. They told everybody that they were weavers and that they could weave the most marvellous cloth. Not only were the colours and the patterns of their material extraordinarily beautiful, but the cloth had the strange quality of being invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office or unforgivably stupid.

“This is truly marvellous,” thought the emperor. “Now if I had robes cut from that material, I should know which of my councillors was unfit for his office, and I would be able to pick out my clever subjects myself. They must weave some material for me!” And he gave the swindlers a lot of money so they could start working at once.

They set up a loom and acted as if they were weaving, but the loom was empty. The fine silk and gold threads they demanded from the emperor they never used, but hid them in their own knapsacks. Late into the night they would sit before their empty loom, pretending to weave.

“I would like to know how far they’ve come,” thought the emperor; but his heart beat strangely when he remembered that those who were stupid or unfit for their office would not be able to see the material. Not that he was really worried that this would happen to him. Still, it might be better to send someone else the first time and see how he fared. Everybody in town had heard about the cloth’s magic quality and most of them could hardly wait to find out how stupid or unworthy their neighbours were.

“I shall send my faithful prime minister to see the weaver,” thought the emperor. “He will know how to judge the material, for he is both clever and fit for his office, if any man is.”

The good-natured old man stepped into the room where the weavers were working and saw the empty loom. He closed his eyes, and opened them again. “God preserve me!” he thought. “I cannot see a thing!” But he didn’t say it out loud.

The swindlers asked him to step a little closer so that he could admire the intricate patterns and marvellous colours of the material they were weaving. They both pointed to the empty loom, and the poor old prime minister opened his eyes as wide as he could; but it didn’t help, he still couldn’t see anything.

“Am I stupid?” he thought. “I can’t believe it, but if it is so, it is best no one finds out about it. But maybe I am not fit for my office. No, that is worse, I’d better not admit that I can’t see what they are weaving.”

“Tell us what you think of it,” demanded one of the swindlers.

“It is beautiful. It is very lovely,” mumbled the old prime minister, adjusting his glasses. “What patterns! What colours! I shall tell the emperor that I am greatly pleased.”

“And that pleases us,” the weavers said; and now they described the patterns and told which shades of colour they had used. The prime minister listened attentively, so that he could repeat their words to the emperor, and that is exactly what he did.

The two swindlers demanded more money, and more silk and gold thread. They said they had to use it for their weaving, but their loom remained as empty as ever.

Soon the emperor sent another of his trusted councillors to see how the work was progressing. He looked and looked just as the prime minister had, but since there was nothing to be seen, he didn’t see anything.

“Isn’t it a marvellous piece of material?” asked one of the swindlers; and they both began to describe the beauty of their cloth again.

“I am not stupid,” thought the emperor’s councillor. “I must be unfit for my office. That is strange; but I’d better not admit it to anyone.” And he started to praise the material, which he could not see, for the loveliness of its patterns and colours.

“I think it is the most charming piece of material I have ever seen,” declared the councillor to the emperor.

Everyone in town was talking about the marvellous cloth that the swindlers were weaving.

At last the emperor himself decided to see it before it was removed from the loom. Attended by the most important people in the empire, among them the prime minister and the councillor who had been there before, the emperor entered the room where the weavers were weaving furiously on their empty loom.

“Isn’t it magnifique?” asked the prime minister.

“Your Majesty, look at the colours and patterns,” said the councillor. And the two old gentlemen pointed to the empty loom, believing that all the rest of the company could see the cloth.

“What!” thought the emperor. “I can’t see a thing! Why, this is a disaster! Am I stupid? Am I unfit to be emperor? Oh, it is too horrible!” Aloud he said, “It is very lovely. It has my approval,” while he nodded his head and looked at the empty loom.

All the councillors, ministers, and men of great importance who had come with him stared and stared; but they saw no more than the emperor had seen, and they said the same thing that he had said, “It is lovely.” And they advised him to have clothes cut and sewn, so that he could wear them in the procession at the next great celebration.

“It is magnificent! Beautiful! Excellent!” All of their mouths agreed, though none of their eyes had seen anything. The two swindlers were decorated and given the title “Royal Knight of the Loom.”

The night before the procession, the two swindlers didn’t sleep at all. They had sixteen candles lighting up the room where they worked. Everyone could see how busy they were, getting the emperor’s new clothes finished. They pretended to take cloth from the loom; they cut the air with their big scissors, and sewed with needles without thread. At last they announced: “The emperor’s new clothes are ready!”

Together with his courtiers, the emperor came. The swindlers lifted their arms as if they were holding something in their hands, and said, “These are the trousers. This is the robe, and here is the train. They are all as light as if they were made of spider webs! It will be as if Your Majesty had almost nothing on, but that is their special virtue.”

“Oh yes,” breathed all the courtiers; but they saw nothing, for there was nothing to be seen.

“Will Your Imperial Majesty be so gracious as to take off your clothes?” asked the swindlers. “Over there by the big mirror, we shall help you put your new ones on.”

The emperor did as he was told; and the swindlers acted as if they were dressing him in the clothes they should have made. Finally they tied around his waist the long train which two of his most noble courtiers were to carry.

The emperor stood in front of the mirror admiring the clothes he couldn’t see.

“Oh, how they suit you! A perfect fit!” everyone exclaimed. “What colours! What patterns! The new clothes are magnificent!”

“The crimson canopy, under which Your Imperial Majesty is to walk, is waiting outside,” said the imperial master of court ceremony.

“Well, I am dressed. Aren’t my clothes becoming?” The emperor turned around once more in front of the mirror, pretending to study his finery.

The two gentlemen of the imperial bedchamber fumbled on the floor trying to find the train which they were supposed to carry. They didn’t dare admit that they didn’t see anything, so they pretended to pick up the train and held their hands as if they were carrying it.

The emperor walked in the procession under his crimson canopy. And all the people of the town, who had lined the streets or were looking down from the windows, said that the emperor’s new clothes were beautiful. “What a magnificent robe! And the train! How well the emperor’s clothes suit him!”

None of them were willing to admit that they hadn’t seen a thing; for if anyone did, then he was either stupid or unfit for the job he held. Never before had the emperor’s clothes been such a success.

“But he doesn’t have anything on!” cried a little child.

“Listen to the innocent one,” said the proud father. And the people whispered among each other and repeated what the child had said.

“He doesn’t have anything on. There’s a little child who says that he has nothing on.”

“He has nothing on!” shouted all the people at last.

The emperor shivered, for he was certain that they were right; but he thought, “I must bear it until the procession is over.” And he walked even more proudly, and the two gentlemen of the imperial bedchamber went on carrying the train that wasn’t there.