The Prints and Drawings Department at the Swiss National Library owns a comprehensive collection of posters that play with the Swiss foundational myth of Wilhelm Tell in various ways. This trove of serious, comical, artistic and comic, moralizing and political posters (and the some 150 images provided in the book) is dealt with for the first time in Mechthild Heuser's contribution set to the backdrop of Schiller's Wilhelm Tell. Other art historical essays approach the topic of Tell as well as the myth of Switzerland in general, by focusing on painting, graphics, architecture and photography. Tell in literature - from Schiller via Jeremias Gotthelf up to Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Gertrud Leutenegger, Charles-Albert Cingria or Otto Marchi - is just as much a target as Tell's exploits in folk music; even including exploring the meaning of Tell on the psychiatrist's couch.
Tell in Focus. Mechthild Heuser and Irmgard Wirtz, publishers. Publishing house Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich. 396 pages including some 200 color and black and white images, with foldout (CHF 48, ISBN 978-3-85881-202-5).
To order: info@nb.admin.ch (including postage and handling); directly at the reception for the Swiss National Library, Hallwylstrasse 15, Berne (no credit cards please) or at your local bookstore.
Last modification 16.11.2007
