“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes it his instrument,” wrote Swiss psychiatrist and psycho-analyst Carl Jung.

While the arts intrigued 19th and 20th century European psychiatrists like Jung as a way to forge into the human mind, psychiatric theories of the time in turn spurred European artists to delve into their own minds, hearts, and souls to create works that expressed what they found there.

Hildegard Hein is a German artist whose aesthetic roots sprang from this fertile ground. She has been especially in-spired by Expressionist artists Egon Schiele of Austria and Horst Janssen of Germany whose works, like hers, portray strong emotions. Hein grew up in Hamburg, Germany, a bustling port city filled with museums and art galleries. She recently moved to Krempke, a small Medieval village. Her art is currently on display at the Galerie Gerd Uhlig in Germany.

Her art also is on display at the St. Anthony on the Desert website. The exhibit “Works from a German Village: The Art of Hildegard Hein” runs from Jan 1-30 (st-anthony.net/the-arts-council.html).

The influence of Hein’s favorite artists can be seen in “Self-Portrait.” Both Schiele, who died of the Spanish flu in the early 20th century, and Janssen, who died in 1995, shared German Expressionist styles and both were prolific in their own self-portraits. Like them, Hein uses lines to depict the emotion she feels at that very moment. Some of the lines distort, yet the real beauty is in the complexity of character portrayed in her face.

Hein’s landscapes, likewise, are influenced by Schiele’s. Like him, she uses a mixture of drawing, watercolor, gouache, pen and ink, and even crayon to achieve her visual effects. Like him, too, Hein’s Expressionistic lines and colors show her visceral reaction to the scene. “Yellow Sunrise,” for instance, depicts a field of bright yellow rapeseed, a common crop in Europe. She paints sheep that graze on it in peaceful, round shapes while round shapes repeat in the clouds. Then, the yellow sun gently bursts through pink and orange sky onto the rapeseed, evoking an explosive joy in painter and viewer alike.

St. Anthony on the Desert Arts Council presents a new artist each month. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the presentations have been moved online.