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When Anton thought he was crazy in the psychiatric institution at Santpoort in 1951, a deer showed him the way. He saw in the eyes of that deer (there was a deer camp in the Haarlemmer Hout) how and where he could find the way back to himself: descending to that underground or primal ground in your soul where the outside world does not yet exist. To the roots of life.
He draws the animal as “The Animal” as the representation of a primal image. Or, as Anton himself says: all the powers that remain, because love does not fully encompass the soul. Or also, on an etching: “The innocence of the animal is naked. Man is aware of himself and therefore also of his shame. That is culture”.