The sensory-motoric dialogue of individual artists, painters and writers in response to the core questions of this study regarding ‘self-discovery’, ‘inner peace’, ‘liberation of the spirit’, and ‘creative renewal’ are examined, analyzed and interpreted based on works, letters and personal experience. In addition to well-known painters and writers such as Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Ernst Rinderspacher, Rainer Maria Rilke or Giovanni Segantini, no one artistic role model is so impressive as Friedrich Nietzsche and his ‘Zarathustra’. The ‘Gazes of Sils Maria’ are projected and perceived in close reconstruction of the sensory and motoric interactions on the wanderings of the ‘Zarathustra’ and communicated and spatially documented in photographs.

A completely new approach was developed relying on numerous sources from literature, hotel and museum archives, personal interviews and discussions which examines and documents the effects as well as the metamorphosis of the ‘Gazes’ on their path to memory. The present photo- visualization attempts to portray an image of these individual wanderings, and thereby examine the influence of the third dimension and content of the mountain landscape sphere on the centers of human thought and feeling as a source of energy and creativity. The objective is to thus reconstruct the interaction between perception of the drama of nature and human thought. The attempt is made to answer the following questions: what importance do the contents of the mountain landscape sphere – vastness, the soundscape, the sensory system and non-ascertainable influences – have on self-discovery, inner peace, the liberation of the spirit and the renewal of creative energy? The task is thus both a challenge as well as an aspiration to photographically document the multifaceted nature of human perception on the path to liberation of the spirit. The variety and expressive potential of Leica photography is displayed through sharpness of focus and wealth of detail at its best.