Elongated head apparitions by way of Ernst Fuchs

leading from

The Development of Necronom IV

a) Ernst Fuchs, one of the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, a painter well known to H R Giger painted during the 1950s, works such as Behind Veronica's Cloth from 1953 amd The Angel Of Death Over Purgatory, the latter painted from 1951 to 1956. He was a great inspiration to Giger. Exactly which year Giger first found out about his work is another question.

H.R Giger and Ernst Fuchs
source: www.hrgigermuseum.com/

b) In my journey of discovering the essence of the design of Necronom IV, I had discovered the basis of what there was to know about the inspiration coming from ancient Egyptian art and so the next assumption that I had was that maybe there was something in the work of Alfred Kubin or Ernst Fuchs that might have supplied a starting point for a strange monstrous creature with an elongated head, perhaps it was a fish with long spindly limbs somewhere in a Kubin drawing but I could find nothing and I didn't exactly know where to begin with Ernst Fuchs since there was so little of his work on the internet. However to cut the journey short, on 11th of June 2012, someone with the username of "egoc" gave me the lead to Ernst Fuchs work from a certain period that provided a likely starting point as seen below.

c) In the first painting is a strange figure in the lower left side with one leg kneeling on the ground and holding a gun, it features a strange elongated head and a very curious front of the head with a domed forehead (however at this moment I don't have a good photograph of this image to see it in any particular detail, nothing is available on the internet). The stick like quality of the figure is almost reminiscent of perhaps the physique of the Massai tribesmen well known later in the 1970s when Leni Riefenstahl published a book of photographs of these kinds of tribesment and in the end, Ridley Scott found a member of that race to perform the role of the alien in the suit.

Behind Veronicas's cloth by Ernst Fuchs

Behind Veronicas's cloth by Ernst Fuchs (detail)

d) The second painting , The Angel Of Death Over Purgatory, features a similar figure filling the picture but as the main subject of the painting. A winged figure with a stick like body has a head like a horizontal stick with a humanoid head on the tip pointing towards the left.

The Angel Of Death Over Purgatory,
from 1951 to 1956,
by Ernst Fuchs

The Angel Of Death Over Purgatory,
from 1951 to 1956,
by Ernst Fuch (detail)

e) The third, a drawing, "Vision" from 1953 features in the upper right a profile of a human face growing from an elongated trunk, perhaps a very large fingertip. Above the head as with the previous image is  Bishop's mitre as a reoccurring image

Ernst Fuchs "Vision" 1953
( for the detailed image, thank to 
http://dolorosa-reveries.blogspot.co.uk)

heads from Ernst Fuch's "Vision 1953"

face from Ernst Fuch's "Vision", 1953

Source Quotes

1. Giger: I would have to say that Ernst Fuchs has been my greatest and deepest inspiration and that he is the greatest artist alive today. And as a technician he is absolutely fantastic. He knows his materials inside and out. If I had seen his work when I was young, I would never have begun to paint myself. He is a master and is a close friend of mine, I am happy to say" (Esoterra #9, Baphomet's lament: An interview with H.R. Giger by R.F.Paul, 2000 )