Chesso Alladson

Chesso Alladson
(1782 - 1803)

One of the few saved pictures of Chesso:
"Mother Academy" kills the artists and leaves them blinded. Sketch for a larger painting.

There is not much to say about the life of Chesso Alladson; his life was very short. He lived in Ildritz, bastard son of a Imperial Officer and a kitchen woman. He and his mother got some allowance from the officer, and Chessos mother wanted him to use the money to get an education at the Academy of Arts.

Chesso had always wanted to be a painter. He hung out with other artistic friends at the Hvoftuli-inn where they exchanged their thoughts about modern art. Chesso was the only one who had a father in the elite of Ildritz, and his mother told him to live up to the standards of the elite. So Chesso tried to get into the Academy, but he was refused.
The Academy thought Chessos paintings were too rebellious, and he was not quiet enough to be a good painter. His portraits were unrealistic, his landscapes too depressing, his stills too lifelike. The colours he used did not fit in the eye of the contemporary art lover. It could be that the fact that Chesso had no official father helped the Jury of the Academy to refuse Chesso as a student.

After the refusal, Chesso worked for the Guild of Carpenters. He did not enjoy the work, and missed his friends in the Hvoftuli. His mother did not want him in her house any longer, but he earned not enough to rent a house for himself. He stayed a while in the house of Gio Berzika and his parents, but this house was too small to stay for long. After a menoth, Chesso discovered his mother had burnt most of his paintings “now that he was not judged a real painter”. Only some sketches and paintings that had been taken to the Hvoftuli and the Berzika-house had been saved from the flames.
Chesso, his work destroyed and no place to go, drowned himself in the Nordan river in the spring of 1803.