馬克斯·恩斯特

Léonce Rosenberg, Paris
Baron J. B. Urvater, Brussels (acquired by 1957)
Galerie Apollo, Brussels
Mr & Mrs John Boulton, Caracas (sold: Christie’s, London, 3rd December 1965, lot 99)
Galerie Alexandre Iolas, Paris & New York
Private Collection, Milan
Galleria Contini Arte, Venice
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 2000

Knokke-Le Zoute, Albert Plage, Casino Municipal, Max Ernst, 1953, no. 60
Antwerp, Zaal Comité voor Artistiche Werking, De vier hoofdpunten van het Surrealisme, 1956, no. 8
Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum & Liége, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Les grandes collections belges: Collection Urvater, 1957, no. 36, illustrated in the catalogue
Turin, Galleria Galatea, Max Ernst, 1966, no. 17
Munich, Galerie Stangl, Max Ernst, 1967, no. 2, illustrated in the catalogue
Barcelona, Galeria René Metras, Max Ernst, 1968, no. 2
Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Max Ernst, 1969, no. 41, illustrated in the catalogue
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Max Ernst, 1969-70, no. 37, illustrated in the catalogue
Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Max Ernst, 1970, no. 45, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Hommage à Christian et Yvonne Zervos, 1970-71
Venice, Museo Correr, Capolavori della pittura del XX secolo 1900-1945, 1972

Patrick Waldberg, Max Ernst, Paris, 1958, illustrated p. 293
Werner Spies, Max Ernst, Œuvre-Katalog, Werke 1929-1938, Cologne, 1979, no. 1574, illustrated p. 1

Ernst’s fantastical composition, showing the interior view of an egg populated by creatures from his imagination, belongs to a series of important canvases that allude to fertility and creation (fig. 1), themes that were particularly significant to the artist in 1929. It was during this time that Ernst gave life to Loplop, a monstrous avian creature that would play a starring role in the Surrealist narratives he devised for his compositions during this era. Inside Ernst’s transparent egg is an undetermined number of intertwined gestating creatures, some more serpentine than bird-like, on the verge of hatching. On the left of the present composition, the tip of a tale breaks through the shell, alluding to the potent life force about to be unleashed into the world. 

 

Allegorical references to birth, sex, death, innocence and destruction were integral to pageantry of Ernst’s most provocative Surrealist compositions. A l’interior de la vue: l’œuf is replete with symbols of both universal relevance and obscure biographical details, demonstrating how Ernst incorporated his own personal mythology into the context of grander themes. The serpent forms in the present composition evoke Freudian associations as well as the biblical story of Eden and the Fall of Man, while the oval compositional format calls to mind the Renaissance tondi of the Madonna and Child. One might also consider Ernst’s quotation of his contemporary Picasso here, whose oval-shaped Cubist compositions (fig. 2) presented similar challenges to visual perception of pictorial boundaries. 

 

With his transparent Œuf pictures, Ernst presented the seen and the unseen simultaneously via a singular, powerful image. Upending one’s perception of the natural world was a common Surrealist theme, however Ernst took to the task with an imaginative force like no other artist of his generation. He relied upon new ways of sensorial engagement in his compositions, calling his audience’s attention not only to the images in his pictures but to the surfaces on which they exist. In his collages of the creature Loplop, he relied on fragments of photographs, wallpaper and found drawings to create richly descriptive scenarios. For his paintings, including the background of the present work, he turned to the technique of grattage, which added a visually engaging textural component to the surface of his compositions. 

 

Werner Spies provides the following explanation of Ernst’s grattage technique, which the artist derived from the frottage or rubbing method that he used in his drawings. ‘In grattage, objects are placed beneath a surface covered with a thin layer of pigment, which the artist scrapes away with a spatula or palette knife. Ernst used grattage in almost all the pictures he produced between 1925 and 1929. These works are sensual and tactile, with images of rubbed objects that appear as ghostly traces of form. Again and again in his Hordes and Bride of the Wind paintings, he manipulated twine in various thicknesses, arranging and rearranging it beneath the canvas subjected to grattage so that the lines of the resulting image suggest vibration and earthquake, evoking a sense of violence and epitomizing what Breton called “beauté convulsive”’ (quoted in W. Spies, Max Ernst, Retrospective (exhibition catalogue), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2005, p. 13).