In many of Ernst’s Dada overpaintings and collages, he appropriated images from the Bibliotheca Paedagogica (1914), a catalogue of anatomical and biological teaching materials for students in elementary through high school. This work is based on a lithograph of a cross section of a meat fly, which Ernst excised whole from the Bibliotheca and transformed by reorienting it, affixing to it three additional elements (birds, angiosperm, and a tall oven) and adding a ground line in pencil to create a “sick” horse in a landscape.
Gallery label from Max Ernst: Beyond Painting, September 23, 2017-January 1, 2018.