Max Ernst. The World Is a Story (Mundus est Fabula). Paris 1959

Max Ernst The World Is a Story (Mundus est Fabula) Paris 1959

  • Not on view

According to Ernst, the title of this painting is a quotation from Réne Descartes, a seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist known for his rationalistic approach to metaphysics. The world pictured here, however, seems rife with irrational, inexplicable, and cataclysmic incident. Strange beings and beasties produced by Ernst’s manipulation of paint, at times with a screenprinting squeegee, populate an eerie, pulsating landscape filled with self-perpetuating energy. Ernst developed the technique of using squeegees to create quasiautomatic compositions in the early 1950s, when he was in exile in the United States.

Gallery label from Max Ernst: Beyond Painting, September 23, 2017-January 1, 2018.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
51 1/4 x 64" (130.1 x 162.5 cm)
Credit
Gift of the artist
Object number
116.1961
Copyright
© 2020 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Department
Painting and Sculpture

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