Max Ernst Research Paper

Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist and poet. He was a primary pioneer of the Dada and Surrealist movements. He was born in April 2, 1981 and died in April 1, 1976. His painting, sculptures, and prints depicting fantastic, nightmarish images are associated with Data and Surrealism which often made reference to anxieties originating in childhood. He developed many new painting techniques such as frottage, grattage, and decalcomania. Those techniques reflect in the many works from Surrealist. Max Ernst influenced an entire generation of contemporary Surrealists artists.

Max Ernst was born into a middle class Catholic family of nine children Germany. He is influenced by his parent Louise Kopp and Philip Ernst. According to

His parents, especially his father whose personality plays a key role in Ernst’s life and to whose influence are formed part of the artist’s unconscious and are often referred to in his work. According to the book, Twentieth-Century Max Ernst by H.L Jaffe and A. Busignami, “His father, Philipp Ernst was a man who spoke little but whose gestures were full of meaning. He liked painting in the forest, inventing imaginary creatures and gloomy hermits, all with the lucidity and attention to detail characteristic of the amateur. Young max used to join his father, around 1894, on these excursions into the forest, and it impressed itself on his mind” (31). The feeling he had in his childhood influenced his painting in the future. He was self-taught; never had any formal training as an artist, but influenced by many artists. According to the book, Twentieth-Century Max Ernst by H.L Jaffe and A.

According to tate.org, author Ronald Alley, “Max moved to Pairs in 1922, where his friendship with Breton and Eluard led to active participation in the Surrealist movement” (204). Surrealism was the 20th century art movement that sought to liberate creativity from unconscious mind. Surrealism was like Dada, it affected many things not only visual art, but literature, poetry, music, philosophy and social theory. Ernst explored a wider variety of Surrealist techniques. The interpretation of his idea is not only thing in his work, but also to re-emphasize the fact that his participation in the Surrealist movement was founded on an essentially independent vision of the world. “Men Shall Know Nothing of This” (1923) by Max Ernst is known as the first Surrealism painting. According to the book, Max Ernst by Werner Spies, “This painting may have been inspired by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud’s study of the delusions of the paranoiac, Daniel Paul Schreber” (56). Ernst was one of the first artists who apply Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams to investigate his deep psyche in order to explore the resource of his own creativity. He was interested in the alternative realities experienced by the insane and his subject matter is fantastical, dream-like and