Max Ernst



Max Ernst - in quotes. Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German painter and sculptor who worked in the styles of Dadaism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism. He frequently wrote about himself in the third person.

Quotes of Max Ernst

 * sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes of Max Ernst





1910 - 1935

 * A series of powers are at work within the great stream of Expressionism who have no outward similarity to one another but a common direction of thrust, namely the intention to give expression to things of the psyche [Seelisches] through form alone.
 * Quote of Max Ernst in a newspaper review of 'Rhenish Expressionists', Bonn (1913); as cited in Expressionism, by Norbert Wolf (2004)


 * Etna
 * Grave-digger
 * at your post for thirty years
 * like Jesus Christ
 * you seldom grant yourself...
 * fully content with a little exercise
 * exercise makes you strong
 * I like you
 * first couplet of Max Ernst's poem 'Etna', in: 'Literature', Paris, October 15, 1923; as quoted in Max Ernst sculpture, Museo d'arte contemporanea, Edizioni Charta, Milano, 1969, p. 15


 * One rainy day in Cologne on the Rhine, the catalogue of a teaching aids company caught my attention. It was illustrated with models of all kind – mathematical, geometrical, anthropological, zoological,botanical, anatomical, mineralogical, paleontological, and so forth- elements of of such a diverse nature that the absurdity of the collection confused the eye and mind, producing hallucinations and lending the objects depicted new and rapidly changing meanings. I suddenly felt my 'visionary faculties' so intensified that I began seeing the newly emerged objects against a new background. To capture it, a little paint or a few lines were enough, a horizon, a sky, a wooden floor, that sort of things. My hallucination had been fixed. Now it was a matter of interpreting the hallucination in a few words or sentences Such as: 'Above the clouds midnight passes. Above midnight glides the invisible bird of day..'
 * Quote in 'Biographical Notes. Tissue of truth, Tissue of Lies', 1929; as cited in Max Ernst. A Retrospective, Munich, Prestel, 1991, p. 290


 * A banal fever hallucination, soon obliterated and forgotten; it didn't reappear in M's memory until about thirty years later (on 10 August 1925), as he sat alone on a rainy day in a little inn by the seaside, staring at the wooden floor which had been scored by years of scrubbing, and noticed that the grain had started moving of its own accord (much like the lines on the [imitation] mahogany board of his childhood). As with the mahogany board back then, and as with visions seen between sleeping and waking, the lines formed shifting, changing images, blurred at first but then increasingly precise. Max {Ernst] decided to pursue the symbolism of this compulsory inspiration and, in order to sharpen his meditative and hallucinatory skills, he took a series of drawings  from the floorboards. Letting pieces of paper drop at random on the floor, he rubbed over them with a black pencil. On careful inspection of the impressions made in this way, he was surprised by the sudden increase they produced in his visionary abilities. His curiosity was aroused. He was delighted, and began making the same type of inquiry into all sorts of materials, whatever caught his eye – leaves with their ribs, the frayed edges of sacking, the strokes of a palette knife in a 'modern' painting, thread rolling off a spool, and so forth. To quote 'Beyond Painting' These drawings, the first fruits of the frottage technique, were collected under the title 'Histoire Naturell'.
 * Quote in 'Biographical Notes. Tissue of truth, Tissue of Lies', 1929; as cited in Max Ernst. A Retrospective, Munich, Prestel, 1991, pp.283/284
 * Looking at them [the metaphysical paintings of De Chirico, c. 1919] I had the sense of rediscovering something I had always known, just as when some event already seen opens up to us a whole realm of our own dream world, one that we have failed to see or comprehend, owing to a kind of censorship.
 * Quote in 'Notes pour un biographie', Max Ernst, 1929, pp. 30-31; as cited in Max Ernst: a Retrospective, ed. Werner Spies & Sabine Rewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p. 10

'The mysteries of the forest' (1934)

 * Quotes from: 'The mysteries of the forest' (1934), Max Ernst; published in 'Minotaure', No. 5, 1934, 'Ecritures', pp. 221, 223; as quoted in Edward Quinn. Max Ernst, Barcelona, Poligrafa, 1984.  p. 182


 * What is a forest? A marvelous insect. A drawing-board, what do forests do? They never go to bed early. They are waiting for the tailor. What is the high season of the forests? It is the future..
 * But it is of the past, it seems to me. Perhaps.. .Man and the nightingales were in the most favourable situation for imagining: for them the forest was a perfect dream-conductor..
 * What is a dream? You ask too much of me: it is a woman cutting down a tree. What are forests for? For making the matches one gives children to play with. Is the fire in the forest, then? The fire is in the forest. What do plants feed on? On mystery. What day is it today? Shit..
 * Are there still forests over there? They are, apparently, wild and impenetrable, black and russet, extravagant, secular, full of ant-hills, diametrical, negligent, ferocious, fervent and kindly, without yesterdays or tomorrows. From one island to another, above the volcanoes, they play cards with inmatched packs. Naked, they are decked only in their majesty and their mystery.

1936 - 1950

 * The 2nd of April (1891) at 9:45 a.m. Max Ernst had his first contact with the sensible world, when he came out of the egg which his mother had laid in an eagle's nest and which the bird had brooded for seven years.
 * Quote in 'Some Data on the Youth of M. E., As Told by Himself', in the View (April 1942); also quoted in Max Ernst and Alchemy (2001) by M. E. Warlick, p. 10


 * Max Ernst died the 1st of August 1914. He resuscitated the 11th of November 1918 as a young man aspiring to become a magician and to find the myth of his time.
 * Quote in 'Some Data on the Youth of M. E., As Told by Himself' in the View (April 1942); also cited in Max Ernst and Alchemy (2001) by M. E. Warlick, p. 17
 * Max Ernst refers to his serving-period on the Western and then on the Eastern front during World War 1 (1914-1918)


 * I saw a shady forest and therein a crowd of nightingales. The nightingales as to their breast were rough and hairy, and as to their feet some were like calves, some like panthers, and some like wolves, and they had beast's claws instead of toes.
 * text of Max Ernst's poem 'First Memorable Conversation with the Chimera', in the journal 'VVV', no. 1. New York, June 1942, p. 17


 * A picture that I painted after the defeat of the Republicans in Spain [in 1936, Max Ernst was a resolute opponent of the Spanish dictator General Franco, who was supported by Germany's Nazi regime] is 'The Fireside Angel'. This is, of course, an ironic title for a rampaging beast that destroys and annihilates anything that gets in its way. This was my idea at the time of what would probably happen in the world, and I was right.
 * Quote in 'Room 10, Max Ernst', the exhibition text of FONDATION BEYELER 2 - MAX ERNST, 2013, texts: Raphaël Bouvier & Ioana Jimborean; ed. Valentina Locatelli; transl. Karen Williams
 * Max Ernst is referring to his painting 'L'ange du foyer' / 'Le triomphe du surréalisme', 1937 ('The Fireside Angel' / The Triumph of Surrealism'); the alternative title was offered by Ernst himself in 1938, when he spontaneously opted for a different title: 'The Triumph of Surrealism'.


 * Studies in painting: Non. He learned to express himself by means of art in the same way as the child learns to talk. No teaching is needed for the one who is born an artist, and even the expression 'self-taught' is a phony, he thinks.
 * Quote in a questionnaire, Max Ernst filled out in 1948, the U.S; as cited in Max Ernst: a Retrospective, ed. Werner Spies & Sabine Rewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p. 7


 * A painter may know what he doesn't want. But woe be to him if he desires to know what he wants. A painter is lost if he finds himself. Max Ernst considers his sole virtue to be that he has managed not to find himself.
 * In Beyond Painting, Max Ernst, 1948, p.14; as quoted in Max Ernst: a Retrospective, ed. Werner Spies & Sabine Rewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p. 6

1951 - 1976

 * Woman's nakedness is wiser than the teachings of the philosophers. [the title of his essay]
 * Quote in Max Ernst, Gonthier-Seghers, Paris, 1959; as cited in Max Ernst sculpture, Museo d'arte contemporanea. Edizioni Charta, Milano, 1996, p. 37


 * Two artists can suggest two different subject matters and two completely different pictures by using the same spot. Every picture demonstrates certain aspects from the inner life of the painter who made it. For this reason, the orthodox Tachist is wary of letting himself be influenced by Leonardo's famous wall.. .I grant the  painter the right to speak, to laugh, to take a stand and to draw upon all his hallucinatory faculties. But I absolutely refuse to live like a Tachist.
 * Quote from 'Max Ernst im Gesprach mit Eduard Roditi' (1967), as cited in Max Ernst, Écritures Paris, 1970, p. 416


 * A painter may know what he does not want.
 * But woe betide him if he wants to know
 * what he does want! A painter is lost if he finds himself.
 * The fact that he has succeeded in not finding
 * himself is regarded by Max Ernst as his only
 * 'achievement'.
 * Quote from 'Max Ernst', exhibition catalogue, Galerie Stangl, Munich, 1967, U.S., pp.6-7, as cited in Edward Quinn, Max Ernst. 1984, Poligrafa, Barcelona. p. 12

'Ecritures' (1970)

 * Quotes from: 'Écritures' pp. 221, 223., as cited in Max Ernst, Edward Quinn, Poligrafa, Barcelona, 1984


 * Eternity
 * Hide yourself
 * eternity
 * beloved eternity


 * p.290


 * The painter
 * The painter allows you not to know
 * what a face is
 * Escaped from the museum of man,
 * he has chosen to e mortal!
 * Mortal like
 * the kiss of the Mona Lisa


 * p. 352


 * Laymanship
 * Don't confuse
 * the fairy's kiss
 * with
 * the priest's spanking


 * p. 360

All windows fall silent The earth closes its eyes
 * Sanctuary
 * p. 366

posthumous

 * Art has nothing to do with taste, art is not there to be 'tasted'. Yet a certain mayor believes that art exists to be 'judged', and the most modern art to be 'judged from a business point of view'. That such an original thought could emerge from a mayor's brain! What the mayor wants is exactly what the critics of the large and small dailies actually do. They set out to judge art. That is a very pleasant occupation, because no matter how wrong a judgment may be, you never have to revise it. The art judges talk about 'ability' and complain that the 'younger generation' has lost this ability. Sometimes their complaints are even seriously intended. But, gentlemen, do you really know what that is — ability? No, you don't.
 * As quoted in Max Ernst: Sculptures (1996) by Max Ernst, Jürgen Pech, and Ida Gianelli, p. 11


 * Mixed feelings when he [Max Ernst frequently writes about himself in the third person] enters the forest for the first time: delight and oppression. And what the Romantics spoke of as 'being at one with Nature'. Wonderful joy in breathing freely in an open space, but also anxiety at being encircled by hostile trees. Outside and inside at the same time, free and trapped.
 * Quote in 'Room 6, Max Ernst', the exhibition text of FONDATION BEYELER 2 - MAX ERNST, 2013, texts: Raphaël Bouvier & Ioana Jimborean; ed. Valentina Locatelli; transl. Karen Williams
 * Max Ernst is describing an early childhood experience, in the third person


 * First contact with occult, magical and enchanting forces. One of his best friends, a very intelligent and affectionate pink cockatoo, died in the night of 5 January. It was a terrible shock for Max when he found the dead bird in the morning, at the same moment as his father told him of the birth of his sister, Loni. The boy's consternation was so great that he fainted. In his imagination, he linked the two events and made the baby responsible for extinguishing the bird's life. A series of psychological crises and depressions followed. A dangerous amalgamation of birds and human beings became firmly established in his mind and later found expression in his paintings and drawings.
 * Quote in 'Tissue of Truth, Tissue of Lies', Max Ernst; as cited in 'Room 7, Max Ernst', the exhibition text of FONDATION BEYELER 2 - MAX ERNST, 2013, texts: Raphaël Bouvier & Ioana Jimborean; ed. Valentina Locatelli; transl. Karen Williams
 * Max Ernst is referring to a childhood experience in 1906, when Max Ernst was c. 15 years old

Quotes about Max Ernst

 * Max Ernst
 * Devoured by the feathers and submissive
 * to the sea
 * He has let his shadow pass in the flight
 * of the birds of freedom ...
 * ... His eyes are in a wall
 * and their face is a heavy adornment.
 * Another falsehood of the day,
 * Another night, there are no more blind men.


 * Quote of Paul Éluard, his poem on Max Ernst in 'Capitale de la douleur', 1926; as cited by Edward Quinn in Max Ernst, Barcelona, Poligrafa, 1984, p.132


 * He had the ears of an oyster
 * and his hair danced in the foam
 * as the white rocks evaporated
 * at the passing of the flies
 * He had eyes as blue as olives
 * he had olives as black as his belly
 * and asked the chimneys the secret
 * of the smoke
 * that floated in the axis of his eyes
 * like the snow of the specters


 * Quote of Benjamin Péret, (1926), in 'Cahiers d'art', 1937, p. 60; as cited by Edward Quinn in Max Ernst, Barcelona, Poligrafa, 1984, p.140


 * Reader, when you cross the threshold of Max Ernst's world abandon all hope of receiving help from the outside.. ..you will have to walk alone
 * Quote of Nicolas Calas in: 'View' 1943; as cited in Max Ernst: a Retrospective, ed. Werner Spies & Sabine Rewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p. 3


 * The Dada movement was an anti-movement which corresponded to a need born of the first World War.. .Max Ernst's activities in Cologne in 1917 made him the foremost representative of the Dada painters. Between 1919 and 1921 his paintings, drawings and collages depicting the world of the subconscious were already a foretaste of Surrealism..  .In fact his previous achievements had certainly influenced, to a great extent, the literary Surrealist exploration of the subconscious.
 * Quote of Marcel Duchamp in: 'Appreciations of other artists': Max Ernst (painter, sculptor author), 1945; as cited in Catalog, Collection of the Societé Anonyme, eds. Michel Sanouillet / Elmer Peterson, London 1975, pp. 143-159


 * Max Ernst is above all an artist in the limited sense-a man who paints with taste and sensibility. He used these gifts to convey his vision-his symbolic vision-just as Blake used his poetic sensibility to convey his symbolic vision. After a century or so we have arrived at the point of accepting the genius of Blake; in the same mood we should be able to accept instantly the comparable genius of Ernst.
 * Quote of Herbert Read, (1949), 'Max Ernst', in The Meaning Of Art, London, 1949


 * [Max] Ernst continued - as he himself said - the tradition of what the German Romantics called 'inner landscapes'. Few statements encapsulate the mindset of this Surrealist artist as aptly as these words by Caspar David Friedrich, the ultimate Romantic painter: 'The painter should not just paint what he sees before him, but also what he sees in himself. If he sees nothing in himself, however, then he should forebear to paint what he sees before him.'
 * Quote in text: 'Room 6, Max Ernst', the exhibition text of FONDATION BEYELER 2 - MAX ERNST, 2013, cited by Raphaël Bouvier & Ioana Jimborean; ed. Valentina Locatelli; transl. Karen Williams