Lot Essay
Brauner moved to Paris in 1930 and joined the Surrealist group with the encouragement of Alberto Giacometti and Yves Tanguy.
Brauner's father was a passionate devotee of spiritualism and regularly organised séances in his native village in Romania. When a young man, Brauner frequently observed as well as participated in these events and acquired a taste for the esoteric, which was clearly reflected in his later painting. The subjects of his paintings of the early thirties seem either to derive from the occult or to be rooted in private myths. "Bizarre creatures with huge, totemic heads, and one or several eyes, are attached to plants, or to the bodies of animals or human beings and spout snakes, wings or other animate or inanimate forms. The artist himself described these paintings as an 'unknown world...peopled with somnambulists, incubi, succubi...phantoms, specters, sorcerers, seers, mediums and a whole fantastic population'." (W. S. Liebermann (Ed.), Twentieth Century Modern Masters, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, New York and London, 1990, p. 266).
The present work was included in Brauner's first one-man exhibition held at Pierre Loeb's Galerie Pierre in 1934. The catalogue introduction was written by André Breton. The painting was reproduced by Pierre Mabille in his important article for Le Minotaure where he said the picture "marque la volonté de percer le plafond opaque qui limite notre connaissance".
Brauner's father was a passionate devotee of spiritualism and regularly organised séances in his native village in Romania. When a young man, Brauner frequently observed as well as participated in these events and acquired a taste for the esoteric, which was clearly reflected in his later painting. The subjects of his paintings of the early thirties seem either to derive from the occult or to be rooted in private myths. "Bizarre creatures with huge, totemic heads, and one or several eyes, are attached to plants, or to the bodies of animals or human beings and spout snakes, wings or other animate or inanimate forms. The artist himself described these paintings as an 'unknown world...peopled with somnambulists, incubi, succubi...phantoms, specters, sorcerers, seers, mediums and a whole fantastic population'." (W. S. Liebermann (Ed.), Twentieth Century Modern Masters, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, New York and London, 1990, p. 266).
The present work was included in Brauner's first one-man exhibition held at Pierre Loeb's Galerie Pierre in 1934. The catalogue introduction was written by André Breton. The painting was reproduced by Pierre Mabille in his important article for Le Minotaure where he said the picture "marque la volonté de percer le plafond opaque qui limite notre connaissance".