Lot Essay
Coquilles-Fleurs was first included in a major exhibition of Ernst's work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1961. In his autobiographical 'Informal Life of M.E.' published at an introduction to the catalogue, Ernst wrote "1928 - Entrance of flowers. Aux rendez-vous des amis ... C'était la belle saison ... It is the time of serpents, earthworms, feather flowers, shell flowers, bird flowers, animal flowers, tube flowers. It is the time when the forest takes wing and flowers struggle under water. (Was he not a pretty flower?) It is the time of the circumflex medusa".
His shell-flowers recall the crustacea and shells of his collages and frottages of the early 1920s. Ernst discovered a means of reproducing the frottage effect in oil which he christened 'grattage'. It involved applying several layers of different coloured paint to a strong ground which would then be scraped away with a knife to reveal a kaleidoscope of colour in whatever shape he chose. As here, to emphasise the texture of the flowers he would often set them against flat areas of colour.
It is tempting to suggest that these Coquilles-Fleurs are purely decorative but it is clear that for Ernst they were symbols of primeval beauty. Setting the pictures in context, Ludger Derenthal writes, "Les fleurs-coquillages apparaissent d'abord par deux et en petits groupes; plus tard, des jardins nocturnes entiers en seront plantés. Il convient de se remettre ici en memoire les peintures de planches d'études botaniques à l'époque Dada, où les plantes étaient elles aussi isolées et placées sur un horizon bas. Dans 'La Nature', on trouvait des agrandissements de grêlons dont les déformations décoratives peuvent également avoir inspiré Max Ernst. Pour finir, ses amis aussi se transforment en fleurs dans un second Rendez-vous datant de 1928. Les Fleurs-coquillages sont d'un attrait 'coloriste délicat. Le peintre remplace le collagiste'. Max Ernst se situe ainsi dans la tradition de James Ensor et d'Odilon Redon, artistes chez qui des coquillages se transforment occasionnellement en fleurs. C'est là une technique brillante qui permet de mettre à profit la valeur picturale des deux sujets". (Max Ernst, Paris, 1992, p. 124.)
The present painting represents an oil on considerable size in relation to other Coquilles-Fleurs works of the period. Other major related Coquilles pictures are represented in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris (Spiess 1378), the Ludwig Museum, Cologne (Spiess 1376) and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kassel (Spiess 1384). Like the present picture all of these were handled by Léonce Rosenberg of the Galerie l'Effort Moderne, Paris.
His shell-flowers recall the crustacea and shells of his collages and frottages of the early 1920s. Ernst discovered a means of reproducing the frottage effect in oil which he christened 'grattage'. It involved applying several layers of different coloured paint to a strong ground which would then be scraped away with a knife to reveal a kaleidoscope of colour in whatever shape he chose. As here, to emphasise the texture of the flowers he would often set them against flat areas of colour.
It is tempting to suggest that these Coquilles-Fleurs are purely decorative but it is clear that for Ernst they were symbols of primeval beauty. Setting the pictures in context, Ludger Derenthal writes, "Les fleurs-coquillages apparaissent d'abord par deux et en petits groupes; plus tard, des jardins nocturnes entiers en seront plantés. Il convient de se remettre ici en memoire les peintures de planches d'études botaniques à l'époque Dada, où les plantes étaient elles aussi isolées et placées sur un horizon bas. Dans 'La Nature', on trouvait des agrandissements de grêlons dont les déformations décoratives peuvent également avoir inspiré Max Ernst. Pour finir, ses amis aussi se transforment en fleurs dans un second Rendez-vous datant de 1928. Les Fleurs-coquillages sont d'un attrait 'coloriste délicat. Le peintre remplace le collagiste'. Max Ernst se situe ainsi dans la tradition de James Ensor et d'Odilon Redon, artistes chez qui des coquillages se transforment occasionnellement en fleurs. C'est là une technique brillante qui permet de mettre à profit la valeur picturale des deux sujets". (Max Ernst, Paris, 1992, p. 124.)
The present painting represents an oil on considerable size in relation to other Coquilles-Fleurs works of the period. Other major related Coquilles pictures are represented in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris (Spiess 1378), the Ludwig Museum, Cologne (Spiess 1376) and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kassel (Spiess 1384). Like the present picture all of these were handled by Léonce Rosenberg of the Galerie l'Effort Moderne, Paris.