.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Centring around a trompe l'oeil portrait of a bunch of grapes free floating in an ambiguous semi-abstract space, Ohne Titel (Raisins) is a complex and extraordinary work from a key period in the artist's career.
Executed in 1925 at the same time as Ernst's first experiments with frottage, Ohne Titel (Raisins) is a progressive re-working of his celebrated trompe l'oeil painting of 1924 entitled L'as de pique (The Ace of Spades). Ohne Titel (Raisins) was painted at an important time of transition for Ernst when, under the influence of the Surrealist group, his art was developing away from the largely cubist-orientated aesthetic of his earlier Dada paintings and collages towards one that sought to uncover the hidden alchemy of his unconscious mind. Utilising all the "tricks" of the painter Ohne Titel (Raisins) is a kind of painted collage that merges all the many different painterly techniques of Ernst's art into one memorable and almost hallucinatory image. This almost deconstructive approach to the creation of a picture was inspired by Ernst's discovery of frottage. "I was surprised by the sudden intensification of my visionary capacities and by the hallucinatory succession of contradictory images superimposed, one upon the other, with the persistence and rapidity characteristic of amorous memories," he recalled about the revelation frottage brought to his working practice. "My curiosity awakened and astonished, I began to experiment indifferently and to question, utilizing the same means, all sorts of materials to be found in my visual field; leaves and their veins, the ragged edges of a bit of linen, the brushstrokes of a modern painting, the unwound thread of a spool, etc. (On Frottage 1936. cited in Chipp, pp.429-431.)
Among these varied painterly techniques Ernst began to revisit with his new "awakened" curiosity was the ancient technique of trompe l'oeilpainting. Ernst had been fascinated with the illusionary mystery of trompe l'oeil painting ever since his childhood, often recalling a trompe l'oeil painting on the wardrobe in his bedroom in the house where he grew up. In 1923 while living in a menage à trois with Paul and Gala Eluard, Ernst had spent much of the year painting enigmatic and bizarre trompe l'oeil murals in their house at Eaubonne. Ohne Titel (Raisins) takes a trompe l'oeil portrait as its starting point and following the example of de Chirico's early metaphysical pictures, presents the illusionary bunch of grapes as a mysterious magical object by distorting and dislocating the space around it. The background of the painting consists of an abstract cubistic collage of coloured form and, to emphasise the illusionary nature of everything in the work, Ernst has included at the bottom right, one of his own recent seascape paintings complete with its frottaged surface. This picture within a picture is complimented on the left of the painting by a mysterious 'ace of spades' - a playing card whose flat form merges once again with the flat forms of the cubistic collaged background. The ace on this flat card however has through some mysterious alchemy and, presumably through its proximity to the bunch of grapes, metamorphosed into a grape-like form itself.
In this way a series of bizarre correlations between the various pictorial elements is established that calls perceptual reality into question. Deconstructing all the illusory devices of picture making while at the same time visually establishing a mental association between the grapes and the ace of spades, Ernst uses the open artifice of the painting to generate a poetic sense of mystery.
This mystery is essentially summed up by the seemingly impossible transformation of the ace of spades into an organic entity. This visual association was repeated by Ernst in a 1936 illustration for André Breton's book Le chateau étoile where a photographic association between an organic leaf and the ace of spades is also made. This photograph bears a striking relation to a book of photograms of fossilised plants by the Austrian botanist Constantin Freiherr von Ettinghausen. It is not known whether Ernst knew of this book, but his interest in scientific journals and technical illustrations is well known and indeed informed much of his art during the 1920s. It would seem that this work may well have inspired Ernst's association of the ace of spades with an organic entity. Whatever the case however, the metamorphosis that lies at the heart of this strikingly illogical painting clearly digs deep into the soil of the unconscious and provokes a surprised recognition in the viewer that on some level all its various elements relate to one another.
Executed in 1925 at the same time as Ernst's first experiments with frottage, Ohne Titel (Raisins) is a progressive re-working of his celebrated trompe l'oeil painting of 1924 entitled L'as de pique (The Ace of Spades). Ohne Titel (Raisins) was painted at an important time of transition for Ernst when, under the influence of the Surrealist group, his art was developing away from the largely cubist-orientated aesthetic of his earlier Dada paintings and collages towards one that sought to uncover the hidden alchemy of his unconscious mind. Utilising all the "tricks" of the painter Ohne Titel (Raisins) is a kind of painted collage that merges all the many different painterly techniques of Ernst's art into one memorable and almost hallucinatory image. This almost deconstructive approach to the creation of a picture was inspired by Ernst's discovery of frottage. "I was surprised by the sudden intensification of my visionary capacities and by the hallucinatory succession of contradictory images superimposed, one upon the other, with the persistence and rapidity characteristic of amorous memories," he recalled about the revelation frottage brought to his working practice. "My curiosity awakened and astonished, I began to experiment indifferently and to question, utilizing the same means, all sorts of materials to be found in my visual field; leaves and their veins, the ragged edges of a bit of linen, the brushstrokes of a modern painting, the unwound thread of a spool, etc. (On Frottage 1936. cited in Chipp, pp.429-431.)
Among these varied painterly techniques Ernst began to revisit with his new "awakened" curiosity was the ancient technique of trompe l'oeilpainting. Ernst had been fascinated with the illusionary mystery of trompe l'oeil painting ever since his childhood, often recalling a trompe l'oeil painting on the wardrobe in his bedroom in the house where he grew up. In 1923 while living in a menage à trois with Paul and Gala Eluard, Ernst had spent much of the year painting enigmatic and bizarre trompe l'oeil murals in their house at Eaubonne. Ohne Titel (Raisins) takes a trompe l'oeil portrait as its starting point and following the example of de Chirico's early metaphysical pictures, presents the illusionary bunch of grapes as a mysterious magical object by distorting and dislocating the space around it. The background of the painting consists of an abstract cubistic collage of coloured form and, to emphasise the illusionary nature of everything in the work, Ernst has included at the bottom right, one of his own recent seascape paintings complete with its frottaged surface. This picture within a picture is complimented on the left of the painting by a mysterious 'ace of spades' - a playing card whose flat form merges once again with the flat forms of the cubistic collaged background. The ace on this flat card however has through some mysterious alchemy and, presumably through its proximity to the bunch of grapes, metamorphosed into a grape-like form itself.
In this way a series of bizarre correlations between the various pictorial elements is established that calls perceptual reality into question. Deconstructing all the illusory devices of picture making while at the same time visually establishing a mental association between the grapes and the ace of spades, Ernst uses the open artifice of the painting to generate a poetic sense of mystery.
This mystery is essentially summed up by the seemingly impossible transformation of the ace of spades into an organic entity. This visual association was repeated by Ernst in a 1936 illustration for André Breton's book Le chateau étoile where a photographic association between an organic leaf and the ace of spades is also made. This photograph bears a striking relation to a book of photograms of fossilised plants by the Austrian botanist Constantin Freiherr von Ettinghausen. It is not known whether Ernst knew of this book, but his interest in scientific journals and technical illustrations is well known and indeed informed much of his art during the 1920s. It would seem that this work may well have inspired Ernst's association of the ace of spades with an organic entity. Whatever the case however, the metamorphosis that lies at the heart of this strikingly illogical painting clearly digs deep into the soil of the unconscious and provokes a surprised recognition in the viewer that on some level all its various elements relate to one another.