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拍品專文
Colombes s'enfermant dans leurs ailes (Doves enfolded in their own wings) seems to belong with a group of paintings of birds that Ernst made between the winter of 1924 and the spring of 1925. At the same time, it displays elements of the kind of unconscious automatism that Ernst would develop later in the year after his discovery of the frottage technique.
Frottage was for Ernst a catalyst that prompted him to paint directly from his unconscious. It was, he once explained "the technical means of augmenting the hallucinatory capacity of the mind so that visions could occur automatically, a means of doffing one's blindness." Following the paths that frottage established Ernst began to deliberately encourage his art to reveal the unique creatures, motifs and complexes that had haunted his imagination.
From the beginning of 1925 Ernst was financially able to concentrate solely on his art for the first time and, almost immediately, a series of recognisable creatures begins to repeatedly manifest itself in his work. Often strongly autobiographical in nature these creatures emerged from the murky depths of Ernst's unconscious as if coming from the shadows of the dark impenetrable forests that he also found himself repeatedly painting. Foremost among these creatures was the figure of a bird - one which, Ernst would later develop into his mysterious alter ego - a creature half bird, half man - to which he would give the name "Loplop". In 1925 however, the motif of the bird had only recently begun to manifest itself in Ernst's art when it was widely understood as a symbol of both love and death.
Birds had always played a significant role in Ernst's life. Ernst, not only looked like a bird but, since childhood, as he has himself explained, he had made a clear unconscious connection in his mind between people and birds. When only a boy, Ernst's favourite pet, a bird by the name of Horneborn had died during the night. That same night, his sister Loni was born. This, Ernst later wrote, led to "confusion in the brain of this otherwise quite healthy boy - a kind of interpretation mania, as if the new-born innocent had in her lust for life, taken possession of the vital fluids of his favourite bird. The crisis is soon overcome. Yet in the boy's mind there remains a voluntary if irrational confounding of the images of human beings with birds and other creatures, and this is reflected in the emblems of his art."
Many of Ernst's 1925 paintings depict two caged birds, trapped together in close confinement where they were prevented from spreading their wings. In Colombes s'enfermant dans leurs ailes three doves are shown in an ambiguous but open space that seems to play with layers of pictorial representation. The two doves on the left of the painting are clearly a loving couple that in Ernst's hands have become a uniform linear design that seems to dissolve into the airy background. The ethereality of these two entwined birds is sharply contrasted with the heavily textured and earthy materiality of the lone dove at the centre of the painting even though a connection between them seems to be established by the reciprocal patterning of red dots. Living alone after the recent break-up in the menage à trois between him and Paul and Gala Eluard, it is likely that the series of dove paintings which Ernst made at this time does to some extent mirror his reflections on the inevitable and necessary break-up of this important relationship.
Frottage was for Ernst a catalyst that prompted him to paint directly from his unconscious. It was, he once explained "the technical means of augmenting the hallucinatory capacity of the mind so that visions could occur automatically, a means of doffing one's blindness." Following the paths that frottage established Ernst began to deliberately encourage his art to reveal the unique creatures, motifs and complexes that had haunted his imagination.
From the beginning of 1925 Ernst was financially able to concentrate solely on his art for the first time and, almost immediately, a series of recognisable creatures begins to repeatedly manifest itself in his work. Often strongly autobiographical in nature these creatures emerged from the murky depths of Ernst's unconscious as if coming from the shadows of the dark impenetrable forests that he also found himself repeatedly painting. Foremost among these creatures was the figure of a bird - one which, Ernst would later develop into his mysterious alter ego - a creature half bird, half man - to which he would give the name "Loplop". In 1925 however, the motif of the bird had only recently begun to manifest itself in Ernst's art when it was widely understood as a symbol of both love and death.
Birds had always played a significant role in Ernst's life. Ernst, not only looked like a bird but, since childhood, as he has himself explained, he had made a clear unconscious connection in his mind between people and birds. When only a boy, Ernst's favourite pet, a bird by the name of Horneborn had died during the night. That same night, his sister Loni was born. This, Ernst later wrote, led to "confusion in the brain of this otherwise quite healthy boy - a kind of interpretation mania, as if the new-born innocent had in her lust for life, taken possession of the vital fluids of his favourite bird. The crisis is soon overcome. Yet in the boy's mind there remains a voluntary if irrational confounding of the images of human beings with birds and other creatures, and this is reflected in the emblems of his art."
Many of Ernst's 1925 paintings depict two caged birds, trapped together in close confinement where they were prevented from spreading their wings. In Colombes s'enfermant dans leurs ailes three doves are shown in an ambiguous but open space that seems to play with layers of pictorial representation. The two doves on the left of the painting are clearly a loving couple that in Ernst's hands have become a uniform linear design that seems to dissolve into the airy background. The ethereality of these two entwined birds is sharply contrasted with the heavily textured and earthy materiality of the lone dove at the centre of the painting even though a connection between them seems to be established by the reciprocal patterning of red dots. Living alone after the recent break-up in the menage à trois between him and Paul and Gala Eluard, it is likely that the series of dove paintings which Ernst made at this time does to some extent mirror his reflections on the inevitable and necessary break-up of this important relationship.