Oiseaux

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."