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Lot Essay
In 1919 Max Ernst traveled to Munich to meet with Paul Klee. While visiting the Goltz book- store there, he chanced upon an Issue of Valori Plastici (Plastic Values), in which works by Giorgio de Chirico were reproduced. On returning to Cologne, the impressions he had received resulted in Ernst’s first and most important assimilation of the Italian Pittura metafisica (metaphysical painting). The work — eight lithographs, of which the fourth Is included here — was entitled Fiat modes, pereat ars (Long live fashion, down with art).
The influence of De Chirico turned Ernst away from the Dadaist style he had been exploring’ and toward a form of fantastic realism. In these lithographs of 1919 and in an oil of the same year, Aquis Submersis, he employed the distorted perspective, manne- quins, and haunted empty spaces of De Chi- rico, demonstrating that he had discovered and analyzed De Chirico’s work long before the latter artist became the paradigm for the Surrealists. In the present example, the upended and confused perspective gives an illogical orientation to the geometric forms; shadows fall where there should be no shade and rise where there are no obstacles. The three mannequins stand isolated, self-absorbed, only the middle figure actively studying the towering wall before him. The dress mannequins and tailors dummies that appear in the prints of the portfolio play upon the ‘fashion’ of the title, with overtones of both conventional bourgeois taste and the modish in art.
The eight lithographs are a relatively rare example of Ernst’s use of direct drawing in lithography. He was not to turn to lithography again until 1939, and when he then used the medium, it was often to be with an intermediary step, such as transferred rubbings or photolithography.
The edition size of the portfolio is not known. In an advertisement by Kairos-Verlag of Cologne in the publication Der Strom, the portfolio was announced as a series of eight water colored lithographs in an edition of 60. The original plan to color the lithographs with watercolor was discarded: Ernst destroyed the majority of the edition and only one known water colored example survives. Owing to the difficulty he encountered in working with the Verlag A.B.K. of the city government, Ernst took over the publication with his fictive schlomilch-verlag.
Steven S. High, The Modern Art of the Print: Selections from the Collection of Lois and Michael Torf, p. 70
The influence of De Chirico turned Ernst away from the Dadaist style he had been exploring’ and toward a form of fantastic realism. In these lithographs of 1919 and in an oil of the same year, Aquis Submersis, he employed the distorted perspective, manne- quins, and haunted empty spaces of De Chi- rico, demonstrating that he had discovered and analyzed De Chirico’s work long before the latter artist became the paradigm for the Surrealists. In the present example, the upended and confused perspective gives an illogical orientation to the geometric forms; shadows fall where there should be no shade and rise where there are no obstacles. The three mannequins stand isolated, self-absorbed, only the middle figure actively studying the towering wall before him. The dress mannequins and tailors dummies that appear in the prints of the portfolio play upon the ‘fashion’ of the title, with overtones of both conventional bourgeois taste and the modish in art.
The eight lithographs are a relatively rare example of Ernst’s use of direct drawing in lithography. He was not to turn to lithography again until 1939, and when he then used the medium, it was often to be with an intermediary step, such as transferred rubbings or photolithography.
The edition size of the portfolio is not known. In an advertisement by Kairos-Verlag of Cologne in the publication Der Strom, the portfolio was announced as a series of eight water colored lithographs in an edition of 60. The original plan to color the lithographs with watercolor was discarded: Ernst destroyed the majority of the edition and only one known water colored example survives. Owing to the difficulty he encountered in working with the Verlag A.B.K. of the city government, Ernst took over the publication with his fictive schlomilch-verlag.
Steven S. High, The Modern Art of the Print: Selections from the Collection of Lois and Michael Torf, p. 70