Max Ernst: Calme

“Arizona reappears as a motif throughout Ernst’s oeuvre, serving as blank canvas upon which the artist was able to project his psychological frame of mind. His grattages from the interwar period had depicted an imaginary Arizona landscape that appeared bleak and ravaged, reflecting Ernst’s traumatized state of mind after having served in World War I. Conversely, Calme, painted several decades later in 1958, invokes the tranquility and peace Ernst had encountered in the Arizona desert. Executed several years after his move to the France, Ernst was in a new phase of life, developing a deep interest in spirituality and cosmology. Once again opting for a secluded location, the couple had taken up residence in Huisnes in the Loire Valley, and in a letter, Ernst described how ‘it is beautiful and gentle and calm here’ (quoted in W. Spies, Max Ernst Retrospective, exh. cat., Ostfildern, 2013, p. 279). This feeling of serenity can be felt in Calme, as a sense of stillness permeates the painting, with gentle ripples in the water lapping the mountainside edge. The mysticism Ernst associated with the Arizona landscape is conveyed by the white rays of light, which radiate from an enigmatic source. Rather than being emitted from the vermillion sun in the sky, they appear to both simultaneously emanate from and light up the mountainous landscape.”
READ FULL ESSAY: Christie’s

“He had no formal artistic training, but his experimental attitude toward the making of art resulted in his invention of frottage—a technique that uses pencil rubbings of textured objects and relief surfaces to create images—and grattage, an analogous technique in which paint is scraped across canvas to reveal the imprints of the objects placed beneath.”

wikiwand