A Bride from a Dream

A mysterious figure


A rare and amazing figure has appeared in front of us: mysterious, covered by a feathered dress (or is it itself an animal?) and surrounded by disturbing presences. There’s a suspended, rarefied, silent and unreal atmosphere, made of the same substance of dreams. This is the art matter of Max Ernst, the great surrealist.

The bride dressing

The painting could seem familiar and recall images already seen, despite his originality. It appears as a partial “sketch” of the German artist's most famous work “The bride dressing”, today exhibited at the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation in Venice, painted in 1940. Although not declared, the link between two works is evident starting from the singular dress-cloak worn by the protagonist, made by heavy fabric and feathers of vivid brick red color. The sketch scene appears simpler in composition: it focuses on a single female figure who keeps her face visible here, almost wanting to cling to her human nature which instead disappears into the “major” work where the bride is just a naked body deprived of her identity, with eyes and beak of a bird.

The face of the beloved

The face painted by Ernst is that of Leonora Carrington, a young English artist met in 1937 with whom he spent a few years in Cornwall, until 1940 when he was captured by the Germans. While he will dedicate the painting to another woman: the inscription on the back says: “To Leonor Fini/Divinity/Max Ernst”, a talented Italian artist, nonconformist, protagonist of the cultural life of the 20th Century with whom the painter had a short relationship.

The author

Born in Germany, at the beginning the artist is interested in philosophy, studying at the University of Bonn, and then shifts his interests to psychology. However, his attention was soon kidnapped by art and its expressive possibilities. He began to attend many artists and intellectuals (Marke, Apollinare, Arp) and joined the Swiss Dada movement, spreading it also in Germany. This experience lasted until 1922, when he transferred to Paris, landmark for the artists of the epoch. Here stimuli and suggestions make Ernst’ surrealist creativity explode.

Style

In this period, Ernst approaches heterogeneous creative processes to the traditional painting technique: he frequently uses the collage, with extraordinary results in his illustrated books, and transforms the “frottage” into his distinctive element (the technique is obtained by rubbing pencil or pastels on a sheet under which a not smooth surface is put, like in the coin game). He experiments and uses any technique which allows the expression of his creative journey.

Dreams creator

Ernst is not a dreams painter, he doesn’t tell his dreamlike world, but during the artistic process creates it, when it takes shape on the canvas gradually as the figures approach each other, when they enter into “alogical” relationships with each other, just like in a collage. There is no rational intervention, the hand is not guided by a predefined imitating and narrative purpose. It’s the unconscious that makes things happen and the artist's ability to photograph it creates the art.