girl with her hoop in the foreground, the empty van, and the omi-
nous shadow of a man emerging from behind the building. The
sense of strangeness de Chirico could conjure with familiar objects
and scenes recalls Nietzsche’s “foreboding that underneath this real-
ity in which we live and have our being, another and altogether dif-
ferent reality lies concealed.”^31
De Chirico’s paintings were reproduced in periodicals almost as
soon as he completed them, and his works quickly influenced artists
outside Italy, including both the Dadaists and, later, the Surrealists.
The incongruities in his work intrigued the Dadaists, whereas the
eerie mood and visionary quality of paintings such as Melancholy
and Mystery of a Street excited and inspired Surrealist artists who
sought to portray the world of dreams.
MAX ERNSTOriginally a Dada activist in Germany,Max Ernst
(1891–1976) became one of the early adherents of the Surrealist circle
that André Breton anchored. As a child living in a small community
near Cologne, Ernst had found his existence fantastic and filled with
marvels. In autobiographical notes, written mostly in the third person,
he said of his birth: “Max Ernst had his first contact with the world of
sense on the 2nd April 1891 at 9:45 A.M., when he emerged from the
egg which his mother had laid in an eagle’s nest and which the bird
had incubated for seven years.”^32 Ernst’s service in the German army
during World War I swept away his early success as an Expressionist.
In his own words:
Max Ernst died on 1st August 1914. He returned to life on 11th No-
vember 1918, a young man who wanted to become a magician andfind the central myth of his age. From time to time he consulted the
eagle which had guarded the egg of his prenatal existence. The bird’s
advice can be detected in his work.^33Before joining the Surrealists, Ernst explored every means to
achieve the sense of the psychic in his art. Like other Dadaists, he set
out to incorporate found objects and chance into his works. Using a
process called frottage,he created some works by combining the pat-
terns achieved by rubbing a crayon or another medium across a
sheet of paper placed over a surface having a strong, evocative tex-
tural pattern. In other works, Ernst joined fragments of images he
had cut from old books, magazines, and prints to form one halluci-
natory collage.
Ernst soon began making paintings that shared the mysterious
dreamlike effect of his collages. In 1920 his works brought him into
contact with Breton, who instantly recognized Ernst’s affinity with
the Surrealist group. In 1922, Ernst moved to Paris. His Two Children
Are Threatened by a Nightingale (FIG. 35-47) manifests many of the
creative bases of Surrealism. Here, Ernst displayed a private dream
that challenged the post-Renaissance idea that a painting should re-
semble a window looking into a “real” scene rendered illusionistically
three-dimensional through mathematical perspective. In Two Chil-
dren,the artist painted the landscape, the distant city, and the tiny fly-
ing bird in conventional fashion, following all the established rules of
linear and atmospheric perspective. The three sketchily rendered fig-
ures, however, clearly belong to a dream world, and the literally three-
dimensional miniature gate, the odd button knob, and the strange944 Chapter 35 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1900 TO 194535-46Giorgio de Chirico,Melancholy and Mystery of a Street,- Oil on canvas, 2 101 – 4 2 4 –^12 . Private collection.
De Chirico’s Metaphysical Painting movement was a precursor of
Surrealism. In this street scene, filled with mysterious forms and
shadows, the painter evoked a disquieting sense of foreboding.
35-47Max Ernst,Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale,- Oil on wood with wood construction, 2 3 –^12 1 10 –^12 4 –^12 .
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
In this early Surrealist painting with an intentionally ambiguous title,
Ernst used traditional perspective to represent the setting, but the three
sketchily rendered figures belong to a dream world.
1 ft.
1 ft.