Forest and Sun

1927

Max Ernst
French, born Germany, 1891–1976

Among his many recollections of childhood, Max Ernst often recounted his fear and fascination with the forest that surrounded his home. He wrote of feeling “delight and oppression and what the Romantics called ‘emotion in the face of Nature.’” By expressing his thoughts in these terms, Ernst linked himself with the spiritual landscape tradition of Romanticism, which conceived of an invisible realm at work in the natural world.

This dark and mysterious forest scene dates to one of the most creative periods of Ernst’s career. Spurred by the Surrealist leader André Breton’s proclamation of “pure psychic automatism” as an artistic ideal, he developed the innovative technique of frottage, his term for the method of reproducing a relief design (like the surface of a piece of wood) by laying paper or canvas over it and rubbing it with a pencil, charcoal, or another medium. In Forest and Sun Ernst used this technique to create a petrified forest, which he imbued with a sense of primordial otherworldliness. By scraping away almost-dry paint on the canvas (a process he called grattage), the artist produced the encircled sun at the center of the composition. Ernst painted six variations of the forest and sun theme. As in the other five canvases, the tree trunks suggest a letter in the artist’s name: in this case, a capital M.

Status: On View, Gallery 395
Department: Modern Art

Artist: Max Ernst
Title: Forest and Sun
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1927
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed, l.r.: Max Ernst
Dimensions: 66 × 82.5 cm (26 × 32 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Bequest of Richard S. Zeisler
Reference Number: 2007.276
Copyright: © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Max Ernst, Beyond Painting: And Other Writings by the Artist and his Friends (New York: Wittenborn, Schultz, 1948).
Thomas Hess, Abstract Painting: Background and American Phase (New York: Viking Press, 1951).
Patrick Waldberg, Max Ernst (Paris: J. J. Pauvert, 1958).
The Museum of Modern Art, Max Ernst, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1961).
Tate Gallery, Max Ernst Exhibition, exh. cat. (London: Tate Gallery, 1961).
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Rousseau, Redon and Fantasy, exh. cat. (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1968).
Werner Spies, Max Ernst Oeuvre-Katalog, Vol. 3, (Houston: Menil Foundation, 1976), no. 1172.
The Museum of Modern Art, Four Modern Masters: de Chirico, Ernst, Magritte and Miro, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1981).
William A. Camfield, Max Ernst and the Dawn of Surrealism, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1993).
Guild Hall Galleries, The Surrealists and Their Friends on Eastern Long Island at Mid-Century, exh. cat. (Key West, Fla.: Guild Hall Galleries, 1996).

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Max Ernst, February 27-May 7, 1961; traveled to Chicago, Art Institute, June 14-July 23, 1961.
London, Tate Gallery, Max Ernst Exhibition, September 5-October 15, 1961.
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Rousseau, Redon and Fantasy, May 31-September 8, 1968.
Houston, Institute for the Arts, Rice University, January 1972.
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Four Modern Masters: de Chirico, Ernst, Magritte and Miro, May-October 1981; toured: São Paulo, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Caracas, Venezuela.
Chicago, Art Institute, Max Ernst and the Dawn of Surrealism, September 18-November 30, 1993.
Key West, Fla., Guild Hall Galleries, The Surrealists and Their Friends on Eastern Long Island at Mid-Century, August 10-October 13, 1996.

Baron Elie de Rothschild [Feigen receipt in curatorial file]. Richard L. Feigen, New York, by February 7, 1959; sold to Richard Zeisler, New York, February 7, 1959 [receipt in curatorial file].

Spies 1172

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