Rainwater 1986
Rainwater, Robert, ed. Max Ernst: Beyond Surrealism. New York Public Library, 1986.
Robert Rainwater, "Max Ernst, Printmaker"
Ernst on his own collages: “the fortuitous encounter upon a nonsuitable plane of two mutually distant realities” (11)
“As Ernst unquestionably attained with Maximiliana in 1964 his highest accomplishment in printed art, he again adapted indirect, semi-automatic procedures originating in Surrealism of the 1920s for the realization of the book’s thirty-four etchings and aquatints. Six of the volume’s most striking prints, for folios 5, 7, 8, 25, 27, and 287, bear strong resemblance to Man Ray’s photograms in their shadow wilhouettes, variable light sources, and transparent backgrounds. By placing found objects on his copperplates while dusting the resin (or spraying a diluted stop-out varnish) in the preliminary stages of making an aquatint, Ernst was able to transpose the forms of the objects onto the plates when exposed to acid. In a similar way, Man Ray had made his photograms as counterparts to collages by assembling objects on photographic paper.” (34)
Evan M. Maurer, "Images of Dream and Desire: The Prints and Collage Novesl of Max Ernst"
birth of sister and death of pet bird at the same time; starting obsession with bird-headed men and birds (autobiographical statement of 1948)
"As the collage novels also represent more fully than his other media Ernst's deep preoccupation with writing and poetry as model, inspiration, and source, their significance as monuments of twentieth-century art takes on yet another dimension." (55)
combining collage elements "to suggest a recognizable figure without obscuring the original identity of its individual components. While these kinds of images have their own very effective pictorial and psychological attraction, Ernst soon achieved even greater expressive power by limiting the number of collaged photographs to intensify the visual and emotiona; impact of their juxtaposition." (56)
by 1921, became interested in the wood engravings in turn-of-century magazines and journals -- first used in collages in collaboration with Paul Eluard, Répétitions, and in Les Malheurs des immortels, coauthored by Ernst (57)
"Ernst also believed that there was a significant aesthetic value in the process of creating a collage which was equivalent to that of the visual product achieved as its end result. He recognized that the act of bringing together the elements of one of these works involved a willingness to surrender himself to chance and to the unconscious drives of his innermost desires." (57)
"In Ernst's view, the processes of both collage and frottage were the principal means by which Surrealist visual artists could attain the same level of creative freedom experienced by the writers and poets of the movement." (58)
influence of Freud's theory of dreams
"Prior to La Femme 100 têtes, Ernst executed his collages as individual works of art. Even those which illustrate Répétitions and Les Malheurs des immortels were chosen from a large group made prior to the conception of the books and their poems. The greatest innovation of the collage novels, therefore, involves Ernst's creation of a large number of works on related themes which he brought together in extended serial order. Following the premise of their literary structure, we can thus describe the individual collages as phrases or sentences that Ernst linked into a marvelous and very personal syntax to achieve the visual equivalent of paragraphs, chapters, and books." 58
"The 147 collages of La Femme 100 têtes are linked and unified by these universal themes of essential human experience, and by the visual repetitions and variations of the nude or draped classical figures which often fall or float incongruously through its scenes. Through these repetitions Ernst utilized the viewer's memory as a unifying agent, a concept he learned from Henri Bergson's characterization of memory as an active element in the experience of continuity he called duration. For Ernst as for Bergson, memory was an intuitive rather than an intellectual function and was therefore vital to the creation of works of art. The sensation of duration was also associated with dreams, which constituted another important source of Ernst's serial juxtaposition of non-sequential yet related imagery." 68
End of La Femme — "The final collage of the novel repeats the same image of the man falling from the sky that Ernst used to begin this visual adventure. Entitled "Fin et suite" (End and continuation), it completes an extraordinary journey by acknowledging that Ernst's collage novels are an open system whose dramatic and aesthetic potential depends upon the strength of the viewer's imagination. In ending with his first image, Ernst established a circular route that directs us back into the novel to make new discoveries and associations." 69
"Ernst viewed his collage novels as his participation in this collective endeavor to liberate and regenerate the emotional and sexual aspects of Western humanity's nature." (70)
Matthew G. Lewis, The Monk -- 19c gothic novel that influenced Ernst (owned worn paperback copy) (73)
Anne Hyde Greet, "Max Ernst and the Artist's Book: From Fiat modes to Maximiliana"
"As the twentieth century progressed, painters and also sculptors of the Paris school became increasingly interested in the book as an art object, although, unless they were desperate for ready cash, it was of little commercial value to them. The collaboration on a book meant a great deal of work for very little money or publicity. What seems to have allured even established painters was, in large part (for artists like Ernst), the idea of collaborating with their writer friends, or with publishers who were often art dealers and gallery owners as well and who stood by their painters (besides Ambroise Vollard the names of D. H. Kahnweiler, Aimé Maeght, Jean Hugues in Paris and Gérald Cramer in Geneva immediately come to mind) or who were distinguished for their innovative vision of the book (Iliazd, Pierre Lecuire, P.A.B.). Another enticement was the prospect of working with talented printmakers like Eugène Delâtre, Roger Lacourière, Georges Visat, or Jacques Frélaut who could teach traditional or new techniques or who were receptive to experiments and innovations. The same applies to printers like Marthe Féquet and Pierre Baudier or, in present time, Louis Barnier, spirits who have welcomed unorthodox approaches to typography and page design. The book, with its ancient lineage and religious associations, became one of the battlefields of the avant-garde, most of whose participants, like Max Ernst, remembered from their childhood the spellbinding illustrations in Paul et Virginie, Les Trois Mousquetaires, or Vingt mille leagues sous la mer." (95)