Max Ernst
L'Ange Du Foyer Ou Le Triomphe Du Surréalisme

Max Ernst, "L'Ange du foyer ou le Triomphe du Surréalisme", oil on canvas, 1937, 114x146 cm, private collection.

These are the only pieces of information I have found on the Internet regarding this unknown work by one of the greatest surrealist painters of all time, Max Ernst. It is really hard to analyze these paintings, extremely difficult when you have to try to extract something without any help. Let’s start with the title: translated from French it means: "The Angel of the Hearth or the Triumph of Surrealism". The second part of the title I would say is quite fitting, given the nature of the painting: a strange multicolored anthropomorphic abomination, with a disturbing protrusion on the right leg and attached to the right arm, and with a head of an unidentified animal (dog? Horse? Eagle? all three mixed? Everyone can have their say). Moreover, another question arises: what is it doing? Why is it dancing in that desolate and barren land? Also observe the head: is it crying or laughing?

Many, too many questions crowd our minds, but isn’t that precisely Ernst’s goal? To confuse ideas, and further scramble our neurons with the first part of the title: "The Angel of the Hearth". A title absolutely unrelated to the subject of the painting or not? Certainly, this is not how the angels of the hearth were traditionally portrayed! Ernst has thus overturned traditional iconography...But why?

I leave to you all the mental speculations on the case, as I have long stopped trying to search for hidden meanings even where there are none: who tells us that with the title and the depicted subject Ernst wants to tell us something? Or is nothing implied? Or is it up to us to find some meaning? Dear sirs, leave the answers to these questions to art critics or the so-called: after all, if all questions had an answer, would these works be equally fascinating? Let us then admire the work in its mystery, and from the height of my mediocrity, I say that, although a minor work, it is remarkable.

P.S. Excuse my poor stream of consciousness, but this review came to me spontaneously...