Max Ernst

Max Ernst born April 2th 1891 - April 1st 1976 was a German painter, sculptor and editor. He studied at the Univerty of Bonn and came to be a key figure in the Dadaist and Surrealist art movements. He served in WW1 for the German army, and after serving his country turned his attention to the Dada movement, a movement which he was notorious for his art events and collage work. He moved to Paris in 1922, where he helped to found the art movement 'Surrealsim'. He derived many of his inpiristion from his childhood fantasies and dreams. Ernst constantly experimented with different media, and invented the graphic art technique 'frottage'. He also created another techinique called 'grattage' - shown below called 'An Elephant a Day' He also developed an interest in birrds, which became his alter ego in his paintings which he named 'Loplop'. His work is highly absract and vividly dreamlike. One of his early paintings called 'Elephant Celebes' is a good example of this, and is regarded as a masterpiece. I like the fact that he uses a range of different media's, however his 'Napoleon in the Wilderness' which was painted in 1941 although only painted oil on canvas is one of my favourite pieces that he produced, the colour palette his uses is visually pleasing and shows that his technical ability is very high.

An Elephant a Day:



The Elephant Celebes:



Napoleon In The Wilderness: