Pâques

Executed in 1953, the composition combines some of the most iconic motifs of Ernst's art: the forest, the petrified city and the artist's bird alter ego Loplop. The rocky, red texture of the painting, moreover, is reminiscent of the Arizona desert, near to where Ernst had lived in the early 1940s, fleeing Europe at the outbreak of the Second World War. Merging the vivid memories of his recent exile with the most enduring subjects from his earlier career, Pâques is an intriguing example of Ernst's revisiting and revitalising some of his older themes and motifs.

Working in oil on paper, in Pâques Ernst achieved a great effect of relief, lending the surface impressive texture and substance. Rubbing the surface of the paper against various objects, Ernst was able to create a rich background whose lines and shades made unexpected images surface, stimulating the unconscious mind of the artist. In this regard, Pâques is a representative example of Ernst's pioneering techniques of grattage and frottage, which in the late 1920s gave a new impetus and force to the Surrealist movement.

In 1953, the year he painted Pâques, Ernst settled in Paris, together with the surrealist painter Dorothea Tanning, near Constantin Brancusi's studio on Impasse Ronsin. That same year, the first retrospective exhibition of his works was held in Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium, while a year later Ernst was awarded the prestigious Grand Prize for painting at the Venice Biennale. Pâques therefore dates from an important period of transition and recognition in Ernst's life.