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Lot Essay
‘Man has escaped from his head just as the condemned man has escaped from his prison. He has found beyond himself not God, who is the prohibition against crime, but a being who is unaware of prohibition. Beyond what I am, I meet a being who makes me laugh because he is headless; this fills me with dread because he is made of innocence and crime; he holds a steel weapon in his left hand, flames like those of a sacred heart in his right. He unites in the same eruption Birth and Death. He is not a man. He is not a God either. He is not me but he is more than me: his stomach is the labyrinth in which he has lost himself, loses me with him, and in which I discover myself as him, in other words as monster’ (G. Bataille, ‘La Conjuration Sacrée,’ Acéphale, Paris, 24 June 1936).
So wrote Georges Bataille introducing his concept of the ‘Acephalic’ man in 1936 in the magazine Acéphale that he began with André Masson who provided the illustrations. Le fauteuil Louis XVI is a major oil painting made by Masson, two years later in which Bataille’s concept of the ‘Acephalic’ man has been mythically translated into the role of a dictator in the wake of Masson’s experiences of the Spanish Civil War and the ever-darkening political climate in Europe. Belonging to what has sometimes been called Masson’s second Surrealist period, the painting is one of the foremost examples of his Anthropomorphic Furniture pictures - a series of works that the artist’s biographer Otto Hahn claimed marked ‘one of the highpoints of Masson’s production’ (O. Hahn, André Masson, London, 1965, p. 16). It was in this series of ‘Anthropomorphic’ or ‘Animated’ furniture paintings, Hahn added rather mysteriously, that the artist managed to rebuild ‘on a mental plane the labyrinth of [his earlier] automatic drawings, [and establish] fortress labyrinths which close in on and suffocate the Minotaur’ (ibid.).
Hahn’s reference to the Minotaur relates to one of the most prominent mythological invocations of the Surrealists during the 1930s: the image of the monster (living inside man), who lies trapped within the labyrinth of his unconscious mind. It is an image that Masson, along with many other artists throughout the 1930s, often invoked; it was also Masson who had originally suggested the name of ‘Minotaur’ to E Tériade and Albert Skira for their famous Surrealist magazine. One year after its creation, in 1939, Le fauteuil Louis XVI also appeared in the magazine Minotaure under the title, Le père des Français. With its imposing image of a Louis XIV chair transformed into a headless figure, commanding a blood-soaked setting, the picture presented a foreboding image of the current state of France. Standing as a kind of antithesis to the more heroic, Dionysian figure of the headless, Acephalic man of two years earlier, who had held a sword and a sacred flaming heart, the similar headless figure of Le fauteuil Louis XVI now wields a skull and a veto in flames. Splatters of blood and a field of poppies within which spring-loaded animal-traps await the cloven feet of this furniture-figure hint prophetically at a dangerous and war-torn landscape.
In 1938, Masson, recently returned from witnessing atrocities committed by the Fascists in Spain, had, like many of his generation, grown increasingly pessimistic about the rise of dictatorships throughout Europe. Drawing upon a decapitated image of the last dictator of France, King Louis XVI, who had himself become a victim of the guillotine, Le fauteuil Louis XVI appears to address this subject. Martin Ries has written of this work for instance that, ‘the decapitated image in Le fauteuil Louis XVI represents the old culture and the new culture, the former aborted by the French Revolution, and the latter by the Great War… the Louis XVI armchair is a pseudothrone, a false world centre without the stability, equilibrium, and aesthetic synthesis customarily attributed to thrones since prehistoric times… Louis holds the veto… a reference to the attempt by Louis to exercise the veto assured him by the Constitution of 1791, one of the causes of the Revolution’ (M. Ries, ‘André Masson: Surrealism and His Discontents,’ in Art Journal, Winter, 2002, Vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 79-80).
As well as an anti-fascist warning against dictatorships, Le fauteuil Louis XVI is one of a sequence of metamorphosizing, anthropomorphic furniture paintings depicting strange figures emerging from the forms of Louis XIV furniture that Masson was repeatedly making at this time. In some respects therefore, as William Rubin has pointed out, Masson, who in 1938 had recently reconciled with André Breton after a period of estrangement, was ‘in effect, tardily responding to Breton’s call in the second manifesto [of Surrealism] for the “occultation” of inanimate objects. The subjects are monstrous personages, more animal than human, which derive from deliberately hallucinatory meditations on pieces of furniture,’ adding also that, ‘Masson recalls that he often started with Louis XV chairs because their forms were already a bit “faunish”’ (W. Rubin, André Masson and Twentieth Century Painting, New York, 1976, p. 43).
The late 1930s was a period in which many artists were transforming objects into bizarre, fetishized or occult objects and in which Surrealists from Salvador Dalí and Wilhelm Freddie to Victor Brauner were often animating or anthropomorphizing tables and chairs. Masson’s Anthropomorphic Furniture pictures are both a part of this tendency and also an extension of his own deeply literary approach to the painting of powerful and disturbing personal pictorial mythologies. Inspired by his close friendship with writers such as Bataille, Michel Leiris, and Jacques Lacan, Masson’s often deliberately literary approach to his art during this decade was one that initially provoked severe criticism from American critics and has only more recently come to be appreciated in the post-modern era. ‘Fifty years ago the word “literary” was very important to certain backward and mistaken critics,’ Masson recalled. They ‘accused a painting of being “literary” when they didn’t like it. I read a lot, and I was proud of making “literary” paintings. The critics didn’t go for it. For a long time I was ferociously criticized – accused of putting something superfluous into painting, as if I didn’t think painting was enough on its own. And then it died down naturally’ (A. Masson quoted in D. Davvetas, ‘Inside the Tomato Jungle: An interview with André Masson,’ in Artforum, October 1987, pp. 91-95).
So wrote Georges Bataille introducing his concept of the ‘Acephalic’ man in 1936 in the magazine Acéphale that he began with André Masson who provided the illustrations. Le fauteuil Louis XVI is a major oil painting made by Masson, two years later in which Bataille’s concept of the ‘Acephalic’ man has been mythically translated into the role of a dictator in the wake of Masson’s experiences of the Spanish Civil War and the ever-darkening political climate in Europe. Belonging to what has sometimes been called Masson’s second Surrealist period, the painting is one of the foremost examples of his Anthropomorphic Furniture pictures - a series of works that the artist’s biographer Otto Hahn claimed marked ‘one of the highpoints of Masson’s production’ (O. Hahn, André Masson, London, 1965, p. 16). It was in this series of ‘Anthropomorphic’ or ‘Animated’ furniture paintings, Hahn added rather mysteriously, that the artist managed to rebuild ‘on a mental plane the labyrinth of [his earlier] automatic drawings, [and establish] fortress labyrinths which close in on and suffocate the Minotaur’ (ibid.).
Hahn’s reference to the Minotaur relates to one of the most prominent mythological invocations of the Surrealists during the 1930s: the image of the monster (living inside man), who lies trapped within the labyrinth of his unconscious mind. It is an image that Masson, along with many other artists throughout the 1930s, often invoked; it was also Masson who had originally suggested the name of ‘Minotaur’ to E Tériade and Albert Skira for their famous Surrealist magazine. One year after its creation, in 1939, Le fauteuil Louis XVI also appeared in the magazine Minotaure under the title, Le père des Français. With its imposing image of a Louis XIV chair transformed into a headless figure, commanding a blood-soaked setting, the picture presented a foreboding image of the current state of France. Standing as a kind of antithesis to the more heroic, Dionysian figure of the headless, Acephalic man of two years earlier, who had held a sword and a sacred flaming heart, the similar headless figure of Le fauteuil Louis XVI now wields a skull and a veto in flames. Splatters of blood and a field of poppies within which spring-loaded animal-traps await the cloven feet of this furniture-figure hint prophetically at a dangerous and war-torn landscape.
In 1938, Masson, recently returned from witnessing atrocities committed by the Fascists in Spain, had, like many of his generation, grown increasingly pessimistic about the rise of dictatorships throughout Europe. Drawing upon a decapitated image of the last dictator of France, King Louis XVI, who had himself become a victim of the guillotine, Le fauteuil Louis XVI appears to address this subject. Martin Ries has written of this work for instance that, ‘the decapitated image in Le fauteuil Louis XVI represents the old culture and the new culture, the former aborted by the French Revolution, and the latter by the Great War… the Louis XVI armchair is a pseudothrone, a false world centre without the stability, equilibrium, and aesthetic synthesis customarily attributed to thrones since prehistoric times… Louis holds the veto… a reference to the attempt by Louis to exercise the veto assured him by the Constitution of 1791, one of the causes of the Revolution’ (M. Ries, ‘André Masson: Surrealism and His Discontents,’ in Art Journal, Winter, 2002, Vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 79-80).
As well as an anti-fascist warning against dictatorships, Le fauteuil Louis XVI is one of a sequence of metamorphosizing, anthropomorphic furniture paintings depicting strange figures emerging from the forms of Louis XIV furniture that Masson was repeatedly making at this time. In some respects therefore, as William Rubin has pointed out, Masson, who in 1938 had recently reconciled with André Breton after a period of estrangement, was ‘in effect, tardily responding to Breton’s call in the second manifesto [of Surrealism] for the “occultation” of inanimate objects. The subjects are monstrous personages, more animal than human, which derive from deliberately hallucinatory meditations on pieces of furniture,’ adding also that, ‘Masson recalls that he often started with Louis XV chairs because their forms were already a bit “faunish”’ (W. Rubin, André Masson and Twentieth Century Painting, New York, 1976, p. 43).
The late 1930s was a period in which many artists were transforming objects into bizarre, fetishized or occult objects and in which Surrealists from Salvador Dalí and Wilhelm Freddie to Victor Brauner were often animating or anthropomorphizing tables and chairs. Masson’s Anthropomorphic Furniture pictures are both a part of this tendency and also an extension of his own deeply literary approach to the painting of powerful and disturbing personal pictorial mythologies. Inspired by his close friendship with writers such as Bataille, Michel Leiris, and Jacques Lacan, Masson’s often deliberately literary approach to his art during this decade was one that initially provoked severe criticism from American critics and has only more recently come to be appreciated in the post-modern era. ‘Fifty years ago the word “literary” was very important to certain backward and mistaken critics,’ Masson recalled. They ‘accused a painting of being “literary” when they didn’t like it. I read a lot, and I was proud of making “literary” paintings. The critics didn’t go for it. For a long time I was ferociously criticized – accused of putting something superfluous into painting, as if I didn’t think painting was enough on its own. And then it died down naturally’ (A. Masson quoted in D. Davvetas, ‘Inside the Tomato Jungle: An interview with André Masson,’ in Artforum, October 1987, pp. 91-95).