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Lot Essay
‘Magician of subtle palpitations, Max Ernst set free a flock of doves whose heat, whose fears, whose wishes our fingers would like to but cannot feel, because bones covered with flesh are hardly worthy of serving as perches for birds of spirit’
René Crevel
Projet pour le monument aux oiseaux is one of an important series of paintings from 1927 that culminated with two large works both titled Monument aux oiseaux (Spies nos. 1210 & 1216; Musée Cantini, Marseille & Private collection). This was a highly productive time for Ernst, during which he was working on a number of concurrent series. Arguably however it was this ‘Birds’ series that dominated this period, with this motif appearing almost everywhere in his paintings, in various guises and roles. Indeed, his obsession, and, in the present work, apparent veneration, of these animals would reach its apogee just a few years later, when, in around 1930, Ernst created a mysterious, avian alter ego, a Doppelgänger with a beak and wings, whom he dubbed ‘Loplop, Superior of Birds’.
Amidst an expansive panorama of blue sky, in the present work a huddle of birds floats serenely in the air, their heads nestled into their abundant plumage, with one remaining upright and sentinel. Rising majestically skywards, hieratic and self-contained, they silently preside over their heavenly realm. Ernst painted a near-identical composition for the final Monument aux oiseaux, which was acquired by the legendary Surrealist patron, Vicomte Charles de Noailles. The way in which Ernst has presented the birds in both the study and final work is particularly rare within Ernst’s oeuvre at this time, with some suggesting that the scene refers to Christian iconography; the birds’ ‘weightlessness, the impassivity, the immunity from earthly concerns’ suggesting a ‘feathered Ascension’ (J. Russell, Max Ernst, Life and Work, London, 1996, p. 106).
René Crevel
Projet pour le monument aux oiseaux is one of an important series of paintings from 1927 that culminated with two large works both titled Monument aux oiseaux (Spies nos. 1210 & 1216; Musée Cantini, Marseille & Private collection). This was a highly productive time for Ernst, during which he was working on a number of concurrent series. Arguably however it was this ‘Birds’ series that dominated this period, with this motif appearing almost everywhere in his paintings, in various guises and roles. Indeed, his obsession, and, in the present work, apparent veneration, of these animals would reach its apogee just a few years later, when, in around 1930, Ernst created a mysterious, avian alter ego, a Doppelgänger with a beak and wings, whom he dubbed ‘Loplop, Superior of Birds’.
Amidst an expansive panorama of blue sky, in the present work a huddle of birds floats serenely in the air, their heads nestled into their abundant plumage, with one remaining upright and sentinel. Rising majestically skywards, hieratic and self-contained, they silently preside over their heavenly realm. Ernst painted a near-identical composition for the final Monument aux oiseaux, which was acquired by the legendary Surrealist patron, Vicomte Charles de Noailles. The way in which Ernst has presented the birds in both the study and final work is particularly rare within Ernst’s oeuvre at this time, with some suggesting that the scene refers to Christian iconography; the birds’ ‘weightlessness, the impassivity, the immunity from earthly concerns’ suggesting a ‘feathered Ascension’ (J. Russell, Max Ernst, Life and Work, London, 1996, p. 106).