Les Oiseaux

Max Ernst, a German-born artist and a pioneer of Dadaism and Surrealism, created paintings, sculptures, and prints that depict fantastical and nightmarish images rooted in the fears of his childhood.

Trained in philosophy, Ernst served in World War I and was deeply traumatized by the experience. Influenced by Freud’s psychoanalysis, he shifted his focus from rationality and order to the exploration of the irrational and the unconscious. Ernst employed experimental techniques and various media—painting, collage, printmaking, and sculpture—to reflect the fragmentation of reason and the upheaval of societal norms. From 1919 onward, he used collage as a primary technique and later developed frottage, a method where textured surfaces like leaves or metal were covered with paper and rubbed with pencil or crayon to create intriguing effects, as part of his quest to capture the subconscious on canvas.

The bird, a recurring motif in Ernst’s works, holds deep personal significance for the artist and appears in many of his creations, including the artwork Bird. In his autobiography, Ernst described a fantasy in which he believed he was born from an egg in an eagle’s nest. He also recalled feeling a profound confusion between humans and birds, stemming from the coincidence of his pet bird’s death on the day his sister was born. The bird became a symbol Ernst closely identified with, often depicted as Loplop, his alter ego. Loplop is a hybrid being, neither entirely human nor bird, representing Ernst’s symbolic double and appearing frequently as a central figure in his art.