M. E. Warlick - Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician in Search of Myth [1eBook - PDF] (Alchemy)

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 2001

Surrealist artist Max Ernst defined collage as the "alchemy of the visual image." Students of his work have often dismissed this comment as simply a metaphor for the transformative power of using found images in a new context. Taking a wholly different perspective on Ernst and alchemy, however, M. E. Warlick persuasively demonstrates that the artist had a profound and abiding interest in alchemical philosophy and often used alchemical symbolism in works created throughout his career.

A revival of interest in alchemy swept the artistic, psychoanalytic, historical, and scientific circles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Warlick sets Ernst's work squarely within this movement. Looking at both his art (many of the works she discusses are reproduced in the book) and his writings, she reveals how thoroughly alchemical philosophy and symbolism pervade his early Dadaist experiments, his foundational work in surrealism, and his many collages and paintings of women and landscapes, whose images exemplify the alchemical fusing of opposites. This pioneering research adds an essential key to understanding the multilayered complexity of Ernst's works, as it affirms his standing as one of Germany's most significant artists of the twentieth century.

Quote:

Maybe it's because Max Ernst is alchemy personified that this analysis of his work and it's connection to alchemy is more or less a complete biography the man as a whole. It takes you through his psychological developement as a child to the developement of his sexual identity and ties it all in with his drive as an artist and as an alchemist. Unlike other books on his life or work, this one fuses all the elements together: psychology, alchemy, art, the occult and sex. It's uncanny how much ground "Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician in Search of Myth" covers. If you love Ernst this is the only book you'll ever need. It's superbly fleshed out. I was left both wanting more and comepletely satisfied! I guess since this is the only book of it's kind it takes the cake. Rarely does a study of this calibre see the light of day! It is truly the alchemy of the modern day alchemist.

Contents

foreword by franklin rosemont xiii
acknowledgments xxiii
introduction 1
1. the myth of the child 7
2. alchemy: its history, revival, and symbolism 18
3. initiation 34
4. the occultation of surrealism 61
5. collage as alchemy 105
6. the alchemical androgyne: ernst and the women in his life 136
7. as above, so below: the alchemical landscapes 184
conclusion 215
notes 219
an alchemical glossary 261
selected bibliography 269
index 289

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