Argues that alchemical ideas and imagery were central to the work of Max
Ernst (1891-1976).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
multi-layered complexity of Ernst's works, as it affirms his standing as one of
Germany's most significant artists of the twentieth century. M. E. Warlick is
Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Denver.
