Surrealist Persona: Max Ernst's "Loplop, Superior of Birds" Author(s): Charlotte Stokes Source: Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for

the History of Art, Vol. 13, No. 3/4 (1983), pp. 225-234 Published by: Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3780542 . Accessed: 24/05/2011 02:04
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=svnk. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Stichting voor Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art.

http://www.jstor.org

225

Surrealistpersona:Max Ernst'sLoplop,superior of birds* Stokes Charlotte

The persona is a semblance,a two-dimensionalreality...1 C.G.Jung

it is All surrealist artis to some degreeautobiographical: an avowed codificationnot only of how artists see the world but of how they see themselves. To make the andother personalnatureof theirartexplicit,surrealists artistslikeDuchampwith his RroseSelavyhavecreated individual personas that are incorporatedinto their works. Although some of these artists simply repeat images of themselves, others create personasof great complexity. By using techniques borrowedfrom psychology and anthropologythey searchtheir own pasts to finda uniquecombination andtheirown personalities of visualsymbols.Such a personain the formof Loplop, superiorof birds, was created by the surrealistartist
Max Ernst in the I920S.2 Loplop is not only the artist's

personal symbol, but the presenter of Ernst's interpretationsof his own world. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that throughthe personathe artisttotallyexposeshimselfthat he is an artisticflasher.Rather,the personais an aesthetic device created and controlled by the artist. Modeled on his or her own personality,it is the artist's mask.Like the maskof the classicalactor-from which comes-the personadefinesthe artthe term "persona" ist for the public, while concealingthe "real" person. The skilfulmanipulation of the personaoften becomesa ment in Cologne before I920. From a general concern of oneself behind an elaboratepublic with imagery of birds he evolved an image associated game concealing
* I would like to expressmy appreciation to the OaklandUniversity ResearchCommitteefor awardingme a grant(1980/1981) to pursue researchon this subject. trans. and ed. Violet Staub de I Carl G. Jung, The basicwritings, Laszlo, New York I959, p. I38. 2 For other discussionsof Loplop in the work of Max Ernst see: painting:I929-I939, Ann ArWhitney Chadwick,Myth in surrealist bor,Michigan1980, pp. 85-96; GunterMetken,"Sich die Kunst vom Leib halten. Loplop, die StaffeleifigurMax Ernsts," Pantheon36 und Inventar (1978),pp. I44-49; WernerSpies, Max Ernst:Collagen: Widerspruch, Cologne 1974,pp. 205-06; and EduardTier, "Homage

face of one's own invention. This is not to say that the persona is a pose, but rather that the artist has gone to the subject he or she supposedly knows best in order to find more potent truths and myths. The seemingly contradictory nature of the persona is similar to Jung's definition of human personality, in which the persona is a compromise between the role the world imposes on the individual and the needs of the self.3 The surrealist's persona differs from Jung's model because much of it is consciously derived from Freud's methods of self-exploration, which are not used by the artists as therapy but, on the contrary, as a means of bringing to light the beautiful workings of their own minds. Using Freud's methods Max Ernst sensitized himself to his dreams, cultivated automatic responses and free associations, and contemplated memories of his childhood,4 never ignoring the symbols and traditions from the German culture into which he was born. By analyzing the symbolism of his dreams and other unguarded thoughts, he discovered that for him birds had a personal as well as a general significance. Bird imagery became an important part of Ernst's paintings and collages beginning as early as his participation in the Dada move-

to Loplop" in Homageto Max Ernst, special issue of XXe Siecle

Review, New York 197I, pp. 34-38.

3 Jung, op. cit. (note I). 4 Karl Otten, who was in Ernst's close circle of friends before WorldWarI, was a studentand championof Freud. Returningfrom and Jokesand Vienna,Otten introducedThe interpretation of dreams to Ernst. See John Russell,Max Ernst: theirrelationto theunconscious life and work,New York n.d., p. 23; PatrickWaldberg,Max Ernst,
Paris I958, pp. 80-8i; Joachim Heusinger von Waldegg, "Max Ernst in Max Ernst in Koln, ed. und die rheinische Kunstszene I909-I919," Wulf Herzogenrath, Cologne i980, p. 98.

226

CHARLOTTE

STOKES

I Max Ernst, Loplop,superior of birds,1928. Collectionof Mr. and Mrs. ClaudeHersaint

with himself, a personacalled Loplop, who may be a bird or a man with the head or wings of a bird. Loplop first figures in the 1928 painting Loplop, superior of birds(fig. I). From this introductionhe appearsin Ernst's works for the rest of the artist's life and is associatedwithErnstin the artist'swritingsandin thoseof other surrealists. In the series of paintingsand collages which Ernst began in I930, whose titles begin with Loplopintroduces...,Loplop is parteaseland parthumanfigurewith a bird's head. He is holding a picture of the thing or person presented (fig. 2). The bird-headed easel is Ernst's stand-in, but it has many more associations. Because Ernst may show him as a human figure with bird attributes,Loplop can take on the supernatural powerof wingedcreatures-angels, cupids,and Lucifer himself. Although bird-headedfigures are found less
5 Ian Turpin, Max Ernst, New York 1979, p. I I

frequently,they are probablythe oldest representation of the shamanwho controlsmagicalpower.More thana touch of irony enters in these birdmenif we note that fromthe I930s Ernstowned a manualon bird-trapping and thatcagesand cagedbirdsdominatedhis methods,5 withscreen laterworks,includinghis notoriousCage-bed
(I973).

Loplop, the birdman,who is Ernst's personalemblem, takes on the qualities of another supernatural being, the totem. Ernst'spersonais in a figurativeand poeticsenselike the totemin the tribalsetting:the creature who is the spiritualfather,the god-like protector, the identifyingclan symbol, and even the residenceof In Ernst'sartand writingLopthe soul of the believer.6 one function to another,sometimesemfrom lop slips of tribal which is also characteristic all at once, bodying totems.
undTabu(originallypublishedin I890)and SigmundFreud's Totem nally publishedas a groupof four essaysin I913).

6 Ernsthad accessto any numberof bookson totems, but two that he probablyreadwereJamesGeorgeFrazer'sThegoldenbough (origi-

.. .
Max Ernst's Loplop

.....

. ...

....

9....

.. ...........

...

....

~_.....

227

a*'

. .

-. ;

et

'

,-

'.:

.V..
} V. i .,?

....e. .. ..:

.,, .

?I.:

_?'

1
i

k:::
-11
.I

1..

h
P

I1

I.

1''

ti^;

... . ,.. ....

..

--..

*a C l..o. L .s d*a s s e v.... * \^i<<\k. L ii .v N.? \o i \\\ Max Ernst, Loplopintroduces members the New Museum of Modem Art Surrealist of Group,I931, collage. York,

228

CHARLOTTE

STOKES

written in 1942 Ernst In a surrealistautobiography establishedthe bird as a personaltotem by linkingit to birthin the first sentence: his own "supernatural"
"The 2nd of April ( 891) at 9:45 a.m. Max Ernst had his

firstcontactwith the sensibleworld, when he came out of the egg which his motherhad laid in an eagle's nest and which the bird had broodedfor seven years."7 Later in the piece he describesan event that took place whenhe wasfourteenyearsold: "Oneof his bestfriends, a most intelligentandaffectionate pinkcockatoo," died at the sametime as Ernst'syoungestsisterwas born.He describeshis reactions to the two events,whichwerelike a violentrite of passage: "A series of mysticalcrises, fits of hysteria,exaltations and depressionsfollowed. A dangerousconfusion between birdsand humansbecameencrustedin his mind and asserteditself in his drawingsand paintings.The obsessionhauntedhim until he erectedthe Birdsmemorial monument in 1927, and even later Max identified himself voluntarily with Loplop, the superior of the birds."

Ernst closes his notes about himself by saying that he receivedadvice,whichcan be seen in his paintings,from the birdwho hatchedhim andthatthis birdfollowedhis planeto America. Ernst'shatchingfroman egg has a significance in his artisticlife, for in 1922 he had his first Germanexhibitionin a smallgalleryrunby JohannaEy, whomErnst and his friendscalledMutterEy (MotherEgg). On her sixtyfifthbirthday,in 1929, Ernst sent her a telegram beginning,"Greategg, we praisethee."10 Althoughthe name for his persona,Loplop, did not cometo light until 1928, some seedsfor the namecan be foundearlier.The singleissueof Die Schammade, which
was published in Cologne by the Dadaists in 1920, in-

cluded several of Ernst's Dada poems, which contain repeatedsyllableslike the word "Dada" itself, "lilli," "titi," etc. This poetry is dependenton such repeated sounds for its rhythmand its peculiarquality. During this periodErnstalsoused the wordDadaas a prefixfor his name,Dadamax.Ernst'smodification of his identity

with repeatednonsensesyllablesis not unique to Lopis a poem by Ernst called lop. Also in Die Schammade an Kurt Pinthus-Genius," in "Antwortder Weltbiirger the rhythmic one line of which, "Anti-lops-tilopam," Loplop is imbedded. But why did Ernst choose a bird to be his personal symbol?Ernst with his smooth fair hair,piercingeyes, and sharpnose resembledan alert bird. Perhapsmore artist,the bird importantin the mind of an avant-garde has always been associatedwith freedom, "free as a bird."But in Germanthoughtthe bird wheelingover a wildernessis not only a symbol of freedombut also an antisocialpresence.The Germanword vogelfrei ("bird free")is the termfora banditor someonewith a priceon his head. Nietzsche makes use of this quality in his "Songs of Prince Vogelfrei"published in the second edition of The gay science(Die frohliche Wissenschaft [1887]),whichErnstcalled"a bookwhichspeaksto the future.The wholeof surrealism is in it, if you knowhow to read."" The birdis alsoa fit alterego becauseof the company it keeps. In the form of an eagle it is the companionof the god Zeus and the wandererZarathustra. The wanderer, like the wild bird, is free of the regimentation which society imposeson its membersand, by his very That the great example,a threatto that regimentation. artistor thinker-like the criminal-is outside and opposed to civilizationis an idea which Nietzsche uses to the full in ThusspakeZarathustra. For Nietzsche and Romanticwriterssuch as Goethe, wanderingis not exis not only the wild ploringor hiking,andthe wilderness unsettled land but also a metaphorfor the unbridled creativeareasof the mind. The wanderer's very lackof purposeor program,coupledwith a willingnessto give up creaturecomforts, sets him apart from the highly lives of the middle-classsocietyof regulatedprosperous Ernst'syouth. The conceptof thewanderer hasapsychological meaning in Ernst'spersonaas well. The second of the seven commandments Breton derived from his contact with Ernst reads: "Wander,the wings of augurywill attach

7 MaxErnst,"Somedataon the youthof M. E. as told by himself," View,2nd series, nr. I (April 1942), p. 28. 8 Ibid., p. 30.

9 Ibid. io Uwe M. Schneede, Max Ernst, trans. R.W. Last, New York
I972, P. 44.

1 Russell,op. cit. (note 4), p. 20.

Max Ernst's Loplop

229

themselvesto your heels."12 By this, Breton meansnot streets or to wander countryroadsbut also to city only wanderthe pathsof the mind. Indeed, Freud'smethod is a kind of wanof analysis,so useful to the surrealists, dering. The connectionbetween the Germanfolk hero, the and the wild bird was establishedin the Gerwanderer, man youth movementcalled the Wandervogel ("migratory bird"), which was formed in 19go and continued throughthe First WorldWar. The boys who belonged to this movement walked the countryside in small groupsled not by an adult counselorbut by one of the older boys. They slept outside or in barns and were sometimesgone for weeks.They worerough,often very dirty, campingclothes and sometimesa hat decorated with feathers. Generally they were from Protestant, middle-classhomes, and these trips literallyand figuratively separatedthem from the rule of their families.13 The Wandervogel was influencedby political ideas of the time, but it was not a political organization. Its patrioticsentiments were turned more to cultural pursuits,such as preservingand singing folk songs like the one beginning:"Ein Vogel wollteHochzeitmachen in dem griinenWalde."14 Ernst, who was froma Catholicfamily,was probably not a member of the Wandervogel, but at the age of fifteen he too set out to wander over the Rhineland, Alsace, the Palatinate, Westphalia, and Holland.15 Whetheror not Ernst was a member,he could not have escaped knowledge of this movement and its values and what during his youth. Indeed the Wandervogel it stood for may have provided the young German movement artists,largelymembersof the Expressionist whom Ernst knew before the First World War, with a prototype for an avant-gardeartistic movement. The stance, loyaltyto one's peers, openly anti-authoritarian valuing of youth for itself, and purposefulnon-direcof both the Wandervogel and the tion are characteristic young Expressionistartists.In any event, the WandervogelprovidedErnst in title and philosophyan impor-

tant synthesisof ideas. Ernst's subscriptionto that synthesis is graphically illustratedby one of the engravingshe used and reused as source materialfor images in his collage novel, La femme1oo tetes,16which,althoughhe madeit in France, takesmanyof its themes fromthe artist'sown youthful experience in Germany. This engraving, which he foundin the popularsciencemagazine La Nature,is of a attacked wild called Nestors (fig. sheepbeing by parrots The illustrates an article the on introduc3). engraving tion of Europeansheep into the ecological system of New Zealand.The Nestor had found these intruders the situagoodprey.Althoughthe authoracknowledged tion that precipitatedthe behavior of the birds, he states:"Cefut un traitde lumiere:les Nestorsetaientles auteursdu mal."17 Such a descriptionof the activities of the parrotsin destroyingthe domesticated European sheep hardly needs modificationto fit into surrealist philosophy.The rest of the articlegoes on to document in exquisitedetail how the birds crippleand finallykill the sheep. The antisocialwild birds in the sourceitself are consistent with the autobiographical themes in Ernst's work.Ernstcut four of the animalsfromthis engraving and distributedthem in collagesthroughoutLa femme 1oo tetes.The attribution of meaningto any of the collage elementsin Ernst'sworkscan be a trickybusiness: sometimesthe elementis of littleimportance itself,merely filling an empty corner, but sometimes the subject demonstrates its importance by almostobsessivere-use in a series of images. The latter is the case with the Nestor engraving.The fragmentsof the engravingdistributed throughout the novel establish a unity in Ernst'smind, albeita unity not revealedto the observer without knowledge of the common source for the images. The figure of the sheep (fig. 4) appearsfirst in the novel. Ernst superimposed the tortured and dying sheep, with all its associationswith Christ, the Crucifixion, and Christianity,as well as the long-suffering

I2 AndreBreton,"The legendarylife of Max Ernst: precededby a briefdiscussionon the needfora new myth,"trans.LionelAbel, View, 2nd series, nr. i (April 1942), p. 6. a historyof the German 13 WalterLaqueur, Young Germany: youth London 1962, pp. 3-38. movement,

1921, pp. 228-29.

1909; rev. ed., Leipzig 14 Hans Breuer,ed., Der Zupfgeigenhansl, This was the songbookfor the Wandervogel. 15 Waldberg,op. cit. (note 4), p. i8. i6 Max Ernst, LafemmeIoo tetes,Paris 1929. La Nature, 17 E. Oustalet,"Les Nestors de la Nouvelle-Zelande,"
part
i,

I890,

p. 235.

230

CHARLOTTE

STOKES

. -

- ..

..

. -

a volonteet dilatesonabdomen demi-fecond 4 Max Ernst, L'Agneau devientagnelle.Plate 8 of Lafemmeioo tetes,Paris 1929 les derniers desoiseaux,effarouche 5 Max Ernst, Loplop,le superieur Plate 58 of Lafemme1oo tetes, en commun. de la devotion vestiges
Paris 1929

yis. . - .-?.:..%,?., ..~-..:''ii;'':.l [-

r..

des attaquant 3 A. I. Clement,Nestorsde la Nouvelle-Zelande Illustrationfrom La Nature, moutons, wood-engraving. 1890, partI, p. 233

civilizedman, on the "Vue d'ensembledu nouveauLycee Buffon, rue de Vaugirard,a Paris."'8The docile sheep and the school bring to mind Ernst's accountof his own rebellionagainstpassiveacquiescenceto social demands at school: "Duties at school were already odious. Indeedthe verysoundof the wordPflicht[duty] Taken alwaysinspiredM.E. with horrorand disgust."'9 with the school setting, the untranslatable word play of the captions also suggests the budding and confused sexualityof a boy firstawareof girls at school who were not his sisters. (Like all such secondaryschools, the whichprepared Ernstfor the universitywas Gymnasium for boys only, but the elementary school, the VolksschuThe was coeducational.)20 he attended le, probably in "dilate abdomen" recalls anthe son phrase caption otheraspectof Ernst'schildhood.He was the secondof six children,and his mother'spregnancieswere an imgoes so portantaspectof his homelife. IndeedWaldberg

Ernstused for the scene is fromLa Nature,1890, I8 The engraving

part I, p. 113.
20

19 WilliamS. Lieberman,ed., Max Ernst,New York 1961, p. 8. I am indebtedto my friend and colleagueProfessorKatherine Kennedy, whose vast knowledgeof late nineteenthand early twentieth-centuryeducationin Germanywas of great help to me in unthe socialandscholasticworldof youngpeopleduringthe derstanding yearsErnst was growingup.

Max Ernst's Loplop

23I

et agitent,d'unair relevent 6 Max Ernst, Et lesfemmes volcaniques de leurcorps.Plate 64 of Lafemme 0oo la partieposterieure menafant,
tetes, Paris I929

gris, noirsou volcaniques, 7 Max Ernst, Lesforgerons desforgeset... Plate 84 of La dansr'airau-dessus tournoieront
femme 1oo tetes, Paris 1929

far as to say that Ernst's father imposed a rhythm of on his wife.21 pregnancies
At the beginning of La femme 1oo tetes, and to some

practicesand replacingthem with his own religion or new mythology. Both Ernst and his contemporaries
refer to his role as a mythmaker. In the I942 View de-

the novel,Ernstrecalledthe environdegreethroughout ment and experienceof his childhood.The othersurrealistsoften used Freud'stheoriesto justifytheircurrent feelingsandthe need for sexualexpressionandagressive behavior,but Ernstunderstoodthe fundamental aspect of Freud'stheory:thatthe child is the fatherof the man. Thus he spends,at leastin the beginningof his career,a good deal of his artisticenergyexaminingthe natureof his past and locating the authentic symbolism of his earlylife. Three birds from the Nestor engravingappearin the plates in the middle of the novel and deal with Ernst's definitionsof his persona.The first appearsin plate 58
(fig. 5) flying downward, untergehendas in Zarathustra,

voted to Ernst, both Andre Breton and Sidney Janis mentionthis aspectof his work,whileErnstsaysthat he aspired"to becomea magicianand to find the myth of his time."23
In Lafemme 1oo tetes Loplop in the guise of a Nestor

attackingand driving back pilgrims who are makinga In the devotionalclimb on their knees in St. Peter's.22 caption he is honored again by being given his quasireligioustitle "superiorof birds," indicatingthat Loplop's power is in driving out older Catholic ideas and
21 Waldberg, op. cit. (note 4), p. 21.
22

next appearsin a confusion of erotic figures, animal parts, and musical instrumentsdominatedby a pickpocket(fig. 6). The new religionis chaos, and the bird, the symbol and leader of the religion, is haloed by a gaming wheel. The sleeping woman,who suggests the mind in the unguarded or dreamstate, is the sourcefor the captionaddsto the new regime.Sexy andirreverent, as Loplopin a the chaos.The lastof the Nestorsappears collagein which maturemale sexualityis quite literally forgedand knowledgeis confirmedin the presenceof a serpent,Satan'srepresentative (fig. 7). Loplop appears the noveland the sourcesfor the birdsvary, throughout but our knowledge of Ernst'smultipleuse of the engravof the Nestors' violent attackon the passive wild ing
French magazineLe tourdu monde,15 (1867), p. nineteenth-century 216. 23 Ernst, op. cit. (note 7), p. 30.

The engravingErnst used for the scene is from the popular

232

CHARLOTTE

STOKES

civilized order that has intrudedon their naturalstate of the artist'sworking contributesto our understanding methods and values. That these values and bird symbolism are associated with Ernst is made clear by Jacques Viot: "La civilisationfait dans le basse-cour. On a ses animauxdomestiques.Les poules ne volent plus... Max Ernst, l'hommelui-memearrivea voler des qu'il a cesse de s'apprivoiser."24 The Germanlanguagemakesother associationsbetween birds and behaviorbeyond usual social acceptance. No code is more closely associatedwith ninemiddle-classvaluesthanthe appearance teenth-century of sexualabstinencein the unmarried and sexualfidelity in the married.Thus the code of sexual behaviorwas more lovingly brokenby the youngerrebels in society than any other moralcode. The word for bird in Gerfrom man, Vogel,offeredErnst his opportunity.Vogeln is the word intercourse. The for sexual Vogel slang slang usageof the word and the picturesof birdsin paintings which carry a sexual meaning go back as far as the if not before.About Dutch genre subjects Renaissance, which contain such doubleentendres de Jongh writes: "Numerous i6th- and I7th-century texts clarify the meaningof the termsvogel(sometimesmeaningpenis), vogelen(to copulate)and vogelaar(sometimesmeaning procureror lover)."25Although the word has similar slang meanings in German and in Dutch, the verbal term being translated into a visual image in Dutch Baroquepaintingcould even have come to Ernst while The he studiedDutch art historyat Bonn University.26 significancein the word-playlies not only in its verbal double meaningbut in its abilityto be translatedinto a visualimage with a wide rangeof associations. A similarword-playis narrated by Freud. In Theinterpretation of dreams,first published in 900o, which Ernst readwhile still a student, Freud gives an account of one of his dreams: "in it I saw mybeloved witha peculiarly mother, peaceful, on her sleeping expression features,beingcarriedinto the roomby two (or three)peoplewith birds'beaksand laid tall uponthebed...The strangelydrapedand unnaturally
24 Jacques Viot, "Max Ernst," Cahiers d'art 8 (1933), pp. 215-16. de dubbelzinnigheid 25 E. de Jongh, "Eroticain vogelperspectief:

from Die of Egyptianreligious 8 Illustration symbols Israelitische Bibel,ed. and trans.by Ludwig Philippson,vol. 2, Leipzig I858, p. 871

figureswith birds'beakswerederivedfromthe illustrations to Philippson'sBible. I fancythey must have been gods with falcons'headsfroman ancientEgyptianfuneraryrelief" [fig. 8].27 of the dreamimagery,he On the funerary significance goes on to say that his mother'sexpression"wascopied a few days from the view I had had of my grandfather before his death as he lay snoring in a coma."28But Freud gave the dreaman overridingsexualsignificance the figureswith the slangterm for sexual by associating intercourse,vogeln,told to him by one of his childhood playmatesnamed Philipp. Freud traced the source of the anxietygeneratedby the dream"to an obscureand exevidentlysexualcravingthat had found appropriate of the dream."29 in the visual content pression
bis I922, Cologne 1980, p. 63. Kunstszene Koln: die rheinische of dreams,trans. James 27 Sigmund Freud, The interpretation Strachey,New York I965, p. 622. 28 Ibid., p. 623. 29 Ibid.

Simiolus3 (I968van een reeks I7de eeuwse genrevoorstellingen," 69), p. 72 (from the English abstractof the article). 26 EduardTier, "Was Max Ernst studiert hat," in Max Ernstin

Max Ernst's Loplop

233

9 Max Ernst, plate from Oedipe,the fourthbooklet of Une semaine de bonte,Paris I934

Details from this anecdote ring throughoutErnst's work.The bird-headedfigurewho is both death'sservant and the forbiddenor potentialsexual partneris a themelinkingthe imageryof Freud'sdreamand Ernst's less sedateversionsin Unesemaine de bonte (fig. 9). Even the disreputablelittle boy who enlightenedthe young Freud had the same name as Ernst's father, Philippe, who figures prominentlyin the artist's writings and visualart. But all the birdimageryand otherparticulars
editionof the com30 Freud, "A case of hysteria,"in Thestandard pletepsychological works,vol. 7, trans.James Strachey,London 1978, pp. 95-100.

aside, the most importantaspect of the report of this dream is the method of collaginga fragmentof nineteenth-centuryengravingseen in childhood to other imagesto makean imagethatreflectssomecurrentinner reality.In otherdreams,especiallythosetold by Dora in A caseof hysteria (firstpublishedin 1905),Freudidentiand paintfies sourcesfor dreamimagesas photographs Ernst'simagery ings seen by the patientin artgalleries.30 reflects similar sources. But Freud also located the

234

sourcesof dreamimageryin encyclopedias and medical rhythm,and positionin relationto other images.Ernst bookswhichmight be in the home, becausethese books createdvisual sentencesand poems of greatsubtletyin were commonsourcesof sexualknowledgeavailableto which the images take on a wealth of complementary, the middle-class child of the nineteenth-century.31 even contradictory meanings. Ernstsaw Freud'stheoriesandmethodsas a meansErnst'sverymethodof searching for collageelementsin old booksis itself probablyquite a consciousrepriseof modernand personal-of organizinga work of art. In Ernst'suse of thesemethodsthe therapeutic his childhoodsearchfor sexualinformation. or cathartic The second importantaspect of Freud's childhood purposeseems limited, if it is a concernat all. Rather, dreamfor Ernst is the translation en- the processof making"dream"associationsbecomesa of a verbaldouble tendreinto a visual image which keeps its tie with the new and evocativemethod of combiningimages. The bits of unimportant verbalmeaningas well as other associations.The me- imagesthemselvesareremembered chanismis a modernvariantof and justification for the observations from common experiences, which, as long traditionof such bird images and word-playin Freud pointed out, are the source of significantdream In the makingof collagesit becameErnst's Dutch art. In manyof his collagesErnsttookthe ideaof symbolism.32 verbal prototypesbeyond Freud's theories and motifs businessto cultivatean awarenessof such secondhand used in traditional art.Ernst'sskillat organizingimages imagery.For Freud the value of combinedimagesin a withina singlecollageexpandedto includethe organiza- dreamwas measuredby how telling the imagerywas in tion of groupsof collagesinto a visualsyntax,likethatof terms of mental illness; for Ernst the value was in the of the poetic juxtaposition. a spokensentencein whichthe relationship betweenthe effectiveness partsis expressedover time. For example,the chapters in Unesemaine debonte, eachof whichis basedon a more or less unifiedset of images, have this visual syntax in DEPT. OF ART AND ART HISTORY like pre- OAKLAND UNIVERSITY whichpre-existingimages(bits of engravings), existing words, takeon meaningsaccordingto context, ROCHESTER, MICH.

31 Ibid., pp. 99-IoI.

32 Freud, op. cit. (note 27), pp. 52-54.