Max Ernst Quotes

Germany, Painter
April 2, 1891 – April, 1, 1976.

Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalized American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealism.

Also known as Sculptor, Graphic Artist, Poet

Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

Max Ernst
- Time
- Reality
- Painting
first couplet of Max Ernst's poem 'Etna', in: 'Literature', Paris, October 15, 1923; as quoted in Max Ernst sculpture, Museo d'arte contemporanea, Edizioni Charta, Milano, 1969, p. 15

Max Ernst
- Literature
- Paris
- October
Looking at them the metaphysical paintings of De Chirico, c. 1919 I had the sense of rediscovering something I had always known, just as when some event already seen opens up to us a whole realm of our own dream world, one that we have failed to see or comprehend, owing to a kind of censorship.

Max Ernst
- Up
- World
- Dream
The 2nd of April (1891) at 9:45 a.m. Max Ernst had his first contact with the sensible world, when he came out of the egg which his mother had laid in an eagle's nest and which the bird had brooded for seven years.

Max Ernst
- World
- Mother
- Bird
A series of powers are at work within the great stream of Expressionism who have no outward similarity to one another but a common direction of thrust, namely the intention to give expression to things of the psyche Seelisches through form alone.

Max Ernst
- Work
- Great
- Alone
p. 360

Max Ernst