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. M. E. Warlick is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Denver.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"M. E. Warlick's book is a unique and highly significant contribution to the literature on modern art and modern culture in general." --Linda D. Henderson, Professor of Art History, University of Texas at Austin " ... when M. E. Warlick discusses {Ernst's] early art and the Surrealist context, she isauthoritative... Her own scrupulously researched chapters on the artist's formative years andpre-Surrealist paintings, together with her abbreviated history of alchemy, its literature and the"occultation of Surrealism" which began in the 1920s, are useful additions to the existingscholarship."--TLS, 21 September 2001
Review
M. E. Warlick's book is a unique and highly significant contribution to the literature on modern art and modern culture in general. (Linda D. Henderson, Professor of Art History, University of Texas at Austin )
--This text refers to the
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Interior Of Sight,
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This review is from: Max Ernst and Alchemy : A Magician in Search of Myth (Surrealist (Paperback)
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Max Ernst and Alchemy,
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This review is from: Max Ernst and Alchemy : A Magician in Search of Myth (Surrealist Revolution) (Hardcover)
Warlick's inspired and wide-ranging exploration of Max Enrnst's lifelong involvement in alchemy greatly expands our knowledge and appreciation not only of a major surrealist painter, but also of the entire surrealist adventure, and of the art of alchemy as well.
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