Nature at Dawn (La nature à l‘aurore), 1936

About the Work

An erotically charged scene of pursuit: coming from the left, an anthropomorphous bird creature elbows its way through a jungle-like thicket. Its goal is the naked female figure crouching in the bottom right corner of the picture. The painting addresses the subject of art itself - the erotic inspiration of the creative process and the immersing of the self in another sphere. In the works of Max Ernst, the forest stands not only for the world as such, for nature and its dark sides; it also stands for its aesthetic transformation and recreation. The phantom figure of the bird represents the alter ego of the artist.