Europe after the rain II by Max Ernst

Europe after the rain II by Max Ernst

This is a picture of Ernst, written in the technique of decalcomania, the initiator of World War II, which threatens the death of all mankind. Work on the canvas “Europe after the rain II”, he began shortly after his second escape from the internment camp at Saint-Nicolas near Nîmes. 1939 and 1940 were troubling for Ernst.

Leonora Carrington had already left for Spain, the French authorities hunted for the artist himself, and the neighbors considered him a collaborator. In 1941, having decided on a risky attempt to flee to America, he sent an unfinished “Europe” to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and continued working on it after arriving in the United States. In 1933, when Hitler came to power in Germany, Ernst already painted a painting with the same name. In that picture, an abstract map of Europe, which was dying as a result of the universal catastrophe, was depicted.

This political message of the artist was easily deciphered by the fascists, after which Ernst was immediately added to the list of enemies of the Third Reich. The second, later picture depicts a ruined, submerged world governed by a dictator with the head of a bird of prey.

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