The whole city by Max Ernst

The whole city by Max Ernst

Between 1933 and 1936, Ernst wrote several paintings depicting the ruined cities, surrounded by lush vegetation. On these canvases, the artist tried to create an atmosphere of an abandoned, lost in time civilization. The sensation of the lifelessness of this world is enhanced by the greenish twilight in which the city is submerged.

Above the top of the hill hangs a huge moon. “The whole city” Ernst created in those years when over Europe hung a gloomy shadow of the Third Reich. And, although the artist never tried to describe the specific events of his contemporary history, his works look like a formidable warning to mankind.

Ernst himself explained the content of only one of these paintings: his “Angel of the Home” he directly linked to the civil war in Spain. According to the artist, the meaning of this picture is quite obvious: “The Angel of the Home” is the ironic name of the monstrous creation that is going on, sweeping everything in its path. “Here I tried to convey my foreboding of what could soon happen to this whole world.”

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)