Max Ernst: Forest

Max Ernst was German painter, sculptor and graphic artist. Explore interesting quotes on forest.
Max Ernst: 40   quotes 5   likes

“Are there still forests over there? They are, apparently, wild and impenetrable, black and russet, extravagant, secular, full of ant-hills, diametrical, negligent, ferocious, fervent and kindly, without yesterdays or tomorrows. From one island to another, above the volcanoes, they play cards with inmatched packs. Naked, they are decked only in their majesty and their mystery.”

Max Ernst

1910 - 1935, The mysteries of the forest' (1934)

“What is a dream? You ask too much of me: it is a woman cutting down a tree. What are forests for? For making the matches one gives children to play with. Is the fire in the forest, then? The fire is in the forest. What do plants feed on? On mystery. What day is it today? Shit..”

Max Ernst

1910 - 1935, The mysteries of the forest' (1934)

Dreams , Tree , Children , Making love

“But it is of the past, it seems to me. Perhaps... Man and the nightingales were in the most favourable situation for imagining: for them the forest was a perfect dream-conductor..”

Max Ernst

1910 - 1935, The mysteries of the forest' (1934)

Dreams , Imagination , Past , Perfection

“What is a forest? A marvelous insect. A drawing-board, what do forests do? They never go to bed early. They are waiting for the tailor. What is the high season of the forests? It is the future..”

Max Ernst

1910 - 1935, The mysteries of the forest' (1934)

Waiting , Future , Drawing , Season

“Mixed feelings when he [Max Ernst frequently writes about himself in the third person] enters the forest for the first time: delight and oppression. And what the Romantics spoke of as 'being at one with Nature'. Wonderful joy in breathing freely in an open space, but also anxiety at being encircled by hostile trees. Outside and inside at the same time, free and trapped.”

Max Ernst

Quote in 'Room 6, Max Ernst', the exhibition text of FONDATION BEYELER 2 - MAX ERNST, 2013, texts: Raphaël Bouvier & Ioana Jimborean; ed. Valentina Locatelli; transl. Karen Williams
Max Ernst is describing an early childhood experience, in the third person
posthumous

Hostility , Feeling , Nature , Tree

“I saw a shady forest and therein a crowd of nightingales. The nightingales as to their breast were rough and hairy, and as to their feet some were like calves, some like panthers, and some like wolves, and they had beast's claws instead of toes.”

Max Ernst

text of Max Ernst's poem 'First Memorable Conversation with the Chimera', in the journal 'VVV', no. 1. New York, June 1942, p. 17
1936 - 1950