History of Art and Design

Name: Polina Joffe Student Number: M00211684 Tutor: Alberto Duman Course: FNA2934 BA Graphic Design Module: FNA3930 Critical and Contextual Proposition Essay Title: The Influence of Psychoanalysis in La Femme 100 Ttes

The Influence of Psychoanalysis in La Femme 100 Ttes

History has hardly witnessed as much crucial political, philosophical and societal ideas and events, cataclysms and revolutions as in Europe of the beginning of the 20th century. It was an era of great charismatic leaders and unlimited, often utopian beliefs, emerged from large social groups aspirations for emancipation, justice and overall better future. This burst was fuelled by a huge accumulated amount of energy previously repressed by religious, economical, psychological and social norms and taboos. The consequences could be both exciting and devastating, like the WWI or revolutions in Germany or Russia all of these detrimental for the future of the continent. If one could draw parallels from development psychology, Europe of that time resembled an impatient adolescent rebel preoccupied with his real time needs and not concerned about the consequences - as opposed to Europe of nowadays, a calmed down senior preparing to retire. Likewise, in psychology Sigmund Freud launched his theory and practices of psychoanalysis a doctrine initially scandalous, since it challenged and unmasked the most covert and righteously concealed sides of human nature, most notably Eros and Thanatos, sexual and destructive primitive drives of unconscious. It was only later on when psychoanalysis was accepted by the establishment, became fashionable and substantially affected the worldview and culture in the Western countries; from music

and art to social structures and the way people perceive themselves as individuals.1 Only later such concepts as ego, id, superego, unconscious mind, repression, libido, castration anxiety, penis envy and the Oedipus complex become a part of our everyday lexicon.2 Freud and his apologists believed that the only way to remediate mental disorders and heal repressed inner psychological conflict every normal human did have was to bring the unconscious to consciousness through the work-up in the context of transference with eventual abreaction.3 The free associations technique was employed as a way to empower regression, eliminate defences and thereby, surface the content of unconscious to work with. Dreams were considered a normative analogue of madness and analysis of their content was seen as a direct highway into unconscious.4 As always, art both followed and strived to influence its time. As philosophies, politics and social movements, arts were wrenching out of the burden of Victorian norms and taboos and seeking for new contents and forms. Expressionism, avant-garde, cubism, constructivism, dadaism, suprematism, constructivism and futurism were announced, just to name a few. Many of these movements were influenced by the war, others like constructivism, shared their aims with communism, with the latters publics understanding of art, simplification and construction of a new world to support new governments. 5 Surrealism, probably the most rebellious, upsetting and influential art movement of the century emerged at 1920s and rapidly penetrated into literature, theatre, cinema,

Illouz, E., 2008. Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help. California: University of California Press, Berkley and Los Angeles. Pg. 24 2 Ward I., Zarate O., 2000. Introducing Psychoanalysis. United Kingdom: Icon Books Ltd. Pg. 5 3 1998. Illustrated Oxford Dictionary, Great Britain: Dorling Kindersley Limited, Oxford University Press. Pg. 658 4 Gross, R. D., 1989. Psychology: The science of mind and behaviour. Great Britain: Richard Clay Ltd. Pg. 6 5 Frascara J., 2004. Communication Design: Principles, Methods, and practice. New York: Allworth Press. Pg. 2226

music and visual arts. Surrealism was premised with a large panel of pre-existing art movements and precipitated with the WWI and social and cultural revolutions. Surrealists as a group committed to the revolution on every level. In their pamphlets, they attacked Catholicism.6 Though distanced from acting politics, they believed that the world could be reordered via a revolution on an individual, psychological level resulting in change of ones behaviour. The most fundamental progenitor of surrealism was undoubtedly psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic insights were recruited to make arts explicitly spontaneous and uncontrolled, with loose boundaries between dream and reality, with imagination opposed to everything rational and logical. The artists works were often focused on dreams and on the neurotic relations between families and sexes. The Freudian method of free associations transformed into the surrealists techniques of automatic writing and drawing. Surrealists were getting into the area of psychology to bring back to light the most important part of the mind.7 Juxtapositions, an important component of the practices and aesthetics of surrealism served to emphasise the oddity in contrast to false rationality of the world conventionally declared. Salvador Dali, often perceived as a living embodiment of surrealism wrote in his Diary of a Genius: There is only one difference between a madman and myself is that I am not mad.8 As Dali, Max Ernst was one of the key figures in the surrealism movement. There were a few events in his life that he later on drew attention to in his writings, saying that they are a grist for a psychoanalytic mill.9 Ernst was raised in a strict catholic environment due to his father, a deeply religious man. As a child Max read Grimm Brothers fairytales and Lewis Carroll, whos uncommon, in times senseless fantasy worlds might well serve as sources for his own

BBC, 1997. Max Ernst and the Surrealist Revolution, Great Britain: BBC2 Breton A., 1969. Manifestoes of surrealism, USA: The University of Michigan Press. Pg. 8 8 Dali S., 1965, Diary of a Genius, New York: Doubleday. Pg. ix 9 Legge E. M., 1989. Max Ernst, The Psychoanalytic Sources. Michigan: UMI Research Press. Pg. 2-3

future surrealistic inspirations.10 As Max never studied art, it is his fathers occupation as a Sunday painter that gave him the opportunity to learn painting. Largely in order to please his father, Ernst went on to Bonn University to study philosophy and psychoanalysis. The latter choice was uncommon for the time, since psychoanalysis was still considered a controversial subject. During his time at university Ernst did some painting. At those years he visited a mental institution where he saw works of art made by mentally ill people. They were a material for Ernsts psychoanalytical thinking and interpretations and inspired him deeply with their deviant, distorted appearance. At the university, Ernst was introduced to many other painters and artists through the people he studied with. Amongst these people was a French painter called Robert Delaunay, whose variation of the cubist style influenced some of Ernsts works. However, the expressionist influence did not survive the four years that he serviced in the First World War.11 Trauma and psychological effects from the WW1 broke Ernsts understanding of things and made him rethink his place in the world.12 As he wrote Max Ernst died on the 1st of August 1914. He was resuscitated the 11th of November 1918, as a young man aspiring to become a magician and to find the myth of his time.13 As a consequence of the war, Ernst developed disgust towards the world and a strong desire to create a new one. 14 In October of 1918, just before the end of the war, he married an art historian Louise Straus, who gave birth to their son a few years later. After four years of marriage, Max Ernst met a French poet named Paul Eduard and his wife Gala. He soon moved in with them, leaving his wife and son behind in Cologne. He stayed with the Eduards in Paris
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Warlick M. E., 2001. Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician is Search of a Myth. USA: The University of Texas Press. Pg. 34 11 Turpin I., 2003. Ernst. New York: Phaidon Press Inc. Pg. 6 - 7 12 Horgan H., 2009. The Collage Aesthetic Non-Linear Narratives and Personal Myth Making. BA. Dun Laoghaire School of Creative Arts. Pg. 48 13 Ernst M., 1948. Beyond Painting. New York: Wittenborn, Schultz. Pg. 29 14 BBC, 1997. Max Ernst and the Surrealist Revolution, Great Britain: BBC2

in a mnage trois for two years.15 This in a way disobedient lifestyle could be hardly accepted by Maxs father and indicates his victorious struggle for autonomy and independence, as well as his extent novelty seeking. This individual rebellious choice of behaviour in the context of the boiling social environment should be taken into account when exploring Ernsts creative work, along with a lot of other sources and drivers, including (but not limited to) his interest in ancient mythology, alchemy, psychiatry, breaking aesthetical and technical openings in arts and of course, psychoanalytic psychology. 16 His approach to art from the positions of psychoanalysis is rather complex as compared to other artists of the time, including other surrealists. Ernsts university studies of psychoanalysis enriched his understanding of how the mind works and enabled him to consciously create symbolic images that provoked certain responses and associations in the viewer. While surrealists of the time were recording their dreams and the unconscious, Ernst, similar to Freud, found that a straightforward acceptance of dreams was not enough and that paintings of dreams were meaningless without knowledge of the dreamer and the context in which the dream occurred. This is why he didnt just record his dreams or the automotive activity of the hand, but investigated the connection between the two. He didnt just explore the content of the unconscious mind, but rather wanted to establish a dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious. Nevertheless, although the obsessions and themes that he explored are compatible to those that concerned Freud, unlike him, Ernst was not concerned about explaining the depths of the mind that are beyond our understanding, but rather wanted to illustrate and investigate the oddities that we carry in our minds. Ernst was always interested in psychoanalysis, but he did favour the principles of the dream in his works when trying

15 16

Legge E. M., 1989. Max Ernst, The Psychoanalytic Sources. Michigan: UMI Research Press. Pg. 2 Legge E. M., 1989. Max Ernst, The Psychoanalytic Sources. Michigan: UMI Research Press. Pg. 1

to combine the two. 17. He rather tried to merge reason with intuition and intellect with inspiration through painting. This made him look at his art in a new way, searching for different processes and media to emphasise his ideas.18 Beyond conventional painting techniques, Ernst used some less common ones, including those invented by himself, like frottage and grattage. While collage (a form of art in which cut up pieces are arranged together to create an image19) as a technique was not developed by Ernst himself, the way he used it was distinctive and his collage works became a noticeable page of the history of dadaism and later on, surrealism in correspondence with Ernsts change of his affiliation to these groups. To him, collage was just another method of exploring the possibilities of representation. Indeed, while word is never sufficient to give a relevant and complete picture of our mental world, a collage can avoid the imperfection of language, use infinite space of mind as the setting for the dream images filled with symbols.20Unlike many other artists, such as cubists, Ernst did not explore abstract shapes in the collages, but examined the juxtapositions that he achieved with the combination of parts of photographs, engravings and objects from catalogues and magazines from the 19th century. 21 The images triggered his imagination into a flow of associations; similar to those one gets in a state of half sleep, or ones associated with love memories. These images were rapidly changing and barely related to each other. Through these catalogue images he went on to create collages that as he said had a faithful fixed image of his hallucination. He refocused them from what had been before only some banal pages of

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Spies W., Rewald S., 2006. Max Ernst. New York: Retrospective Metropolitan Museum of Art Publications. Pg. 3 -4 18 Turpin I., 2003. Ernst. New York: Phaidon Press Inc. Pg. 5- 6 19 1998. Illustrated Oxford Dictionary, Great Britain: Dorling Kindersley Limited, Oxford University Press. Pg. 165 20 Horgan H., 2009. The Collage Aesthetic Non-Linear Narratives and Personal Myth Making. BA. Dun Laoghaire School of Creative Arts. Pg. 10 21 Turpin I., 2003. Ernst. New York: Phaidon Press Inc. Pg. 8

advertising22 onto revealing dramas of his deepest desires. The collages are a satire of the 19th century society, which they condemn. They are full of religious bigotry and a strident reaction to the sexual oppression of the time. These are all elements that were by this point held responsible for a lot of ills like, e.g., hysteria in women, which according to Freud, was caused by sexual repression (note that the word itself derives from the Greek word hysteron, which means womb). Ernsts choice of collage as the medium is one that refers to rupture, destruction, devastation and dislocation of image possibly reflections of his life experience, especially the time serving in the army during WW1. Some of Ernsts collages refer to the war and its trauma directly by the images used and the titles he has given them. A famous example of such a work is The Massacre of the Innocents (Fig.1). In this emotional work there is a strong presence of mental and physical disorder associated with the aerial bombardment of cities. 23

22

Chipp H. B., 1992. Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics. California: University of California Press. Pg. 427 23 Turpin I., 2003. Ernst. New York: Phaidon Press Inc. Pg. 42

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Fig. 1

The Massacre of the Innocents, Max Ernst, 1920

The titles of his works play an important role not only in the war collages. Ernst used to add a line of text or colour to enhance the effect of the juxtapositions and to complement the piece with the dimension literature. The titles do not just respond to the image, but are an important element of the collage meaning and construction. From 1929 onwards Ernst made collage novels, the first of which was entitled La femme 100 tetes (Hundred Headless Woman) - a work that truly demonstrates his mastery of collage. The novel was highly applauded in the introduction of the book, written by Andr Bretton, the executive director of surrealist group and author of the surrealist manifesto. In this work, Ernst completely changes the original meaning of the nineteenth-century book illustrations by making minor modifications in them. As the result, the serene

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Ernst M., 1920. The Massacre of the Innocents. (Photocollage with gouache) Available at http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/665/_bo2.htm [Accessed 11 April 2011].

Victorian pieces of art that previously told clear stories and helped people to make sense of their lives shifted to a distorted realm of what Freud called manifest dream content - annoying, vague and restless.25 The Hundred Headless Woman is a narrative in images accompanied by small captions that further build on the meaning of the image. The collages are surreal and have a feel of a busy senseless dream, replete with historical and art references and allusions, themes of religious bigotry, sexual repression, Oedipal conflict and other psychological issues.26 Dream vision, a hero moving through cities of weird objects, a woman with mutable ability27 While creating, the artist inhabits that ambiguous space and constantly redefines his identity and own place in the world. His active and passive, dominant and submissive cores must be in permanent state of flux.28 If Ernst reallegorizes the standard allegory-asdream, then he does so in ways that preclude any high moral or intellectual position, recasting the psychomachia with an eye to psychoanalysis, turning the sensual enchantments of seductive set-pieces to queasily unrealized violent and sexual desires.29The author periodically appears in the novel himself and shows power of control - some over created world, some over the woman. However there has been maintained that in some cases Ernst relinquishes his authorital authority, allowing his images a radical independence.30 Ernst used repetition of certain objects and shapes, with a succession of metaphors and symbols perseverating throughout the novel, again and again. Beyond a rational component, these monotonous

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Freud S., 1953. The interpretation of dreams. 3rd ed. Plane Label Books. Pg.183 Turpin I., 2003. Ernst. New York: Phaidon Press Inc. Pg. 17 27 Legge E., 2000. Only Half Saying it: Max Ernst and Emblems. Word and Image, 16(3). Pg. 263 28 Horgan H., 2009. The Collage Aesthetic Non-Linear Narratives and Personal Myth Making. BA. Dun Laoghaire School of Creative Arts. Pg. 34 29 Legge E., 2000. Only Half Saying it: Max Ernst and Emblems. Word and Image, 16(3). Pg. 263 30 Hertel C., 1992. Irony, Dream, Kitsch: Max Klinger s Paraphrase of the Finding of a Glove and German Modernism. The Art Bulletin, 74(1). Pg. 91-114

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elements give the story an inner mesmerising rhythm, like a prayer or spell; create a common melody and sense of unity and wholeness. The obstinate repetitions make the novel never ending, rolling and rotating - a vicious circle seducing one to get trapped in; the last image is the same as the first, with a quote End and continuation31. This circularity is given a concrete visual symbol - circular objects that recur all through the story. For Ernst, using just a visual element seems not to be enough he seeks for symbolic content and more sophisticated associations. Generally the spherical shapes are references to the eye, which is a prominent sexual symbol in psychoanalysis. The eye is seductive, and represents imagination in its both disruptive and constructive aspects. According to Freud, vision is a symbol of phallus, and the absence of vision is analogous to the absence and enucleation of phallus. Correspondingly, blindness symbolises castration and sexual defeat.32 The eye is simultaneously seductive and associated with horror. As Georges Bataille said in Visions of Excess, extreme seductiveness is probably at the boundary of horror.33 This is an idea that Ernst plays with in his collages when picturing recurrently an eye or circle or withholding eye or vision from his heroes. The theme of blindness brings us back to the Oedipus myth, where the main character Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. When he finds out what he has done, he scrapes out his eyes.34 According to Freud the blinding in the myth is what represents castration.35 For Ernst, the eye is a symbol of revelation. Loplop, an imaginary bird that also obsessively appears in the collages has been presented by Ernst as his superego. According to Ernst himself, Loplop originated from

31

32

Ernst M., 1981. The Hundred Headless Woman (La Femme 100 Ttes). New York: George Braziller, Inc. Pg. 325 Freud S., 1953. The interpretation of dreams. 3rd ed. Plane Label Books. Pg. 249 33 Bataille G., 1985. Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939. USA: University of Minnesota Press. Pg. 17 34 Roman L., Roman M., 2010. Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology. New York: Infobase Publishing. Pg. 359 360. 35 Freud S., 1953. The interpretation of dreams. 3rd ed. Plane Label Books. Pg. 249

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a coincidence in his childhood when his pet parrot died and his father announced the birth of his sister on a same day a dangerous confusion between birds and humans that he experienced as a child.36 As S. Kavky elaborates, Ernst models Loplop on the father or totem. An exploration of Ernst's interpretation of Freudian theory in creating Loplop illuminates the character's surprising complexity and centrality to Ernst's work. As a totem, Loplop emerges from a primary Oedipal conflict on which Ernst structures his artistic identity and practice.37 In the Hundred Headless Woman, Loplop represents the male part of his personality whereas the woman represents the female part. The latter is symbolised throughout the novel as nature with its soft, feminine, organic shapes and lines, while angular geometric shapes symbolise the masculine part. Both are often enmeshed, which corresponds to psychoanalytical postulate of everyones universal bisexuality. Likewise, the fusion of human and animal figures in the novel is an echo of the Freudian amalgamation of human and animal poles in psyche and questioning the primate of the former.38 Similarly, bipolar fusion emerges in the pervasive theme of woman - an ideal, perfect, non-existing one of the authors dreams and the one representing the seductive and terrifying earthly archetype.39The woman needs a guide naturally, Max Ernst himself. In general, sexuality and desire are central to artistic creation. Surrealists, including Ernst, emphasised and expressed it overtly. The Hundred Headless Woman is not an exception. Moreover, sexuality and woman are the key issues in almost all of the collages. The plentiful identities of the perfect woman are represented by the many heads, which makes her readily resembling horrifying Medusa Gorgona and the Hydra.
36

Warlick M. E., 2001. Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician is Search of a Myth. USA: The University of Texas Press. Pg. 105 37 Kavky S., 2005. Authorship and Identity in Max Ernst s Loplop. Art History, 28(3). Pg. 357-385 38 Horgan H., 2009. The Collage Aesthetic Non-Linear Narratives and Personal Myth Making. BA. Dun Laoghaire School of Creative Arts. Pg. 42 39 Warlick M. E., 2001. Max Ernst and Alchemy: A Magician is Search of a Myth. USA: The University of Texas Press. Pg. 136

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An ideal woman is closely related to restrictively asexual mother, covertly indistinguishable from the sexually desired earthly woman a dualistic source of an innertrauma of the Oedipal conflict. In Ernsts art, the Oedipal conflict is often put in the context of a religious reminiscent, namely Virgin Mary and Immaculate Conception vs. ideal women, mother and frightening god vs. father.40 Next, several collages from the Hundred Headless Woman will be discussed in more detail to illustrate the issues above.

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Fig. 2

The might-have-been Immaculate Conception, Max Ernst, 1929

The second collage of the novel, The might-have-been Immaculate Conception, appeals to the Oedipal topic quite straightforwardly. A woman in bed, a man next to her, a Jesus-looking baby disappointed in the leaving the image and a large circular, wheel
40 41

Legge E., 2000. Only Half Saying it: Max Ernst and Emblems. Word and Image, 16(3). Pg. 263 Ernst M., 1981. The Hundred Headless Woman (La Femme 100 Ttes). New York: George Braziller, Inc. Pg. 15

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type object that resembles an eye. The image is despondent, with beauty and innocence stripped. The collage is very strong, even provocative on its psychoanalytically lit imagery and visualisation the Oedipal struggle at its very dawn, long before coming to terms with it. The mother, normally seen as asexual, untouched, chaste, even saint figure much like the Virgin Mary turns to quite an opposite. The child here has just realised that the woman is in fact sexual and has lied with the man obviously unpleasant, which is emphasised by disproportionately big bottle of whine next to him. The boy is traumatised by the crash of the illusion of mothers chastity a launch of a painful process everyone has to go through when growing up. It is only through this realisation, trauma, and its acceptance that the healing can begin and the person can become whole. Breaking defences such as denial is an essential part of the healing process in the theories of psychoanalysis. Here Ernst shows the dawn of previously repressed sexuality towards the mother just devoid from her divinity, jealousy to the man, and pain from being defeated in the rivalry against the father in the triangle. It is quite possible that this scenario is derived from Ernsts own life. He always felt the need to rebel against his strict, catholic father but had a seemingly good relationship with his mother. A big wheel type circular object in the image is salient due to its size, frontal positioning and resemblance of retina of an eye. The eye is facing the viewer and doesnt see what is happening in the background, meaning blindness and that in turn castration. This symbolises the childs terror of castration and loss in the triangle competition against the father. The eye can also be a word game of macula, which is a small sensitive part of the eye situated in the middle of retina, and the immaculateness of the Virgin Mary.

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The boy has faced the realm of sex, which is resulting in the sobering ruin of his paradise, the ideal symbiotic relation unity with mother a reminiscent of another central Bible topic, Expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

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Fig. 3

Germinal, my sister, the hundred headless woman. (In the background, in the cage, the Eternal Father.), Max Ernst, 1929

The young girl in the early stage of her development is fondling an eye of a head, positioned on her lap in a relaxed manner, while peacefully gazingat the onlooker. This is a gesture of enucleation and symbolic castration. The sexual connotation of the
42

Ernst M., 1981. The Hundred Headless Woman (La Femme 100 Ttes). New York: George Braziller, Inc. Pg. 61

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image is emphasised by the positioning of the head over the girls genitals, and her bare left breast. The girl is the dominant figure in this collage and takes up most space in the composition. Her tranquillity, as well as kitchen pots and other prosaic everyday items is a direct juxtaposition over the cut-off head and a distressed person in the background, the Eternal Father locked in a cage. 43 Ernst named the girl Germinal, and knowing his interest in literature and word games we can construe this name as a description of his heroine. The origin of one of the meanings of the word germinal derives from the Latin word germin, meaning a stem of a sprout obviously pointing to her young age and innocence. However, in the same word he introduces a complete opposite meaning and interpretation of the nature of this young lady, describing her as germ like, juxtaposing the previous meaning of goodness and innocence and confusing the viewer. 44 There is an apparent taboo in Germinal being called my sister. Together with the young girls apparent highly flavoured sexuality in spite of her age borders on the repeated theme of incest in the novel. The image also creates an immense feel of unease due to the girls flamboyant sexuality and brutal calm over the Eternal Father and the bodiless head. The gesture of enucleation and the theme of the germinal, the hundred headless woman is repeated many times throughout the novel. The removal of the eye is a clear reference to the symbolic act of castration, a general threat to the masculinity and fear of loss of power45 - an essential part and major theme in the cycle of the novel. The motif is repeated in many of the collages in very different environments and situations.

43

Spiteri R., Envisioning Surrealism in Histoire de l oeil and La femme 100 ttes, Art Journal, 63(4). Pg. 12 1998. Illustrated Oxford Dictionary, Great Britain: Dorling Kindersley Limited, Oxford University Press. Pg. 340 45 Farlex Inc., 2011. Castration Anxiety. Available at: http://medicaldictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Castration+fear [Accessed 20 April 2011].
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Fig. 4

Two Satyres, Peter Paul Rubens, 1618-1619

A reminiscent of Ernsts readings of Greek mythology and another sexual symbol is the Eternal Father, who abundantly resembles a Satyr (see Figure 4), a woodland demon and assistant to the Greek God of wine, Dionysos. 47 This is done very subtly, with just a hint of something that resembles horns in the figures hair and facial features. Satyrs are considered extremely lusty, sexual beings and are usually depicted with a big erection. Here, the dynamic of the movement of the figure in the cage resembles the myth of the Satyrs and the bigotry with which Ernst regarded Catholicism supports this kind of a dualistic (all-good vs. all-bad) defiance of the Eternal Father. The aged man is vigorously trying to break free from the cage and is reaching towards the young girl, trying to get through to her. However she is the one with the power of enucliation and is in control. Sexuality for her appears to be rather the means of power

46

Rubens P. P.,1619. Two Satyres. (Oil on canvas) Available at: http://riverdaughter.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/satyr.jpg [Accessed 12 April 2011]. 47 Classical Art Research Centre, 2010. Satyrs. Available at: http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/dictionary/Dict/ASP/dictionarybody.asp?name=Satyr [Accessed 20 April 2011].

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and control than a value by itself, as is seen by her calmness and truculent exposure of the breast. However it could be that Ernst himself feels to be godlike in creating his own world of collage where he is in control of everything. Moreover, he himself can provocatively be the Eternal Father and the Satyr the quintessence of perversion.

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Fig. 5

The eye without eyes, the hundred headless woman keeps her secret, Max Ernst, 1929

In the collage captioned with The eye without eyes, the hundred headless woman keeps her secret, a woman has been placed in mid air of a space that looks like a construction site. She is in thought, looking at a faceless, eyeless human form,
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Ernst M., 1981. The Hundred Headless Woman (La Femme 100 Ttes). New York: George Braziller, Inc. Pg. 307

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possibly a boy. On her lap, over her genitals lies an enormous eye, its inner eyelid elongated and resembling a birds beak. There is a lot of repetition in La Femme 100 Ttes with which Ernst creates continuity and helps reinterpret some of the ideas to achieve a fuller understanding of the entire novel. Key elements of the collage resemble both the collages examined above. Again, the eye placed upon the womb in the womans possession surfaces her phallic power as opposed to blindness (castration) of the submissive figure of the boy. It is a suggestion towards falseness of Immaculate Conception, and less subtly to the enucleation theme that we already saw in Germinal, my sister the hundred headless woman. In this collage too, the woman who is holding power over the faceless figure looks at it in contemplation. Her superiority is shown in numerous ways. She is the central character, bigger in size than others and given the central position in the composition. Like in the collage with Germinal, this woman is calm and at ease with her power. She is above the faceless figure and holding symbols of power, an enormous eye with a beak hinting towards Loplop, Bird Superior and Ernsts alter ego. In this way, Ernst has placed himself as the hidden power figure of the collage. Also in this collage, he is the one providing the woman her power and looking after her, being her guide. By fusing Loplop with the eye, he is emphasising the power symbol and becomes one with the phallus.

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Fig.6

Madonna and Child with St Anne, Leonardo da Vinci, 1519

Through the reading of Freud Ernst was likely familiar with his analysis of works of Leonardo da Vinci. Freud considered that an unpleasant and possibly traumatizing encounter with a vulture was an essential part of Leonardos life that manifested itself in the painting Madonna and Child with St Anne. In this paining, a vulture is hidden in the drapes of Madonnas blue dress.50 Ernst must have noticed the similarity with his own experience and appearance of his superego Loplop. He is referencing this painting and the similarities of childhood trauma of the two artistic geniuses in this collage, by placing Loplop in the same place as da Vinci had done. Even the facial expression on the dominating women in both works is of great similarity. Both St. Anne of da Vinci and the woman in the collage of Ernst are detached and sacredly calm, overlooking the figure of the boy. Both of these weaker figures possess neither power nor phallus. This all signifies the Oedipus complex,

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Da Vinci L., 1519. Madonna and Child with St Anne, (Oil on canvas) Available at: http://www.oceansbridge.com/paintings/artists/d/Da_Vinci_Leonardo/oilbig/Leonardo_da_Vinci_The_Virgin_and_Child_with_St_Anne.jpg [Accessed 22 April 2011]. 50 Freud S., 1990. Art and Literature. England, Penguin Group. Pg. 199, 208

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symbolised castration and helplessness before the mothers sexuality. In the collage, she is the one with the only eyes in the image, possessing more than just her own, great sexuality and power. The beak of the eye is pointing towards a naked swinging woman, towards her genitals furthermore emphasising the exploding sexuality of the image.51 In this essay, the influence of psychoanalysis on the Hundred Headless Woman by Max Ernst was explored, as superimposed on a brief brush-up of contemporary history of society, surrealism, and personally Ernst himself. In fact, it seems that the influence might be as a question be not completely correct, since psychoanalysis, as Ernst understood it, is the very core of the works content. However, the rational content is hardly the most interesting and important component of Ernsts art at least from todays point of view. I am trying to look at the collage novel in a way a person would when it was just published in 1929: with a strong belief in the accuracy and truthfulness of psychoanalysis, the ultimate drive for change in the society and a general feel of rebellion towards authority and tradition. It appears not as easy as I first thought. Since the time the novel was published over 90 years ago, norms of society and societal worldview have changed drastically. After WWII psychoanalytical psychology disseminated pervasively and become an essential, normative component of thinking and a part of everyday lifein the western society. In many countries it has reached exaggerated, overvalued amplitude. After sexual revolution of 1960, sexuality is no longer a taboo and there seems to be less political unrest and instability in the West. Not surprisingly, Ernsts collages, revolutionary at their time, though not completely outdated now just seem mundane. Generally, I dont think its entirely possible to experience the novel in the way it would had been perceived and felt in 1929.

51

Spiteri R., Envisioning Surrealism in Histoire de l oeil and La femme 100 ttes, Art Journal, 63(4). Pg. 16-17

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The interpretation of psychoanalysis, a major part of Ernsts production as a whole, though more precise than that of most other surrealists, is crude and could even seem vulgar to someone working within the field. A notion of staggering significance in psychoanalysis is transference, when the emotions felt by the patient or customer in the past (mostly childhood) are redirected onto and re-experienced within the relationship with the therapist. 52 In art this kind of transference is impossible, and the healing process thus cannot occur even if one would still believe in a healing potential of psychoanalysis as such. While the psychoanalytical content of the Hundred Headless Women seems to be mostly of a historical interest, the method and process of expression of this content is still valid and, from the aesthetical point of view, extremely interesting and inspiring. Investigation of the collages has lead me to detect a lot of elements that, without exploration of psychoanalytical content, would remain concealed. In other words, in the Hundred Headless Woman how for me is more important than what, but without what you cannot look at how. A question that is still puzzling me is how much the collages were affected by the, most likely, accidentally found images used for their creation. To be really derived from the artists sub- and unconscious via free association they seem too precise, thought out and too full of references to be free, like the surrealist art was meant or at least declared to have been. Like in other surrealists- work, the ideas and end results alike are exaggerated in content. Ernsts findings of raw material to work with from his own life seem occasionally forced and artificial, as if psychoanalytical. It would be intriguing to speculate, to what extent Ernst believed in what he tried to show in terms of production of his unconscious? Did he believe that by exposing

52

Ursano R. J., Sonnenberg S. M., Lazar S. G., 2005. Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. Washington: American Psychiatric Press. Pg. 42

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himself and accepting his feelings he would heal? Did he try to make the viewer to overcome his own psychological defences and confront the same conflict within himself to become better? And how much of it was pretend to, at best, awake a protest mood, cause startling reaction and attract the audiences attention or at worst, just to demonstrate his knowledge of psychoanalysis? Whatever were the answers, without the interest to dreams, without the personals traumas and inner conflict, whether made up or not, Ernst wouldnt have created such aesthetically exciting pieces of art and might have not explored the possibilities of collage as a medium.

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