MoMA

Max Ernst. (French, born Germany. 1891-1976). Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. 1924. Oil on wood with painted wood elements and frame, 27 1/2 x 22 1/2 x 4 1/2" (69.8 x 57.1 x 11.4 cm). Purchase. Gallery label text Dada, June 18–September 11, 2006 Made in 1924, the year of Surrealism’s founding, Ernst described this work as "the last consequence of his [sic] early collages—and a kind of farewell to a technique..." He later gave two possible autobiographical references for the nightingale: the death of his sister in 1897, and a fevered hallucination he recalled in which the wood grain of a panel near his bed took on "successively the aspect of an eye, a nose, a bird’s head, a menacing nightingale, a spinning top, and so on." Publication excerpt The Museum of Modern Art , MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 105 In Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale, a girl, frightened by the bird's flight (birds appear often in Ernst's work), brandishes a knife; another faints away. A man carrying a baby balances on the roof of a hut, which, like the work's gate (which makes sense in the picture) and knob (which does not), is a three–dimensional supplement to the canvas. This combination of unlike elements, flat and volumetric, extends the collage technique, which Ernst cherished for its "systematic displacement." "He who speaks of collage," the artist believed, "speaks of the irrational." But even if the scene were entirely a painted illusion, it would have a hallucinatory unreality, and indeed Ernst linked his work of this period to childhood memories and dreams. Ernst was one of many artists who emerged from service in World War I deeply alienated from the conventional values of his European world. In truth, his alienation predated the war; he would later describe himself when young as avoiding "any studies which might degenerate into bread winning," preferring "those considered futile by his professors—predominantly painting. Other futile pursuits: reading seditious philosophers and unorthodox poetry." The war years, however, focused Ernst's revolt and put him in contact with kindred spirits in the Dada movement. He later became a leader in the emergence of Surrealism. Publication excerpt John Russell, The Meanings of Modern Art, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1981, p. 206 It was Max Ernst, in 1924, who best fulfilled the Surrealist's mandate. Ernst did it above all in the construction called Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale, which starts from one of those instincts of irrational panic which we suppress in our waking lives. Only in dreams can a diminutive songbird scare the daylights out of us; only in dreams can the button of an alarm bell swell to the size of a beach ball and yet remain just out of our reach. Two Children incorporates elements from traditional European painting: perspectives that give an illusion of depth, a subtly atmospheric sky, formalized poses that come straight from the Old Masters, a distant architecture of dome and tower and triumphal arch. But it also breaks out of the frame, in literal terms: the alarm or doorbell, the swinging gate on its hinge and the blind-walled house are three-dimensional constructions, physical objects in the real world. We are both in, and out of, painting; in, and out of, art; in and out of, a world subject to rational interpretation. Where traditional painting subdues disbelief by presenting us with a world unified on its own terms, Max Ernst in the Two Children breaks the contract over and over again. We have reason to disbelieve the plight of his two children. Implausible in itself, it is set out in terms which eddy between those of fine art and those of the toyshop. Nothing "makes sense" in the picture. Yet the total experience is undeniably meaningful; Ernst has re-created a sensation painfully familiar to us from our dreams but never before quite recaptured in art—that of total diso

Max Ernst. (French, born Germany. 1891-1976). Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. 1924. Oil on wood with painted wood elements and frame, 27 1/2 x 22 1/2 x 4 1/2" (69.8 x 57.1 x 11.4 cm). Purchase. Gallery label text Dada, June 18–September 11, 2006 Made in 1924, the year of Surrealism’s founding, Ernst described this work as "the last consequence of his [sic] early collages—and a kind of farewell to a technique..." He later gave two possible autobiographical references for the nightingale: the death of his sister in 1897, and a fevered hallucination he recalled in which the wood grain of a panel near his bed took on "successively the aspect of an eye, a nose, a bird’s head, a menacing nightingale, a spinning top, and so on." Publication excerpt The Museum of Modern Art , MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 105 In Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale, a girl, frightened by the bird's flight (birds appear often in Ernst's work), brandishes a knife; another faints away. A man carrying a baby balances on the roof of a hut, which, like the work's gate (which makes sense in the picture) and knob (which does not), is a three–dimensional supplement to the canvas. This combination of unlike elements, flat and volumetric, extends the collage technique, which Ernst cherished for its "systematic displacement." "He who speaks of collage," the artist believed, "speaks of the irrational." But even if the scene were entirely a painted illusion, it would have a hallucinatory unreality, and indeed Ernst linked his work of this period to childhood memories and dreams. Ernst was one of many artists who emerged from service in World War I deeply alienated from the conventional values of his European world. In truth, his alienation predated the war; he would later describe himself when young as avoiding "any studies which might degenerate into bread winning," preferring "those considered futile by his professors—predominantly painting. Other futile pursuits: reading seditious philosophers and unorthodox poetry." The war years, however, focused Ernst's revolt and put him in contact with kindred spirits in the Dada movement. He later became a leader in the emergence of Surrealism. Publication excerpt John Russell, The Meanings of Modern Art, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1981, p. 206 It was Max Ernst, in 1924, who best fulfilled the Surrealist's mandate. Ernst did it above all in the construction called Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale, which starts from one of those instincts of irrational panic which we suppress in our waking lives. Only in dreams can a diminutive songbird scare the daylights out of us; only in dreams can the button of an alarm bell swell to the size of a beach ball and yet remain just out of our reach. Two Children incorporates elements from traditional European painting: perspectives that give an illusion of depth, a subtly atmospheric sky, formalized poses that come straight from the Old Masters, a distant architecture of dome and tower and triumphal arch. But it also breaks out of the frame, in literal terms: the alarm or doorbell, the swinging gate on its hinge and the blind-walled house are three-dimensional constructions, physical objects in the real world. We are both in, and out of, painting; in, and out of, art; in and out of, a world subject to rational interpretation. Where traditional painting subdues disbelief by presenting us with a world unified on its own terms, Max Ernst in the Two Children breaks the contract over and over again. We have reason to disbelieve the plight of his two children. Implausible in itself, it is set out in terms which eddy between those of fine art and those of the toyshop. Nothing "makes sense" in the picture. Yet the total experience is undeniably meaningful; Ernst has re-created a sensation painfully familiar to us from our dreams but never before quite recaptured in art—that of total di

Max Ernst. (French, born Germany. 1891-1976). Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. 1924. Oil on wood with painted wood elements and frame, 27 1/2 x 22 1/2 x 4 1/2" (69.8 x 57.1 x 11.4 cm). Purchase. Gallery label text Dada, June 18–September 11, 2006 Made in 1924, the year of Surrealism’s founding, Ernst described this work as "the last consequence of his [sic] early collages—and a kind of farewell to a technique..." He later gave two possible autobiographical references for the nightingale: the death of his sister in 1897, and a fevered hallucination he recalled in which the wood grain of a panel near his bed took on "successively the aspect of an eye, a nose, a bird’s head, a menacing nightingale, a spinning top, and so on." Publication excerpt The Museum of Modern Art , MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 105 In Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale, a girl, frightened by the bird's flight (birds appear often in Ernst's work), brandishes a knife; another faints away. A man carrying a baby balances on the roof of a hut, which, like the work's gate (which makes sense in the picture) and knob (which does not), is a three–dimensional supplement to the canvas. This combination of unlike elements, flat and volumetric, extends the collage technique, which Ernst cherished for its "systematic displacement." "He who speaks of collage," the artist believed, "speaks of the irrational." But even if the scene were entirely a painted illusion, it would have a hallucinatory unreality, and indeed Ernst linked his work of this period to childhood memories and dreams. Ernst was one of many artists who emerged from service in World War I deeply alienated from the conventional values of his European world. In truth, his alienation predated the war; he would later describe himself when young as avoiding "any studies which might degenerate into bread winning," preferring "those considered futile by his professors—predominantly painting. Other futile pursuits: reading seditious philosophers and unorthodox poetry." The war years, however, focused Ernst's revolt and put him in contact with kindred spirits in the Dada movement. He later became a leader in the emergence of Surrealism. Publication excerpt John Russell, The Meanings of Modern Art, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1981, p. 206 It was Max Ernst, in 1924, who best fulfilled the Surrealist's mandate. Ernst did it above all in the construction called Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale, which starts from one of those instincts of irrational panic which we suppress in our waking lives. Only in dreams can a diminutive songbird scare the daylights out of us; only in dreams can the button of an alarm bell swell to the size of a beach ball and yet remain just out of our reach. Two Children incorporates elements from traditional European painting: perspectives that give an illusion of depth, a subtly atmospheric sky, formalized poses that come straight from the Old Masters, a distant architecture of dome and tower and triumphal arch. But it also breaks out of the frame, in literal terms: the alarm or doorbell, the swinging gate on its hinge and the blind-walled house are three-dimensional constructions, physical objects in the real world. We are both in, and out of, painting; in, and out of, art; in and out of, a world subject to rational interpretation. Where traditional painting subdues disbelief by presenting us with a world unified on its own terms, Max Ernst in the Two Children breaks the contract over and over again. We have reason to disbelieve the plight of his two children. Implausible in itself, it is set out in terms which eddy between those of fine art and those of the toyshop. Nothing "makes sense" in the picture. Yet the total experience is undeniably meaningful; Ernst has re-created a sensation painfully familiar to us from our dreams but never before quite recaptured in art—that of total di

Salvador Dalí. (Spanish, 1904-1989). The Little Theater. 1934. Wood and glass, painted, 12 3/4 x 16 3/4 x 12 1/4" (32.3 x 42.5 x 31.1 cm). Acquired through the James Thrall Soby Bequest, and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Loula D. Lasker, and William S. Paley Funds. Gallery label text 2006 This sculpture—part theatrical maquette, part multi-layered painting—is composed of eleven painted glass panes that juxtapose several distinct and peculiar worlds. At the margins the proscenium arch, receding stage floor, and inkwell evoke the stage and an unseen playwright, highlighting the orchestrated, artificial character of painting. Behind these Dalí contrasts an idyllic Arcadian scene with a barren, ruined landscape. Dalí's unique construction was inspired by his longstanding fascination with optical devices and with the theater. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=80884

Salvador Dalí. (Spanish, 1904-1989). The Little Theater. 1934. Wood and glass, painted, 12 3/4 x 16 3/4 x 12 1/4" (32.3 x 42.5 x 31.1 cm). Acquired through the James Thrall Soby Bequest, and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Loula D. Lasker, and William S. Paley Funds. Gallery label text 2006 This sculpture—part theatrical maquette, part multi-layered painting—is composed of eleven painted glass panes that juxtapose several distinct and peculiar worlds. At the margins the proscenium arch, receding stage floor, and inkwell evoke the stage and an unseen playwright, highlighting the orchestrated, artificial character of painting. Behind these Dalí contrasts an idyllic Arcadian scene with a barren, ruined landscape. Dalí's unique construction was inspired by his longstanding fascination with optical devices and with the theater. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:DE:...

Yves Tanguy. (American, born France. 1900-1955). Extinction of Useless Lights. 1927. Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 x 25 3/4" (92.1 x 65.4 cm). Purchase. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=79178

Pablo Picasso. (Spanish, 1881-1973). Seated Bather. Paris, early 1930. Oil on canvas, 64 1/4 x 51" (163.2 x 129.5 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:...

Pablo Picasso. (Spanish, 1881-1973). Seated Bather. Paris, early 1930. Oil on canvas, 64 1/4 x 51" (163.2 x 129.5 cm). Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:...

Pablo Picasso. (Spanish, 1881-1973). Girl before a Mirror. Boisgeloup, March 1932. Oil on canvas, 64 x 51 1/4" (162.3 x 130.2 cm). Gift of Mrs. Simon Guggenheim. Publication excerpt The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 161 Girl Before a Mirror shows Picasso's young mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, one of his favorite subjects in the early 1930s. Her white-haloed profile, rendered in a smooth lavender pink, appears serene. But it merges with a more roughly painted, frontal view of her face—a crescent, like the moon, yet intensely yellow, like the sun, and "made up" with a gilding of rouge, lipstick, and green eye-shadow. Perhaps the painting suggests both Walter's day-self and her night-self, both her tranquillity and her vitality, but also the transition from an innocent girl to a worldly woman aware of her own sexuality. It is also a complex variant on the traditional Vanity—the image of a woman confronting her mortality in a mirror, which reflects her as a death's head. On the right, the mirror reflection suggests a supernatural x-ray of the girl's soul, her future, her fate. Her face is darkened, her eyes are round and hollow, and her intensely feminine body is twisted and contorted. She seems older and more anxious. The girl reaches out to the reflection, as if trying to unite her different "selves." The diamond-patterned wallpaper recalls the costume of the Harlequin, the comic character from the commedia dell'arte with whom Picasso often identified himself—here a silent witness to the girl's psychic and physical transformations. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78311

Pablo Picasso. (Spanish, 1881-1973). Girl before a Mirror. Boisgeloup, March 1932. Oil on canvas, 64 x 51 1/4" (162.3 x 130.2 cm). Gift of Mrs. Simon Guggenheim. Publication excerpt The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 161 Girl Before a Mirror shows Picasso's young mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, one of his favorite subjects in the early 1930s. Her white-haloed profile, rendered in a smooth lavender pink, appears serene. But it merges with a more roughly painted, frontal view of her face—a crescent, like the moon, yet intensely yellow, like the sun, and "made up" with a gilding of rouge, lipstick, and green eye-shadow. Perhaps the painting suggests both Walter's day-self and her night-self, both her tranquillity and her vitality, but also the transition from an innocent girl to a worldly woman aware of her own sexuality. It is also a complex variant on the traditional Vanity—the image of a woman confronting her mortality in a mirror, which reflects her as a death's head. On the right, the mirror reflection suggests a supernatural x-ray of the girl's soul, her future, her fate. Her face is darkened, her eyes are round and hollow, and her intensely feminine body is twisted and contorted. She seems older and more anxious. The girl reaches out to the reflection, as if trying to unite her different "selves." The diamond-patterned wallpaper recalls the costume of the Harlequin, the comic character from the commedia dell'arte with whom Picasso often identified himself—here a silent witness to the girl's psychic and physical transformations. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78311

Pablo Picasso. (Spanish, 1881-1973). Girl before a Mirror. Boisgeloup, March 1932. Oil on canvas, 64 x 51 1/4" (162.3 x 130.2 cm). Gift of Mrs. Simon Guggenheim. On view at MoMA Publication excerpt The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999, p. 161 Girl Before a Mirror shows Picasso's young mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, one of his favorite subjects in the early 1930s. Her white-haloed profile, rendered in a smooth lavender pink, appears serene. But it merges with a more roughly painted, frontal view of her face—a crescent, like the moon, yet intensely yellow, like the sun, and "made up" with a gilding of rouge, lipstick, and green eye-shadow. Perhaps the painting suggests both Walter's day-self and her night-self, both her tranquillity and her vitality, but also the transition from an innocent girl to a worldly woman aware of her own sexuality. It is also a complex variant on the traditional Vanity—the image of a woman confronting her mortality in a mirror, which reflects her as a death's head. On the right, the mirror reflection suggests a supernatural x-ray of the girl's soul, her future, her fate. Her face is darkened, her eyes are round and hollow, and her intensely feminine body is twisted and contorted. She seems older and more anxious. The girl reaches out to the reflection, as if trying to unite her different "selves." The diamond-patterned wallpaper recalls the costume of the Harlequin, the comic character from the commedia dell'arte with whom Picasso often identified himself—here a silent witness to the girl's psychic and physical transformations. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78311

Pablo Picasso. (Spanish, 1881-1973). Woman Dressing Her Hair. Royan, June 1940. Oil on canvas, 51 1/4 x 38 1/4" (130.1 x 97.1 cm). Louise Reinhardt Smith Bequest. Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:...

Andrew Wyeth. (American, born 1917). Christina's World. 1948. Tempera on gessoed panel, 32 1/4 x 47 3/4" (81.9 x 121.3 cm). Purchase Gallery label text 2007 The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist's neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, "was limited physically but by no means spiritually." Wyeth further explained, "The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless." He recorded the arid landscape, rural house, and shacks with great detail, painting minute blades of grass, individual strands of hair, and nuances of light and shadow. In this style of painting, known as magic realism, everyday scenes are imbued with poetic mystery. Text from: moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78455

Andrew Wyeth. (American, born 1917). Christina's World. 1948. Tempera on gessoed panel, 32 1/4 x 47 3/4" (81.9 x 121.3 cm). Purchase Gallery label text 2007 The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist's neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, "was limited physically but by no means spiritually." Wyeth further explained, "The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless." He recorded the arid landscape, rural house, and shacks with great detail, painting minute blades of grass, individual strands of hair, and nuances of light and shadow. In this style of painting, known as magic realism, everyday scenes are imbued with poetic mystery. Text from: moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78455

Andrew Wyeth. (American, born 1917). Christina's World. 1948. Tempera on gessoed panel, 32 1/4 x 47 3/4" (81.9 x 121.3 cm). Purchase Gallery label text 2007 The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist's neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, "was limited physically but by no means spiritually." Wyeth further explained, "The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless." He recorded the arid landscape, rural house, and shacks with great detail, painting minute blades of grass, individual strands of hair, and nuances of light and shadow. In this style of painting, known as magic realism, everyday scenes are imbued with poetic mystery. Text from: moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=78455

Alberto Giacometti. (Swiss, 1901-1966). The Chariot. 1950. Painted bronze on wood base, 57 x 26 x 26 1/8" (144.8 x 65.8 x 66.2 cm), base 9 3/4 x 4 1/2 x 9 1/4" (24.8 x 11.5 x 23.5 cm). Purchase. Gallery label text 2006 Rising above two high wheels recalling those of an Egyptian chariot, a filament–thin woman stands poised in precarious equilibrium, as if perpetually suspended between movement and stasis, advance and retreat. According to the artist, The Chariot was partly inspired by the memory of a "sparkling pharmacy cart" he saw when briefly hospitalized. It was also prompted by his desire to position a figure in empty space "in order to see it better and to situate it at a precise distance from the floor." Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:...

Alberto Giacometti. (Swiss, 1901-1966). The Chariot. 1950. Painted bronze on wood base, 57 x 26 x 26 1/8" (144.8 x 65.8 x 66.2 cm), base 9 3/4 x 4 1/2 x 9 1/4" (24.8 x 11.5 x 23.5 cm). Purchase. Gallery label text 2006 Rising above two high wheels recalling those of an Egyptian chariot, a filament–thin woman stands poised in precarious equilibrium, as if perpetually suspended between movement and stasis, advance and retreat. According to the artist, The Chariot was partly inspired by the memory of a "sparkling pharmacy cart" he saw when briefly hospitalized. It was also prompted by his desire to position a figure in empty space "in order to see it better and to situate it at a precise distance from the floor." Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:...

Alberto Giacometti. (Swiss, 1901-1966). The Chariot. 1950. Painted bronze on wood base, 57 x 26 x 26 1/8" (144.8 x 65.8 x 66.2 cm), base 9 3/4 x 4 1/2 x 9 1/4" (24.8 x 11.5 x 23.5 cm). Purchase. Gallery label text 2006 Rising above two high wheels recalling those of an Egyptian chariot, a filament–thin woman stands poised in precarious equilibrium, as if perpetually suspended between movement and stasis, advance and retreat. According to the artist, The Chariot was partly inspired by the memory of a "sparkling pharmacy cart" he saw when briefly hospitalized. It was also prompted by his desire to position a figure in empty space "in order to see it better and to situate it at a precise distance from the floor." Text from: www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=80790