The rendezvous of friends

The rendezvous of friends
Max Ernst , 1922
Oil on canvas
130 × 195 cm
Museum Ludwig , Cologne Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

The Rendezvous of Friends , French Au rendez-vous des amis , is a pre-surrealistic painting by Max Ernst from 1922, which shows his Parisian friends in front of a bizarre mountain landscape. The large-format painting with the dimensions 130 × 195 cm, painted in oil on canvas, came into the holdings of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in 1976 . A film of the same name shot in 1992 tells the story of the painting.

background

Max Ernst left Germany in autumn 1922 and moved to Paris, where his friends such as André Breton , Gala and Paul Éluard and Tristan Tzara lived. Ernst was accepted into the Éluards. Already in that year he painted the group portrait Rendezvous der Freunde , which shows many companions from the group of Dadaists and future Surrealists and himself. The following year it was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. The founding of the surrealist movement took place in 1924 with the first surrealist manifesto , written by Breton.

description

In front of a white, jagged high mountain landscape on the left edge of the picture, which extends almost to the center of the picture, male persons and a woman sit, walk or stand on brown rock. The sky in the background is black. A total of 17 people are listed by name on two boards on the left and right. In the front left is René Crevel , who seems to be operating the keys of an imaginary piano in front of a winter garden. This is followed by Max Ernst, sitting on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's knees , Théodore Fraenkel , Jean Paulhan , Benjamin Péret , Johannes Theodor Baargeld , and Robert Desnos . In the back row are Philippe Soupault , Hans Arp , Max Morise , Raffael , Paul Éluard , Louis Aragon (with a laurel wreath around his hips), André Breton (with a red scarf), Giorgio de Chirico and Gala Éluard . Tristan Tzara and Francis Picabia , the comrades-in-arms from the Dada era, are missing . Pale concentric circles of various sizes appear in the upper center of the picture; in the left foreground is a table-like structure with fruits and a knife on it.

Interpretations

View from Tarrenz in the upper Gurgltal

According to Max Ernst, the mountains point to his Tyrolean holiday destination Tarrenz and Mont Blanc . Like sign language seeming gesture of the people depicted could be on the profession of Philipp Ernst , the father of the artist, referring, was the deaf-mute teacher. The circles Breton is pointing to could mean a solar eclipse causing the black sky. The two ancestors shown are the Russian poet Dostoyevsky, who had already described the surrealist attitude towards life in the mid-19th century, and Raffael. Dostoevsky noted in a letter: "... what most people consider fantastic, I consider the innermost essence of truth." According to an interview by Spiegel with the artist in 1970, Raphael's appearance in the picture is more "than any ghostly phenomenon" to look at and possibly also a memory of the work of his father Philipp Ernst, who copied Raphael's Disputa .

The film

A documentary called Rendezvous of Friends. A film about an image and its story was made in 1992 under the direction of Christian Bau and his wife Maria Hemmleb. Max Ernst sold the picture with other works to the Düsseldorf gallery owner Johanna Ey in 1924 when he needed money to follow his friend Paul Éluard to Saigon . In the 1920s, Eys Galerie was the center of the Rhenish avant-garde. During the time of National Socialism , their collection was considered " degenerate " and some of it was confiscated.

In the Galerie Neue Kunst Frau Ey , Lydia and Artur Bau, the director's parents, saw works by Max Ernst for the first time in 1929 and bought pictures and drawings from Johanna Ey that had been classified as "degenerate" during the Nazi era. In 1941, after the first bombing raids on Düsseldorf, the Bau couple received a box containing, among other things, Ernst's group portrait and La mort de Max Ernst by Robert Desnos . For a long time, the friends' rendezvous hung in Lydia and Artur Bau's living room. In 1971 the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne acquired it and from there the picture was transferred to the Museum Ludwig in 1976 .

literature

• Gerd Bauer: Max Ernst's painting “Au Rendez-vous des amis” . In: Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 45 (1984), pp. 231-255.
• Ulrich Bischoff : Max Ernst 1891–1976. Beyond painting. Taschen, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-8228-0244-1 ; New edition 2009, ISBN 978-3-8228-6594-1 .
• Ludger Derenthal: A surrealist 'révélation'. The first Max Ernst exhibition in Paris . In: Max Ernst. The rendez-vous of friends . Exhibition catalog, Museum Ludwig. Cologne 1991, pp. 55-71.
• Lothar Fischer : Max Ernst . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1969, ISBN 3-499-50151-1 .
• Jürgen Pech: “Au rendez-vous des amis” . In: Max Ernst, “Au Rendez-vous des amis”. Exhibition catalog. Brühl 1983, pp. 298-313.
• Hans-Jürgen Schwalm: Individual and Group. Group pictures of the 20th century . Essen 1990.
• Evelyn Weiss : The rendezvous of friends in literature. Criticism and reception. An introduction . In: Max Ernst. The rendezvous of friends . Exhibition catalog, Museum Ludwig. Cologne 1991, pp. 11-19.

Filmography

• 1992: Friends rendezvous. A film about a picture and its history - directed by Christian Bau and Maria Hemmleb

Web links

• Museum Ludwig
• Rendezvous of Friends - A film about an image and its history Film website thede filmproduktion
• The rendezvous of friends . Image index of art and architecture

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Quoted from Ulrich Bischoff: Max Ernst 1891–1976. Beyond Painting , p. 23
2. ^ Lutz Walther, Kai-Britt Albrecht: Max Ernst. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
3. ^ Ulrich Bischoff: Max Ernst 1891–1976. Beyond Painting , p. 27
4. ^ Lothar Fischer: Max Ernst , p. 62
5. ↑ Quoted from the Ludwig Museum's web link: Description of the picture (Search: Max Ernst)
6. ↑ Lothar Fischer: Max Ernst , p. 62 f.
7. ↑ The pious shouted ugh three times . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1970 ( online ).
8. ↑ Quoted according to Weblink die thede
9. ↑ Quoted from Weblink Image Index of Art and Architecture
10. ^ Rendezvous of friends . dhm.de, accessed on June 5, 2012

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