COLLAGE

1. Initial Response

Introduction

This collage is named 'Here Everything is Still Floating' by famous Max Ernst made in 1920. It is elegantly composed from cutouts from scientific manuals, anthropological journals, and common merchandising catalogs dating from the turn-of-the-century. It utilizes free space, and individual pieces which look similar to each other in terms of color to make a more uniform collage - both two things I wish to have in my personal collage.

Visual

I am in a dream, because no other explanation for how a ship and a fish can be put in space like that makes any sense. The smoke interests me a lot, even though it is the plainest part of the collage. Where is it going? It doesn't seem to have any end, and what makes it travel upwards? There is no gravitational sense here so why upwards? The supposed ship looks almost like a skeletal scan (because ships are normal uniform in material and color on the outside) where we can see everything inside of it, much like the fish. The objects are miscellaneous, it is hard to tell what exactly each image is. The image is quite muted, there are not many bright contrasting colors, only different tones of black and white.

Emotional

It makes me feel a sad and mute kind of emotion. Like I am an observer, like I am watching an old sad movie about death and decay. I am concerned about where the smoke is going, and I want to know what relevance the ship and the fish have, and why they are both in forms of skeletons. I feel confused, concerned and curious.

Memory/ Experience

It reminds me of wars, because they every time i think of wars i think in a grainy black and white image, with smoke from bombs, big machines like tanks and ships and cars. The skeleton of the fish also reminds me of death and decay which could have helped me relate this to war. It reminds me of old movies in black and white and in those times there were wars going on. I sort of hear the bombs going off in a distance, coloring the sky a smokey grey.

2. Contextual Understanding

The Artist

Timeline

1891

Born in Bruhl, Germany into a Strict Catholic Family. His father was deaf, but taught Ernst a lot about painting.

1914

Ernst studied Philosophy. He dropped out because of his interest in art as well to avoid "any studies which might degenerate into breadwinning." Instead, the artist preferred those areas of study considered "futile by his professors - predominantly painting...seditious philosophers, and unorthodox poetry.". He then became fascinated with psychology. His interest in painting brought on by his father made him produce a lot during the early stages of his art career. In this time he was influenced by Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne and Vincent Van Gogh. The themes that he explored in this time was about fantasy and dream imagery when he was influenced by Giorgio de Chirico.

Then, during World War 1, he was forced to join the German Army. He was in the Artillery division which was where the men used guns on foot. This exposed him quickly to warfare. After this, he was traumatized and critical of western culture. He believed that the modern world was irrational, which became the basis of his artwork later on in life. During this time his Dada and Surrealist works emerged. He was a pioneer of both movements. He used memories from the war and his childhood to create those scenes. When he returned from war he took his passion for art seriously, and created a group for artists that included the poet and artist Jean Arp, as well as some fellow artists in Paris who made Avant-Garde work, in Cologne.

1918

World War 1 ended

1919

Ernst first started experimenting with collage. His materials made futuristic scenes, which allowed him to create a fantasy and dream world which helped him with his personal trauma from the war (PTSD). During this time in his career he also edited journals and made 'queer' sculptures.

1920

Ernst was influenced by the psychologist Sigmund Freud and also Surrealism. Surrealism was a revolution against constraints of the rational mind, surrealists believed that the rules of society were oppressive. In this time he made Here Everything is Still Floating. He said that collage in those times were seen as a kind of crime, meaning one did harm to nature.

1922

Ernst moved to Paris (until 1941). At this time Surrealism was influenced mainly by André Breton.

1923+

Ernst made Men Shall Know Nothing of This, and read The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud and his this to explore the source of his own creativity. He was known to use hypnosis and hallucinogens to discover the possibilities of autonomism and dreams. He also experiment with Frottage and Decalcomania.

Frottage; When random pencil shavings, wood grain, and leaf arrangements created the idea. May have seen this in Harry Potter where the professor analyses Harry's tea leaves.

Decalcomania; It is when paint is transferred from one surface to the other by pressing them together. You may have done this in pre-school.

These two techniques were developed by Ernst and they led him to create a lot of interesting finished works.

1933

Hitler and Nazis seized control of Germany. Hitler accumulated around 16,000 avant-garde works to display in his exhibition 'Degenerate Kunst' (Degenerate Art), where two works of Ernst was displayed. Ernst fled from France to New York to seek refuge, where he influenced a generation of American Artists like Peggy Guggenheim (which was his third wife). The American artists were all very interested in his new and different unorthodox ways.

1942

Ernst experimented with oscillation (it is where a punctured paint filled can swings over a canvas), which impressed Jackson Pollock. He divorced Peggy Guggenheim and relocated to Sedona, Arizona with his fourth wife Dorothea Tanning (who was 36 years older than Max, and lived for 102 years - she died in 2012).

1953

Ernst and Tanning moved back to France together. His son, Jimmy Ernst would later on become a well-known German/American Abstract Expressionist after the war.

1976

Max Ernst dies, leaves Tanning a widow. He is now buried in Paris' Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Background

PERSONAL CONTEXT:

As I suspected, this artwork seems to be influenced by the traumatizing memories from the war, and although it may not be influenced in the meaning of the work, it definitely influenced the aesthetics of this work.

WIDER CONTEXT:

When Ernst had made this collage, it was two years after World War 1 had ended, which significantly affects the meaning of the work. Ernst himself was involved on a very intimate level with the war, so it would be no surprise that he made work to do with the war.

Associations & Influences

Due to the timing of this work, it can be suspected that this work was influenced by Surrealism. This is also due to the fact that the artist wanted to rebel against the social norms/'rules'. Ernst and his interest into Surrealism was influenced by the famous psychologist Sigmund Freud at the time. Ernst read Freud's books, and was very involved in the movement.

Ideas & Intentions

I think that the artist is trying to communicate the insanity, chaos and terror of warfare in this work. The idea of collage increases the idea of chaos in the image, the black and white aids in making the image look and the audience feel unhappy, and the smoke and skeletal details of the fish reminds the audience of the death and decay in warfare.

3. Formal Elements

Subject Matter

In Here Everything is Still Floating, there are two focal points; the fish and the ship. This is obvious because there is nothing else with as much detail that draws the attention of the eye in the work. The cutout material is assembled together to make the ship from various random sources. It is also obvious that the two things are held in mid air, floating in the sky somewhere. There isn't a real location, which means that this is most likely not significant. Because there is smoke coming from the ship, it would seem like that ship is moving, and on its journey, it passes that fish.

Composition

The objects appear to be facing in different directions, the smoke drags along behind the ship, and the fish is facing the opposite direction. The image could be a still of life. They are both tilted at similar degrees.

Materials/Techniques/Processes

According to The Art Story; Modern Art Insight, Ernst used unrelated cutout photographs of fish, anatomical drawings, insects (turned over to suggest a sailing ship), and puffs of clouds and smoke from scientific manuals, anthropological journals, and common merchandising catalogs dating from the turn-of-the-century. He used those cutouts to form a shape similar to a ship in the bottom half of the collage. According to the MoMA, Ernst also used pencil, and the finished piece was mounted on a piece of cardstock. He arranged and stuck them together with some sort of glue. The collage technique makes the image flat, 2D. The texture is insignificant because it is only flat paper.

Colour

The dominant color here is grey. Different tones of grey are used to create shapes, however there are none of the extremes; white or black. It is just dark grey and light grey. The collage is highly unsaturated, and the background is grainy. It creates an old, vintage, and dusty feel to the image. The foreground and the background colors contrast each other to create the focal points. The mood because of this color choice is somber, and muted. It is sad and depressing, and appropriately so.

Mood/Atmosphere/Environment

I have listed six words that describe the mood/atmosphere of the artwork

Mute
1. I feel there is no ‘expression’ or ‘language’ in the color choice. It is also because when I think about black and white movies, I also imagine them without sound. Thus, only a certain extent of words can be expressed when the only color is grey.
Isolated & Lonely & Abandoned
1. There is nothing else there, these two objects are the only things floating in space. There doesn’t appear to be anything in sight. It could be that everything else died or left, and maybe the ship and fish ‘died’ too.
Empty
1. The fish is only a skeletal imprint of a fish, it’s body is literally empty. There are no insides, no skin, no scales to fill in the fish. The ship feels the same because it almost looks like a skeleton of the ship, because ships are normally uniform at least in color.
Damage
1. The smoke and the dead grey color reminds the audience of a dead and damaged place. Smoke is also associated with burning and fire, and industrialization especially when it is coming from a ship.

4. Concluding Response

Value

I looked at this particular artwork because wanted to understand why people made collages, and how they made unrelated pieces of paper come together and speak a meaning. I chose Max Ernst because I am increasingly interested in his work and his life, I am also interesting in Surrealism and Dadaism, which led me to Ernst originally.

I have learnt that color choice is important. Not to say that it is necessary, but it is significant. Color is one of the main things that help create mood, and at least for this collage it was the biggest one that influenced the mood of the collage that the audience feels. I should be careful not careless when choosing what colors get to end up on my collage piece.

Although I appreciate the artwork, I cannot relate to it because I have never experienced anything like war in my lifetime. If I used to be in the army, or I was a refugee then I think this artwork would speak more to me. However I understand that Ernst used collage and art to make dream worlds to help with the trauma that he suffered. I think it is an interestingly composed and very curious piece of artwork. I aim for my artwork to be as interesting to my audience as Max Ernsts’ work is to me.

Applying Knowledge and Understanding

For my collage piece I am going to communicate the idea of femininity on a personal level, and my experiences with femininity which is not related to Max Ernsts work at all, but I will incorporate his clever use of color to communicate meaning and feeling. I also am inspired and enjoy his ‘version’ of collage because although each individual cut out is from a completely unrelated and random source, they all share the same look, which makes the collage feel and look more intelligently composed. Comparatively, I do not like work like Hannah Hoch’s where it is obvious that each piece does not match the other.

We got the very fortunate opportunity of having a first hand artist visit from Joe Keys from england. I value this opportunity because it is quite hard to do in a country that is not as exposed to the art world as countries like Berlin or England or anywhere really in Europe seems to be the hub for many artists. I quite liked his work. Most of his work seemed to be of people, displaying something. So for example there was many pieces with profiles from old newspapers or just anything old, but they had things on top of it, like these flowy black and white shapes in a few of them. What I noticed about collage artists is the materials that they use are almost always vintage, worn, old, or has those types of qualities to them. They seem to mostly come from flea markets where you can easily find old, worn, an blemished things which seem to be very important to collage artists, and I understand the appeal to them. They feel comforting, and yet curious. I often think about what it would be like to live in the times of those old pictures and newspapers, I am enchanted by different worlds. I realise that that is what attracts me personally to them. Other people like them plainly for their useful texture that works well with sticking onto other things rather than glossy pictures from modern magazines.

He said he looks a lot at this book called 'Age of Collage' where he finds a lot of the artists that inspire him. He gets materials not only from thrift markets, but also very strange places like underneath club floorboards. The criteria for good materials are the texture, the feel you get from it, the emotion you get from feeling or seeing or smelling that material.

I noticed that he does a lot of commissioned art work, which is understandable but I feel as though its almost conflicting to be an artist and believe that you make art because you want to express yourself, and then do commercial work too? It doesn't seem right, but I understand that artists don't get paid unless you sell your work so, the modern art world has changed from the classical art world in my opinion (artists used to make paintings about war, or politics, etc. - at least the very famous ones).

What I still don't understand about artists is how they get their inspiration. It seems to me that just being open to everything that comes your way and trying to communicate that in your artwork seems to be a very challenging and in my opinion impossible thing. I think that in all artist's work there is a current theme otherwise they would never have enough time to create the infinite ideas that come about their way. What I believe inspires Joe the most is communication of himself, his collages are quite personal, and I think that he might be subconsciously communicating himself in his work.

To start our Unit, we had a class period to explore what we could potentially do for our own projects for this collage unit. There were a few types of collages that Mr. Keys had recommended we do, although we had not needed to complete all of them I tried to complete as many as I can.

#1 was one that had a diagonal and dynamic orientation because of the scripture it forces people to turn their heads to read it, and the orientation of the wood pieces on the side and the position of the two boys are perpendicular to the text. The image that I started with was black and white, which I normally don't really like, so instead of coloring everything else in, I decided to give the blue color to the dishdasha that one of the boys were wearing to have an inverted idea of what the colored picture was because I thought that this was interesting. What I learned after this collage was that I could use the pieces of thinly cut wood and tear it up roughly to create those random and staggered sharp edges that I quite like.

#2 seems to me the most beautifully composed (along with #3) because everything makes sense. It is not as random and chaotic as collages that I typically think of, and I guess I like them because they are still collages but maturely composed into something that has more balance and composure. I think this collage is also nice because it has many different contrasts; contrast in the bright and varied colors in the background with the picture of the girl, as well as the smoothness of the blend of colors in the background versus the sharp, harsh and striking color and texture of the gold leaf. What I learned from doing this one is that the gold leaf is incredibly hard to manipulate, yet fun nonetheless, but in the end it creates something very visually appealing to me. I would like to use the gold leaf in the future.

#3 is also one of my favorites because it is in my opinion beautifully composed and well-thought out. I like the warm comforting tones that the old paper and the gold leaf bring out. I like the fierceness of the lion, and I like that I used the lions head on a person's body. This collage is one that combines faces/bodies, and I also think that this collage is one that creates a 'balanced' composition because the pieces I put together fill up the surface but without being overwhelming, so the collage looks 'full'. I learned that changing body parts is incredibly fun and entertaining, and also a good way to communicate something about our minds. (for example this lion head could imply that that person is fierce, strong, and dangerous - just something for me to keep in mind about if I want to imply a certain thing).

#4 I think this one is quite hilarious and comical, because it is this modern model whos sitting at a bar, juxtaposed with a roughly painted and old head of a pelican on some old wood. I like it for its comical-ness, but that's about it, I don't think it has much sense in composition, which I will remember when I move onto the bigger projects; that I want everything to tie in together/be together in harmony.

#5 I realised that although the clear colored plastic is quite transparent, it is not transparent enough for what I wanted it to do; I wanted it to sort of color in that area but still clearly see the image underneath. I should have experimented with some colored ink, which makes a lot more sense, but time ran out. I will remember that if I want to color things in in that way, rather use diluted ink than the plastic.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

FIRST HAND ARTIST VISIT

He mentioned weaving, and he did some work with weaving as well, which I was very interested about. Some famous weavers that he mentioned that inspired him were Thomas Bayrle, Lola Dupre, and Tintin Cooper. After the presentation, we were set to make a collage on this hexagonal shape that linked with someone else's too, so that eventually we would make one huge collage composed of many but different hexagonal shapes. I used this weaving idea in my thing with cut strips of a french flag. I used the french flag because when Mr. Keys brought it out nobody seemed to have an idea about what to do with it, and I like challenges and being unique so I set myself a goal to incorporate that in an interesting way.

I used the red and the white and not the blue of the French flag because it matched the stamp on the top. I made the rest of the empty space messy because I wanted the glue that was obvious underneath the weave to have consistency in the collage and not look like a mistake. I had loads of fun using the white paint to make that messiness because I was finger painting, which is always very fun for me.

What I noticed about the difference between my collages and Joe Keys' collages was that Joe utilised empty space, and it was one of the main things in his collage that made his look more composed and calm. On the other hand, empty space makes me almost nervous, I have to fill the space up, to make it 'full' looking and 'complete'.

The idea was that I would link my hexagonal collage to someone else's which had a promiscuous sense to it, so that the lady in mine would look over with that scolding face.

JOE KEYS

Starter Activities

First Hand Artist Visit

Artist Analysis

STARTER ACTIVITIES

ARTIST ANALYSIS - max ernst

Max Ernst

Here Everything is Still Floating

1920

Cut-and-pasted printed paper and pencil on printed paper on cardstock

16.5 x 21 cm

Vincent Van Gogh

The Starry Night

1889

Oil on Canvas

73.7 x 92.1 cm

Paul Cézanne

The Card Players

1890-92

Oil on Canvas

65.4 x 81.9 cm

Claude Monet

La Grenouillère

1869

Oil on Canvas

74.6 x 99.7 cm

Max Ernst

Men Shall Know Nothing of This

1923

Oil on Canvas

80.3 x 63.8 cm

Bibliography

T. (n.d.). 'Men Shall Know Nothing of This', Max Ernst, 1923. Retrieved September 04, 2017, from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ernst-men-shall-know-nothing-of-this-t00336

Claude Monet | La Grenouillère | The Met. (n.d.). Retrieved September 04, 2017, from http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437135

Max Ernst Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works. (n.d.). Retrieved September 04, 2017, from http://www.theartstory.org/artist-ernst-max.htm

Max Ernst, and his paintings. (n.d.). Retrieved September 04, 2017, from http://www.max-ernst.com/

Max Ernst. Here Everything Is Still Floating (Hier ist noch alles in der Schwebe). 1920 | MoMA. (n.d.). Retrieved September 04, 2017, from https://www.moma.org/collection/works/35971

MoMA Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved September 04, 2017, from https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/vincent-van-gogh-the-starry-night-1889

Paul Cézanne | The Card Players | The Met. (n.d.). Retrieved September 04, 2017, from http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435868

PROCESS

Process

ARTIST BRAINSTORM

In this brainstorm, I was exploring three different artists. I did this before finding one artist and a work that they did so that I can get a brief background knowledge about the famous collagists and their story. It was useful because I became aware of different artists that interest me, and so I could analyse a work that is more interesting to me. It was useful because I then came to find an interesting movement called Surrealism and Dadaism, as well as Max Ernst who I ended up analysing because I found his work very intriguing. Each of these artists I either found out about from a handout, or from Joe Keys.

I also learned how to make a mind map through trial and error. I really like the way I used watercolor to make a general separation between the three chosen artists. It brings color and vibrancy but also organization and order to the mind map. I also know that I should always include photos, samples and whatever else I can stick in that is relevant because it makes it look very appealing as well as it helps the reader to understand.

THEME BRAINSTORM

In this brainstorm, I was exploring the theme 'obsession'. I started out with an obsession with thinking, and then I moved on to an obsession of thinking about femininity. I knew from even before this unit that I wanted to make a work about femininity and my personal conflicts with it, so I stuck with it. I will say what is on this brainstorm eloquently in my commentary of my final piece.

Obviously this brainstorm looks a lot less interesting than the previous one, because I made this one first. I realised a lot of my mistakes and after seeing a few process portfolio slides I was able to get some ideas on the aesthetics of brainstorming.

MATERIALS

Here is where I was experimenting with the look of the materials that I had. I had some fabric stencils that I found in a vintage shop in South Africa during my summer. I also used some photocopied pictures from a book called 'Tussen ons Meisies' (Between our Girls - in Afrikaans), which is a book about how to be a lady for South African girls. I found it in a bookcase in our house, and it was very old. I thought it fit so well with the theme of femininity for my project. I also wanted to use cutouts from one source to make the final collage look more put together and related. I used a picture of a girl in a bathtub, and a cutout from a section where the book was explaining how to have geometrically correct eyebrows. In the book there were a lot of things on how to eat, what to eat, skincare, clothes, hairstyles, etc. I found some of the things hilariously ridiculous, like how small and boring the meals looked. That reaction in itself relates to my overall message too.

FINAL COLLAGE

Final Collage

PHOTOCOPIED PAGES OF THE BOOK

THE BOOK

This final collage piece demonstrates my knowledge from Joe Keys and Max Ernst because it is not a necessarily 'full' picture, and the 3 images nicely fit together because of their similar color and graininess. If I had not realised that empty space is okay by joe keys, then I would have painted or used a pattern for the background. If I had not realised that collages don't all need to have distinctly different pictures from magazines then I would not have color corrected the two hands so that they blend better with the foam in the lady's bathtub. I also would not have made the whole collage in black and white, but after seeing the somber effect it had in Max Ernst's piece, I thought it would be fitting to apply it in mine. My intentions/meaning for this piece is also personal, which was something that Max Ernst did too; because it lessened his trauma from war.

The collage features three different cutouts from a book called 'Tussen ons Meisies' which means 'Between our Girls' in Afrikaans. It's an old book of my mothers from when she was a teenager. It taught her how to take care of herself; how to eat, what to eat, how to wear your hair for your face shape in the most 'flattering' style as well as your clothes shape, your eyebrows, makeup, skincare, etc. The photo of the eye was used from a section where the book was demonstrating the best way to shape your eye for your face geometrically (the lines drawn over the eye are hard to see in the picture above), the hands came from the beginning of the makeup section, and the bathtub was a random portrait in between the pages. I photocopied them, which made it easy to color correct the hands. I also needed the color correcting tool because the lighting in the pictures changed the tints of each picture. I didn't like this because the colors were then not consistent throughout the piece anymore.

What I wanted to be demonstrated in this piece was my obsession with thinking about femininity. All my life I've been thinking about it but i'm not sure that I was able to understand it as I can now. I always thought that I was one of the tomboys; I always did sports, boys chose me for their teams in P.E. because of that, and I think that's where it all started. If I think about the life I could have had in my birth country South Africa I don't think I would be the same person at all. This is because the 'ideal' female in South Africa is very feminine. The two ideals for male and female are very stereotypically extreme; women are very feminine, men are very masculine. There isn't really an in between. I don't think I would have been interested in maths, I might have pursued a life career in arts instead. Although this is not a request for pity attention. I enjoy being unique, being the exception in a population. I've been obsessed with thinking about it because it conflicts inside my head, and I can't stop thinking about things until i've found the answer. To put it personally, I expected myself to grow up feminine; enjoy makeup, wear 'pretty' clothes, etc. I think this is dangerous, and to put it globally I believe we shouldn't raise our kids with any expectations for their personality depending on their gender, because it creates pressure and makes us feel like it is 'wrong' if we think the opposite.

The girl in the bathtub is looking down, and sad because she is confused. Her eyebrows are geometrically correct, and she's put on her powder, but why is she not satisfied? Why wasn't this what she wanted?

The communication of the feminine theme is obvious here. If the audience knew who I was and knew where I was from maybe they could have realised the meaning as deep as I intended it to be. Although I tried to keep the collage more simple this time, I still feel like I could have made the collage more 'interesting' somehow. I think using more images would have helped. Although, I still have confidence and pride in my work for this collage unit.

Janka van der Merwe

Looking Down, Because She is Sad

2017

Printed photocopies on black cardboard

22 x 25.5 cm

PROCESS PORTFOLIO SLIDES

Process Portfolio Slides