Max Ernst

La Forêt [The Forest]

About this artwork

The dark, mysterious forest is a common subject in German Romantic art and was one of Ernst’s own favourite themes. The forest held a personal significance for the artist, as he never forgot the childhood feelings of enchantment and terror induced by his first sight of the forests south of Cologne when aged just three. Ernst painted a series of ‘forest’ works towards the end of the 1920s, drawing on his fear and fascination to produce paintings in which the forest appears as a forbidding and impenetrable wall, hemming in the viewer and shutting out the world beyond.

Updated before 2020

see media
  • artist:
  • title:
    La Forêt [The Forest]
  • date created:
    About 1928
  • materials:
    Oil on canvas
  • measurements:
    54.20 x 65.50 cm; Framed: 69.50 x 80.70 x 5.20 cm; 9kg
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Presented by Miss E.M. Dolbey 1980
  • accession number:
    GMA 2217
  • gallery:
  • subject:
  • glossary:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
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Max Ernst

Max Ernst