About this artwork
This is one of a number of so-called 'jungle' pictures that Max Ernst painted in the late 1930s. His paintings of forests and tangled undergrowth derive from the rich Romantic heritage in German art. They also symbolise the fears and suppressed desires of the human mind. Looking at the picture more closely, the title becomes bitterly ironic. This jungle is actually ordinary undergrowth grown to enormous proportions, dwarfing a sculpture of a woman and animal living together in harmony. Instead of a paradise, the scene is a nightmarish one in which giant praying mantises do battle with other monsters in the entangled undergrowth.
Updated before 2020
see media-
artist:
-
title:La Joie de vivre [The Joy of Life]
-
date created:1936
-
materials:Oil on canvas
-
measurements:73.50 x 93.00 cm; Framed: 108.50 x 89.40 x 8.50 cm; 18.00 kg
-
object type:
-
credit line:Purchased with the assistance of The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund, 1995
-
accession number:GMA 3886
-
gallery:
-
subject:
-
glossary:
Max Ernst
Max Ernst
German-French painter Ernst was born near Cologne in Germany. After studying philosophy at university he turned his attention to art, and became the leader of the Cologne Dada group in 1919. He moved to Paris in 1922 to work with the Surrealists, adapting the techniques of collage and photomontage...