Max Ernst at the Musée d'Orsay

Freddie Young writing for VINGT Paris

The exhibition of Max Ernst's dark 'Une Semaine de Bonté' at the Musée d'Orsay offers a rare glimpse of the German surrealist's work as a graphic artist. Better known as a painter and sculptor, the piece on show here shows his macabre ideas translated into the format of a graphic novel. 

'Une Semaine de Bonté' is made up of 184 black and white collages arranged in a sequence corresponding to the days of the week. In 1933, as the Nazis came to power in his homeland, a disillusioned Ernst cut 184 images out of Victorian publications and re-assembled them, interposed with pictures selected from other sources. 

The resultant collages are striking - Ernst's additions to the original scenes add a grotesque element. Formal images of polite society become gruesome visions of violence and torture. 

Many have a dream-like quality, with animal heads replacing those of humans and bodies contorted unnaturally. Ernst's alterations to the original pictures is executed with great skill and the final results provide a fascinating insight into the (occasionally disturbing) mind of one of the twentieth century's most radical artists.

Max Ernst's 'Une Semaine de Bonté' is at the Musée d'Orsay until September 13th.