A Moment of Calm 1939

Max Ernst conjured this landscape, A Moment of Calm, with oils on canvas. The composition is a dense tapestry of brushstrokes, like a hidden world that you are not sure is there. I’m thinking, what does it mean, this title? “A Moment of Calm”. Maybe it’s an invitation, but I also wonder if it was wishful thinking on Ernst’s part. I can imagine him, in his studio, wrestling with the image, adding layer upon layer of paint, trying to find some kind of peace. There's a kind of visual tension in the painting, an almost vibrating effect as the eye tries to organize so much data. It has a feeling like some of Monet's paintings of waterlilies, or late Turner, where the subject is less about representation and more about the act of seeing itself. Maybe the calm that’s referred to here is about getting lost in the painting, and forgetting about the world.