Napoleon in the Wilderness

Max Ernst, 1941 · Gallery 522 · Floor 5

Autumn 1939. An old brick factory in the south of France. France is at war with Germany. Max Ernst, the Surrealist, was born in Germany. So they lock him up. He lives in an old kiln. A brick oven. No windows. Brick dust everywhere. In the food, he says. In the pores of his skin. Now, here’s Ernst writing about himself. Max Ernst died on August 1, 1914. Came back to life on November 11, 1918. A young man who wanted to become a magician. Four years in the German artillery. Now there’s another war. And he’s living in a brick oven. A letter from a friend gets him out. Then, in 1940, France locks him up all over again. And somehow, he gets out again. The Spanish border. Ernst’s version. His visa’s expired. The stationmaster takes his passport. Then hands it back. Walks him to the platform. “Be very careful not to take the wrong train.” Ernst takes the wrong train. Ten minutes later, he’s in Spain. He makes it to Lisbon. Peggy Guggenheim gets him a seat on a flying boat to New York. He lands. Ellis Island holds him too. Finally California. He finishes a painting he started in France. This one. Napoleon in the Wilderness. Only about eighteen inches tall. Get close. Look at the ground under the figures. That pillar in the middle. All that crust. Ernst likes to start with an accident. Wet paint. Press glass against it. Pull it away. Then look at what you’ve got. A rock. A face. A monster. Keeps what he likes and works it into the painting. Now look at the little guy on the left. Big hat. One arm across his chest. Standing up on a post. Then the tall figure in red, with the horn. She’s often read as Leonora Carrington. The painter he was living with when the arrests started. They didn’t get out together. Behind them, the sea. And Ernst explained which Napoleon this was. St. Helena. Napoleon in exile. He wrote that it was “possibly an unconscious expression of my feelings at the time.”

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