Petrified Forest|Max Ernst |Search Collection | The National Museum of Western Art

Updated 14 April 2025

On Display Permanent collection

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On Display

Permanent collection

Max Ernst

Brühl, nr Cologne, 1891 - Paris, 1976

Petrified Forest

Date	1927
Materials and Techniques	oil on canvas
Size（cm）	81 x 99.6
Inscriptions	Signed lower right: max ernst
Credit Line	Donated by Yamamura Family
Standard ref.	Spies 1160
Category	Paintings
Collection Number	P.1965-0005

Along with birds, forests ranked as one of Ernst's most important subjects that he returned to over and over again throughout his life. "The Forest and Sun" series created between 1925 and 1928 formed the core of his Forest works, and this painting is part of this series. Ernst's image of a sun piercing through the dense growth of a desolate forest has frequently been linked to the landscapes of the German Romantics. Indeed, this painting shares a sense of mystical mood also found in German Romantics works. However, for Ernst the forest was not simply an unknown element that evoked a sense of unease. Rather the forest seems to evoke a somehow dualistic mutually compatible sensibility. "Joy and sadness," "freedom and captivity," "hope and unease," Ernst himself used these and other contrasting pairs of terms to describe forests. Ernst ably wielded his self-devised technique to paint this work that seems to invite a search for a mysterious internal landscape. Ernst called this technique "grattage". Ernst began to experiment with frottage during the Cologne Dada period (he himself emphasized 1925 in this regard). Frottage involves the use of various different objects; when a piece of paper placed over them their physical form appears when a pencil is rubbed over the covering paper. Grattage, a technique which gives the same effect as frottage, only on canvas, involves the painter scraping pigment onto the canvas with a palette knife, thus copying the form of the object placed beneath the canvas. Ernst likened this technique to the automatic writing in literature, and thus discerned a surrealist technique for painting. (Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no.118)

Provenance

Suzanne de Coninck, Paris; Galerie de Beaume, Paris; Donated by Haru & Tokutaro Yamamura, Nishinomiya.

Exhibition History

1989: Gendai Bijyutsu no Souzousha Tachi: Showa 20nendai no Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Tottori Prefectural Museum, Tottori, 10 October 1989 - 9 November 1989, cat. no. 2
1991: Surréalisme, The Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, 13 July 1991 - 1 September 1991, cat. no. 61, col. repr.
1993: Artists in Exile in America 1920's-1940's, The Tokushima Modern Art Museum Special Exhibition, 10 August 1993 - 19 September 1993, cat. no. 38, repr.
1995: Modern Japanese Art-Between the East and the West, Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum, 1 November 1995 - 30 November 1995, cat. no. 49, col. repr.
1997: Expressiveness of Materials, National Museum of Art, Osaka, 17 April 1997 - 22 June 1997, cat. no. 77
2006: The poet's eyes: Makoto Ooka and his collection, Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, 3 November 2006 - 10 December 2006, Ashikaga Museum of Art, Tochigi, 10 February-25 March 2007, col. repr.
2012: Max Ernst: Figure x Scape, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, 13 July 2012 - 9 September 2012, cat. no. 19, col. repr., Utsunomiya Museum of Art, Utsunomiya, 28 October - 16 December 2012
2017: ARoS Triennial The Garden-End of Times, Beginning of Times, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark, 8 April 2017 - 10 September 2017, col. repr.
2020: Sleeping: Life with Art: From Goya and Rubens to Shiota Chiharu, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 25 November 2020 - 23 February 2021, no. 1-17, col. repr.
2022: In Dialogue with Nature - from Friedrich, Monet and Van Gogh to Richter, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 4 June 2022 - 11 September 2022, cat. no. 56

Bibliography

1967: Annual bulletin of the National Museum of Western Art. No. 1, 1967, Catalogue of the New Acquisitions. pp. 38-39, no. P-347. repr.
1971: Les cent chefs-d'œuvre du Musée National d'Art Occidental. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1971 (Japanese), no. 28, repr.
1975: Les cent chefs-d'œuvre du Musée National d'Art Occidental. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1975 (Japanese), no. 79, repr.
1976: Spies, Werner (ed.). Max Ernst, Oeuvre-Katalog. Cologne, M. DuMont Schauberg/Houston, TX, The Menil Foundation, 1976, cat. no. 1160.
1978: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1978 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 83, repr.
1989: Gendai Bijutsu no Sozosha Tachi: Showa 20nendai no Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe (exh. cat.). Tottori Prefectural Museum, ed. [Tottori], Tottori Prefectural Museum Shiryokankokai, 1989, pp. 9, 56, cat. no. 2, col. repr.
1991: Kokoro o Nozoita Geijutsuka Tachi: Surréalisme e no Shotai (exh. cat.). Shiga Museum of Art, ed. [Otsu], Shiga Museum of Art, 1991, pp. 101, 152, cat. no 61, repr.
1993: Artists in Exile in America 1920's-1940's (exh. cat.). The Tokushima Modern Art Museum, ed. Tokushima, The Tokushima Modern Art Museum, 1993, pp. 40, 106, cat. no. 38. repr.
1995: Modern Japanese Art: Between the East and the West (exh. cat.). National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, ed. [Nagasaki], Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum, 1995, pp. 66, 139, 147, cat. no. 49, col. repr.
2006: Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2006 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 118, col. repr.
2006: The poet's eyes: Makoto Ooka and his Collection(exh.cat.). Mitaka City Gallery of Art. et al., eds. [Tokyo], The Asahi Shimbun, 2006, p.140, col. repr.
2009: Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2009, no. 118, col. repr.
2012: Max Ernst: Figure x Scape(exh. cat.). [no place of publication], The Executive Committee of the Exhibition “Max Ernst: Figure x Scape”, c2012, cat. no. 19, col. repr.
2013: Masterpieces: The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2013 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 121, col. repr.
2017: The garden: end of times, beginning of times (exh. cat.). Høyersten, Erlend G., ed. London, Koenig Books, [2017], p. 198, col. repr.
2020: Sleeping: Life with Art—From Goya and Rubens to Shiota Chiharu (exh. cat.). Furutate, Ryo, ed. National Museum of Art, 2020, pp. 45, 177, cat. no. 1-17, col. repr.
2022: In Dialogue with Nature: from Friedrich, Monet and Van Gogh to Richter (exh. cat.). Jingaoka, Megumi; Shinfuji, Atsushi; Yomiuri Shimbun, Museum Exhibition Department, eds. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; Yomiuri Shimbun; NHK; NHK Promotions, 2022, pp. 125, 258, cat. no. 56, col. repr.

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