The Earth as seen by Maximiliana: reflections on the last Max Ernst

Abstract

Back in Europe after a ten years’ exile – due to the war – in the United States, Max Ernst finds in Paris an extremely changed art scene, with new art trends strongly on the rise. Troubles faced in trying to fit again in European market dynamics, and the sudden break with Breton and surrealist group, push him to leave the capital, with the aim to build his own dimension in the Loire valley. In this place his late work, inspired by a cosmological vision and constantly confronting with abstractionism, takes shape and culminates in Maximiliana, ou l’exercice illégale de l’astronomie (1964), considered by Ernst as his last masterpiece.