Max Ernst “The Kiss” (Le Baiser) at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice

Painting - Oil on Canvas (129 x 161.2 cm) 1927

Max Ernst's “The Kiss” (Le Baiser) corresponds to his Dadaist period.

Max Ernst, The Kiss Some believe that his love affair followed by his marriage in 1927 with the young Marie-Berthe Aurenche would have inspired the erotic subjects found in the works he made in 1927, including this one.

One of Max Ernst's pictorial techniques was to drop strings on the canvas lying on the ground and follow the said strings' curves to draw the painting's main shapes.

A nonetheless partial improvisation, because at the same time, the pyramidal construction of the upper part of this “Kiss” would refer to Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Virgin and Saint Anne".

Max Ernst's interest in psychology would explain this choice since, for Sigmund Freud, who had a significant influence on Ernst and the Surrealists, Leonardo da Vinci's painting was subject to psychosexual interpretation.

Max Ernst's appropriation of Leonardo da Vinci's religious subject in this “Kiss” offered him the opportunity to add an element of blasphemy to the scene's lust.

Max Ernst, The Kiss