Painting is neither decorative amusement, nor the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.
Max ErnstI have never seen a beautiful painting of a beautiful woman. But you can take an ugly woman and make a beautiful painting of her. It is the painting itself that should be beautiful.
Max ErnstWho made art history? Not the most reasonable people. The mad men did. If painting is the mirror of a time, it must be mad to have a true image of what that time is. To one madness we oppose another madness.
Max ErnstEvery normal human being (and not merely the 'artist') has an inexhaustible store of buried images in his subconscious, it is merely a matter of courage or liberating procedures ... of voyages into the unconscious, to bring pure and unadulterated found objects to light.
Max ErnstAnd Loplop, bird superior, has transformed himself into flesh without flesh and will dwell among us.
Max ErnstWhen the artist finds himself he is lost. The fact that he has succeeded in never finding himself is regarded by Max Ernst as his only lasting achievement.
Max ErnstThe virtue of pride, which was once the beauty of mankind, has given place to that fount of ugliness, Christian humility.
Max ErnstCreativity is that marvelous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition.
Max Ernst