Biological Discovery 1944

Jimmy Ernst made this painting, Biological Discovery, with oil paint, and maybe some other stuff too, but I can't be sure. Ernst lets the paint really be itself, all drippy and transparent and weirdly controlled at the same time. Up top, the yellows and browns almost blend, like the paint is dissolving into the atmosphere. But then your eye hits these super sharp, almost architectural lines towards the bottom. I'm really drawn to that lower section, all those little lines and edges feel like a drawing within a painting. It’s like he’s building a world right there on the canvas, or maybe dissecting one, like the title suggests. This reminds me a little of some of Matta’s paintings, that same feeling of dreamlike space and fractured forms. But Ernst has his own thing going on, a real sense of discovery and making it up as he goes along. The best art lets you see the artist thinking, and Ernst definitely does that here.