Loplop Introduces Loplop
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| Max Ernst, Loplop Introduces Loplop, 1930 |
When Max Ernst was fifteen years old, his younger sister was born on the same day that his pet cockatoo died. He blamed the newborn Loni for stealing the life force of his pet, and even in his later life continued to conflate bird and human, life and death. As the other Surrealists did, Ernst took Freud’s admonition to “analyze the symbolism in his dreams and other unguarded thoughts” to heart, and he used his art as a way to explore his subconscious, including his childhood fears and the hallucinations he suffered after a bout of measles. A “menacing nightingale” figured prominently in these hallucinations, and even after his recovery he purposely tried to bring back his visions. He saw birds as symbolic of freedom, while humans sought control and represented the Freudian concept of the superego.
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| Page from Une Semaine de Bonté, Max Ernst, 1934 |
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| Page from Une Semaine de Bonté, Max Ernst, 1934 |
The character of Loplop, Superior of Birds, came out of this combination of symbols, and appeared in many of his works. Serving the role of narrator and presenter in Ernst’s “collage novels,” Loplop was both a reflection of Ernst’s own personality and a spirit animal or totem of sorts. Loplop takes many forms, both male and female, and displays the heads of many different birds. The aspect of the hybrid creature varies wildly from endearingly goofy to erotic to grotesque and intimidating.
Loplop Introduces Loplop features the titular figure with a fanciful head resembling a chicken and painted in a primitive, tribal style, with multiple arms, displaying a framed collage a la Vanna White. Other images of Loplop were created directly with collage, pasting bird’s heads over the bodies of men and women in formalwear. Loplop is the central figure of Une Semaine de Bonté, a work entirely in collage and a predecessor of sorts to graphic novels. The surreal, deeply personal imagery of this and other Ernst novels is, even today, poorly understood.
Loplop Introduces Loplop features the titular figure with a fanciful head resembling a chicken and painted in a primitive, tribal style, with multiple arms, displaying a framed collage a la Vanna White. Other images of Loplop were created directly with collage, pasting bird’s heads over the bodies of men and women in formalwear. Loplop is the central figure of Une Semaine de Bonté, a work entirely in collage and a predecessor of sorts to graphic novels. The surreal, deeply personal imagery of this and other Ernst novels is, even today, poorly understood.
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