before the combo of photoshop and the internet spawned 100 billion wry photo mashups there was max ernst. what follows are some plates with accompanying text from the 1930 collage novel by ernst, a little girl dreams of taking the veil. from the books translator’s note: “each one of these collages uses cuttings often from the most banal of pre-photography illustrated penny novels, and from popular tomes about nature, science, and exoticism. the result may seem to embody our most frequent tragedies, our wriest enslavements, our most terrible solutions. specificity dissolves in the timeless and the general.”
as the title suggests it’s the story of a girls dream. it begins-
academy of science.
the night will come when the academy of science itself will not disdain to cast its gaze on the sewers of the world. the night will come when, covered with all their jewels, the secondary skeletons that one calls scientists will ask themselves this question:
what do little girls dream of who want to take the veil?
on that night a violent storm will break against the doors of the academy of science and the water will roar in the pipes.
the water will remember the shameful year 1930, the year it would have liked to see all the cathedrals of the universe parade in far-too-short dresses. it will remember above all a certain night because…
on good friday night of the shameful year 1930 a child hardly sixteen years old dipperd her two hands in the sewer, pricked her skin and with her blood traced these lines”
to love the holy father and to dip one’s hands in a sewer,
such is happiness for us, children of mary.
what eventually follows are 77 ernst collages, separated into 4 sections, which along with short lines of accompanying text for each, tell the tale of young marcelin-mary’s decidedly monstrous and poetic dreams. here are 8 of those collages. click each for larger versions. enjoy.
“i already find myself alone. too alone with myself, face to face with myself…”
“...oh what a joy! here come the leech-charmers!...”
“...and to all of us a theatrical death…”
“...upsy-daisy! upsy-daisy!...”
“...you won’t be poor anymore, head-shaven pigeons, under my white dress, in my columbarium. i’ll bring you a dozen tons of sugar. but don’t you touch my hair!”
the superior of the convent: “i saw myself in the form of a wolf. i sped through space with the rapidity of words.”
the assistant mother superior “separated from everything i went with god into his vast interior.”
marceline: “you are in especially bad taste.” the celestial bridegroom: “certainly, i always charge too much. i am the weed of palaces, not hovels. i’m going now and i leave you my anger.”