The Stolen Mirror is a paysage animé, nominally cast in the classical convention of a landscape enlivened with figures and creatures of various kinds; it is moreover a surrealist tour-de-force, one of the artist's finest works, which carries this genre into an entirely alien, phantasmagorical realm. As chimerical as many of the elements here may appear, Ernst's fabulous technique imbues them with an uncannily convincing matter-of-fact existence, although not in any way we would normally recognize or comprehend. Ernst does not hesitate to strip away the exterior of certain figures or things to reveal the corruption of the familiar within, but elsewhere he tantalizes by masking and covering them over, giving equal cause for apprehension. Here is a fairy tale world that even under the clear light of day seems to be slipping into an ever more sinister nightmare, where sensuality almost lovingly yields to cruelty, and the vital pulse of life hardens into petrifaction, like the nymph Daphne transformed into a laurel tree. Yet it is because of this lurking sense of menace that this painting is so temptingly enigmatic--even the title mystifies--and easily seduces the viewer into the blithe embrace of its decadent surreality.
About the Canvas Prints
The Stolen Mirror (Le Miroir Volé) by Max Ernst. Bring your artwork to life with the texture and depth of a stretched canvas print. Your image gets printed onto our premium processed canvases and then stretched on a white maple wooden frame (gallery wrap) or framed inside black maple (framed canvas). Your canvas print will be shipped within 4 days in "ready to frame" condition for normal rolled and "ready to hang" condition for frames and wraps with pre-attached hanging wire and/or mounting points.