In ‘The Entire City’ (1934), oil on paper mounted on canvas, a crumbling city looms oppressively below the ring-shaped moon. Max Ernst (1891-1976) made a whole series of such works. The imagery may reflect his pessimism as Nazism took hold in his native Germany. The ruined cityscape was created using a technique that Ernst called ‘grattage’ (scraping). It involved placing the canvas over planks of wood or other textured surfaces, then scraping paint across it. The shapes that emerged formed the basis of the image. Grattage was one of a number of techniques that Surrealist artists explored as a way of letting a chance element into their work. The painting is part of the Tate collection in the United Kingdom. — S.I.K

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, April 5th, 2015

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