Une Semaine De Bonte
A Surrealistic Novel in Collage
by Max Ernst
1934, reprinted 1976
Une Semaine De Bonte is the Dover Press reprint of Dada artist Max Ernst's series of five collage pamphlets, whose collective title translates to A Week of Kindness. It's slightly tempting to claim that Ernst invented the photocopy cut-up zine with this series. The first four pamphlets / zines / chapters are each named for a weekday, Sunday through Wednesday. The fifth covers Thursday to Saturday; Thursday is further divided into two sections, Friday into three.
This is an art book but not, I don't think, a graphic novel, because the images don't seem to be sequential or to convey any narrative. Ernst made collages by cutting up and reassembling lithograph illustrations. In this case, he used whole images from popular fiction and embellished them with details from like, Gustave Dore's fantasy and Bible art. If the illustrations are anything to go by, publishers at the time put out a lot of the same kinds of things we like today - mysteries and true crime, romances and domestic soap-operatic dramas full of affairs, rivalries, jealousies, conflict between attractive nicely-dressed people in well-furnished houses. But the embellishments take those familiar scenes and make them surreal and uncanny.
Each day is associated with an element and an example. Sunday is mud, and the Lion of Belfort, a famous French statue. The images in this section show men with lion's heads, wearing in suits or police or military uniforms. They're variously wooing, dating, or kidnapping and holding captive topless and naked women. (Probably most of the women in the book are like that, but especially in this chapter.)
In addition to the changes to the people, Ernst added other strange details to many of the scenes. Any mirror or portrait or statue now shows a naked woman instead of whatever was originally there. And the pictures are invaded by life - a giant blood vessel from an anatomical diagram, a sword replaced by a femur, a bird with the face of a state, the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And so on.
Monday's element is water, and the example is water. Here we have women, nude or in nightgowns or showgirl costumes, and we have ocean waves infiltrating domestic spaces, often while men stand around looking stern and confused. In several, the women are in bed sleeping, and it looks like they're dreaming the water, like their dreams have become real, as the ocean replaces their bedroom floors.
Tuesday's element is fire, its example the Court of the Dragon. These are mostly scenes in ballrooms and parlors. In most scenes there is a dragon, or perhaps a snake or bat. In most scenes, someone has bat or bird wings. Often someone is crying. Why so much despair?
On Wednesday the element is blood, the example is Oedipus. Men with various birds' heads commit acts of violence, fighting, shooting, stabbing, carrying off tied-up naked women (again, as on Sunday), or running away. There are huge feathers and giant insects about.
Thursday is blackness, its first example is the rooster's laughter. Roosters and men with the heads of roosters abound, committing more acts of violence. The nude women here are being accosted or tortured, or else they are corpses. Pools of dark blood mar the floors. The men crow in triumph for their misdeeds. The second example is Easter Island. Men with moai statue heads lurk behind curtains, spying on women, watching jealously the embrace between ordinary, human-headed lovers.
Friday's element is the Interior of Sight, and its example is Three Visible Poems. It's divided into sections. In the first, Ernst has collaged together images of plants and sections of anatomical drawings, especially skeletons. In the second has a lot of shoes. The third is just two images - a row of disembodied shaking hands that recedes toward the vanishing point, and two rows of eyes, looking at each other, that does the same.
Saturday, the element is unknown, the example, the Key to Songs. We see women in bed, in postures like they're falling or suffering violence, their faces frightened or angry.
I would say that Ernst succeeded in creating a lot of striking, provocative imagery. In part though, his success comes from the provocation of seeing so much violence committed against nude women by fully clothed men, images that must have been popular enough in the fiction of his time, that he could find so many examples to work with. I especially liked the water images, where it seemed like the boundary between dream and life had ruptured, and the ocean poured through the tear.
This is an art book but not, I don't think, a graphic novel, because the images don't seem to be sequential or to convey any narrative. Ernst made collages by cutting up and reassembling lithograph illustrations. In this case, he used whole images from popular fiction and embellished them with details from like, Gustave Dore's fantasy and Bible art. If the illustrations are anything to go by, publishers at the time put out a lot of the same kinds of things we like today - mysteries and true crime, romances and domestic soap-operatic dramas full of affairs, rivalries, jealousies, conflict between attractive nicely-dressed people in well-furnished houses. But the embellishments take those familiar scenes and make them surreal and uncanny.
Each day is associated with an element and an example. Sunday is mud, and the Lion of Belfort, a famous French statue. The images in this section show men with lion's heads, wearing in suits or police or military uniforms. They're variously wooing, dating, or kidnapping and holding captive topless and naked women. (Probably most of the women in the book are like that, but especially in this chapter.)
In addition to the changes to the people, Ernst added other strange details to many of the scenes. Any mirror or portrait or statue now shows a naked woman instead of whatever was originally there. And the pictures are invaded by life - a giant blood vessel from an anatomical diagram, a sword replaced by a femur, a bird with the face of a state, the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And so on.
Monday's element is water, and the example is water. Here we have women, nude or in nightgowns or showgirl costumes, and we have ocean waves infiltrating domestic spaces, often while men stand around looking stern and confused. In several, the women are in bed sleeping, and it looks like they're dreaming the water, like their dreams have become real, as the ocean replaces their bedroom floors.
Tuesday's element is fire, its example the Court of the Dragon. These are mostly scenes in ballrooms and parlors. In most scenes there is a dragon, or perhaps a snake or bat. In most scenes, someone has bat or bird wings. Often someone is crying. Why so much despair?
On Wednesday the element is blood, the example is Oedipus. Men with various birds' heads commit acts of violence, fighting, shooting, stabbing, carrying off tied-up naked women (again, as on Sunday), or running away. There are huge feathers and giant insects about.
Thursday is blackness, its first example is the rooster's laughter. Roosters and men with the heads of roosters abound, committing more acts of violence. The nude women here are being accosted or tortured, or else they are corpses. Pools of dark blood mar the floors. The men crow in triumph for their misdeeds. The second example is Easter Island. Men with moai statue heads lurk behind curtains, spying on women, watching jealously the embrace between ordinary, human-headed lovers.
Friday's element is the Interior of Sight, and its example is Three Visible Poems. It's divided into sections. In the first, Ernst has collaged together images of plants and sections of anatomical drawings, especially skeletons. In the second has a lot of shoes. The third is just two images - a row of disembodied shaking hands that recedes toward the vanishing point, and two rows of eyes, looking at each other, that does the same.
Saturday, the element is unknown, the example, the Key to Songs. We see women in bed, in postures like they're falling or suffering violence, their faces frightened or angry.
I would say that Ernst succeeded in creating a lot of striking, provocative imagery. In part though, his success comes from the provocation of seeing so much violence committed against nude women by fully clothed men, images that must have been popular enough in the fiction of his time, that he could find so many examples to work with. I especially liked the water images, where it seemed like the boundary between dream and life had ruptured, and the ocean poured through the tear.
