Die zornige Mutter

When World War II broke out, artist Victor Brauner fled to the south of France. As he was not able to find materials for his art, he began to experiment with encaustic or hot wax painting. In 1944 he produced “The Angry Mother” using this technique. The picture uses very little color. Brauner applied several layers of wax, into which he then scratched his drawing. Strange creatures are hinted at in scratches in the mottled wax, reminiscent of people in children’s stick drawings with wide-open mouths and great big eyes. In the middle there are two figures entwined in a dance or a violent encounter. Another stick figure on the right, seen from the front, and a further one on the far left both seem absent and indifferent to the violent action in the middle. Brauner’s strange creatures in “The Angry Mother” seem uncanny and threatening. In 1932 the artist was officially accepted into the group of Paris surrealists. The intellectual and artistic program of surrealism was based on the creative exploration of the depths of the unconscious and of dreams and chaos. “The theme of the picture is irrational,” Victor Brauner said. “It reflects magical forces, it deepens the direct mutual effects between the world of our feelings and the world of objects that enchant us.”