Plate VI from "Fiat modes pereat ars" (Let There Be Fasion, Down with Art)

Plate VI from "Fiat modes pereat ars" (Let There Be Fasion, Down with Art) 

『生まれよファッション 滅びよ芸術』VI

Artist
ERNST, Max
エルンスト、マックス
Birth Year
1891
Death Year
1976
Date
1919 
Technique, Material, Format
lithograph 
Dimension
sheet: 45.5 x 33.0 cm 
Category
Print by Foreign Artist 
Inventory Number
83-PRF-002-06 

This is regarded as Leaf VI in an eight-leaf portfolio. The two box-like rooms are interpreted as camera obscura (darkrooms). If you make a small needle hole in a wall of a darkened room, the scenery outside will be projected upside down on the opposite wall. Camera obscura were used by artists so they could trace the contours of a projected scene in order to capture it realistically in a painting. A man standing on his head can be seen on the back wall of one of the rooms in the top right of the picture. This is a projected image of a man who can be seen standing in front of the room, with dotted lines connecting their heads and toes. The intersection point of the dotted lines (marked F) indicates where the needle hole in the wall would be. Diagrams of camera obscura are usually shown from the side, but this room is depicted from the front with the front wall removed. Meanwhile, the room on the left appears to be upside down and shown from the back, with the inverted image of a female figure in the foreground. At the bottom of the image is a third male figure, "dada," whose height is noted as being 1.74 and who is standing on his head.
(NAKAMURA Naoaki)

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