Combat of Horses (Combat de chevaux)

Date1929

Credit LineGift in honor of Dr. Clark Poling by the Art History Department Fund, the John Howett Fund, and museum purchase

Dimensions9 13/16 x 12 5/8 in. (24.9 x 32.1 cm)

Object number2006.014.001

Label TextMasson was one of the original participants in Surrealism, a literary and artistic movement that arose in Paris in the 1920s. In poetry and in visual art the Surrealists sought to reveal the contents of the subconscious mind and strove for an immediacy of expression that did not involve the artist's will or reason. Masson's means of access to the dream imagery of the subconscious was through automatic drawing in which marks are made on paper without premeditation. This drawing of 1929 reflects the artist's, and the movement's, preoccupation with themes of eroticism, struggle, and death. The spontaneously drawn horses rear and engage in a combat that is pervaded by phallic references. Masson contributed similar drawings to illustrate an essay by the writer Georges Bataille which dealt with the primordial violence of sexuality in animals and human beings.
Exhibition HistoryRenaissance to Contemporary: Recent Acquisitions in Works on Paper, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 10 - May 27, 2007
Modern and Contemporary Masters: Highlights from the Works on Paper Collection, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 24 - May 17, 2009
Embodied Seeing: Modernist Works on Paper, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 4 - May 20, 2012
The Eye, The Mind, and the Heart: In Honor of Clark Poling, Michael C. Carlos Museum, January 15 - March 5, 2022
Published ReferencesMichael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 148.

ProvenancePurchased by MCCM from Espace Carole Brimaud, Paris, France.

Status

Not on view

Collections