E is for Europe After the Rain II

Grey not Grey

Today brings us Europe After the Rain II by Max Ernst (1891-1976), painted during the war after Ernst escaped an internment camp in France and went to live in America. It portrays a sightly surreal and ravaged landscape, interpreted by some as showing the destruction of war and symbolic of the decay of European civilisation. It certainly reminded me most forcefully of images from news broadcasts of the current war in Syria. War has always been something that has provoked artists (I was going to use the word 'inspired' but that seems wrong somehow), and this painting is certainly a powerful statement. Like Convergence this is another large canvas that I would really love to get up close to, to examine the detail.

(Linking back to the A to Z Challenge)