False Positions (Les Fausses positions) from Natural History (Histoire naturelle)

False Positions (Les Fausses positions) from Natural History (Histoire naturelle) is a seminal work by Max Ernst, created around c. 1925 and published as part of a significant portfolio in 1926. This celebrated print is one of 34 collotypes derived from Ernst's revolutionary frottage technique. As a leading figure in the French Surrealist movement, Ernst sought to bypass conscious control by directly transferring textures from surfaces onto paper using pencil rubbings. This process of automatic drawing became foundational to his work throughout the 1920s, bridging the earlier principles of Dada with the emerging Surrealist focus on the unconscious and chance.

The original frottages were collected and reproduced as high-quality prints in the Histoire naturelle portfolio. In False Positions, Ernst utilizes the technique to generate an image that is simultaneously abstract and suggestive of organic forms. The textures, likely derived from rubbing against surfaces like wood grain or woven fabrics, create a densely layered, fantastical environment. Ernst transforms these random textures into biomorphic shapes that often evoke celestial bodies, geological stratification, or hybrid, architectural forms, challenging traditional representation and prompting viewers to find subjective meaning within the accidental marks.

This influential print demonstrates the artist’s pivotal role in formalizing Surrealist methods of image-making. The adoption of the collotype process ensured that the delicate textural nuances of the original frottage drawings were accurately disseminated, making these images widely accessible. The exploration of subconscious imagery inherent in this piece cemented Ernst's status as a master of automatism. This impression, a critical example of French avant-garde production in the mid-1920s, is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).