The Habit of Leaves (Les Moeurs des feuilles) from Natural History (Histoire naturelle)

The Habit of Leaves (Les Moeurs des feuilles) from Natural History (Histoire naturelle) is a foundational print by Max Ernst, created around 1925 and formally published in 1926. This piece is one of 34 collotypes that constitute the groundbreaking portfolio Histoire naturelle, in which Ernst premiered his revolutionary automatic technique known as frottage. Frottage, French for "rubbing," is a method central to French Surrealism, requiring the artist to place paper over a textured object, such as wood grain or leaves, and rub it with a drawing tool to capture the pattern. This process minimized conscious intervention, linking the resulting images directly to the Surrealist pursuit of the subconscious.

The resulting image in this work, like others in the series, transforms mundane textures into uncanny, quasi-organic structures, suggesting deep, shadowy forests or petrified geological forms. The meticulous nature of the collotype medium allowed for the precise reproduction of the original frottage texture, facilitating the wide distribution of the portfolio. Published in 1926, Histoire naturelle firmly established Ernst’s reputation among the French avant-garde. Ernst deliberately used the graphic medium of printmaking to explore chance procedures and the corruption of traditional concepts of natural history by the imagination.

As a significant example of the artist’s innovative approach to Surrealist image-making, this print exemplifies the spirit of experimentation characteristic of the period, c. 1925. Ernst’s utilization of automatic drawing techniques had a lasting impact on subsequent generations of artists working across various media. This pivotal work remains housed in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, serving as a critical reference point for scholars studying 20th-century French art and the evolution of modern prints.