The Wheel of Light (La Roue de la lumière) from Natural History (Histoire naturelle)

The Wheel of Light (La Roue de la lumière) from Natural History (Histoire naturelle) by Max Ernst is a highly significant print created around 1925 and published in 1926. This artwork is one component of the revolutionary portfolio Histoire naturelle, which consists of thirty-four collotypes meticulously reproduced from Ernst's original frottages. Ernst pioneered frottage—a technique of mechanical drawing achieved by placing paper over rough surfaces, such as wood grain or leaves, and rubbing with a drawing implement to transfer the texture. This process became central to his contribution to Surrealism.

As a leading figure in the French Surrealist movement, Ernst sought methodologies that circumvented conscious control, thereby tapping into the subconscious. Frottage provided an ideal form of automatism, allowing random textures to suggest complex, often biomorphic, and cosmic forms that the artist would then articulate. In The Wheel of Light, Ernst utilizes circular and radiating patterns, possibly derived from wood knots or woven material, to evoke both celestial rotation and the mechanisms of industry. The piece effectively merges the natural world suggested by the texture’s origin with the fantastic, machine-like apparition suggested by the composition.

The complete series, Histoire naturelle, completed in c. 1925, published 1926, is considered a foundational document of Surrealist graphic arts. These influential prints were crucial in establishing the visual vocabulary of automatism within the movement. Ernst’s innovative adoption of the collotype medium ensured that the final reproductions maintained the powerful textural and tactile qualities of the original drawings. This seminal work, crucial to French artistic culture of the period, is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, where it serves as a powerful example of Surrealist experimentation and the intersection of chance and artistic control.