"Vénus vue de la terre II", 1962

The painting "Vénus vue de la terre" ("Venus seen from the earth") refers formally to the forest paintings with the sun that Ernst had been creating since the 1920s and, with the circular shape hovering over a rectangular area, uses a compositional scheme that Ernst picked up again and again in manifold variations. Technically, Ernst uses decalcomania, which he introduced in painting, in which a pane of glass is applied to the wet paint and then removed again, resulting in the characteristic random streak forms, which Ernst then interprets further in painting.