Lovecraftian Overtones in Max Ernst's Art

This post about H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time" from the "io9" blog contains a couple incredibly fitting pieces from the artist Max Ernst. These two paintings by the surrealist are intended to depict twisted ruins of wartorn European civilization, but unintentionally come off as shockingly Lovecraftian. Ernst's "The Eye of Silence" above could just as easily be the slimy non-Euclidean masonry of sunken R'lyeh. Similarly, his "Europe After the Rain, II" (below) is a more than suitable stand-in for the primeval ruins of the Nameless City, or the lost metropolis of the Great Race of Yith in Australia.


I am not terribly familiar with the wider body of Max Ernst's work, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are other Lovecraftian examples. Perhaps Ernst, like the sensitive artist in Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu," processed these visions into art through the dream channels of ancient, weird horrors. You decide.

-Grim Blogger