Which surrealist artist was known for collage novels like “Une Semaine de Bonté”? Max Ernst created the collage novel.
First published in 1934, Une semaine de bonté, or A Week of Kindness, is one of Ernst’s most ambitious artist’s books. He made its images by cutting and rearranging illustrations from Victorian novels, encyclopedias and other nineteenth-century publications, transforming familiar engraved figures into an unsettling Surrealist world.
The work contains 182 collages and was originally issued in five books. Its structure covers seven sections named for the days of the week, beginning with Sunday; each section is linked to an element or visual theme. The imagery includes lion-headed figures, water invading domestic interiors, dragons, bird-men and mysterious falling figures.
The title can cause confusion because the book is not a conventional illustrated novel and its narrative is largely visual. Ernst had already made related collage novels, including La femme 100 têtes in 1929 and Rêve d’une petite fille qui voulut entrer au Carmel in 1930. Une semaine de bonté was completed during a three-week stay in Italy in 1933 and published in Paris the following year.