Saint Cecilia - The invisible piano

Ernst, Max (1891-1976)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

1923

Height:

101.0 cm  (39 3/4 in.)

Width:

82.0 cm  (32 5/16 in.)

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

Description

From the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart website: Suffused with a typically Surrealist love of bizarre combinations, this painting picks up the legend of Saint Cecilia who died a particularly gruesome martyr's death in Rome in the 5th century. Legend has it that her suffering was accompanied by the strains of a heavenly organ, and Saint Cecilia came to be venerated as the patron saint of church music. Max Ernst chooses a rarely used motif from the martyrdom of the saint by depicting her immured in a caldarium, an oven in which she was meant to suffocate or burn to death. The protruding limbs and the eye-shaped loops on the building blocks suggest the strength of the martyr's faith, before which even stone seems to melt away.

People as subjects

St. Cecilia (Musician)

Iconclass

11HH(CECILIA)111
St. Cecilia making music and/or singing

Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)

Keyboard instruments [2230] (Empty cabinet of a piano or organ)

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

RIdIM record id

4524