Battle of Fishes

André Masson · 1926

This is Battle of Fishes, made by André Masson in nineteen twenty-six. He spread glue across the canvas, threw sand at it, and drew into whatever stuck. The method was meant to bypass deliberate composition altogether — automatism, in the Surrealists' sense — and what surfaced was fighting fish.

Medium Sand, gesso, oil, pencil, and charcoal on canvas · Dimensions 14 1/4 x 28 3/4" (36.2 x 73 cm) · Credit Purchase

Hanging beside it in Gallery 517: The Birth of the World, And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur

More by André Masson here: Meditation on an Oak Leaf