Reflection of a Dark Complexioned Girl, 1945

Brauner, surrealist painter, Romanian of Jewish origin sought in his images to reply to the question “What is the meaning of Being?” His overall outlook is based on Empedocles’ On Nature, according to which heads without a neck, arms without shoulders, and eyes without a face wandered on earth, until two superior laws, Love and Hate, collected these haphazard pieces and composed either monsters or divine creatures. In Brauner’s work, these creatures sometimes keep a different self, often a heterogeneous one – of a different sex, or a different kind of species – hidden within themselves, or seek one, with which to unite.

Employing the language of symbols of his religion, or of other ethnic religions (such as those of South America), of Mexican or Indian art, the artist provides the key for deciphering his images