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Anna Zurek
HAA 240
3/12/14
Final Paper Assignment
In this essay I will argue that Petra Eisenberg, a German interwar artist active in years
1921-1939 should be perceived as a legitimate member of the surrealist movement despite the
fact that she was affiliated with the group of French surrealists only for a very brief period of
time. To prove that point I will demonstrate how Eisenbergs works were ideologically parallel to
the ideas of surrealism, even long after she has officially left the movement. I will also explain
why despite cutting her ties to French surrealism she continued to create art that was its
embodiment.
Before jumping into analysis of Eisenbergs works we have to consider the biographical
factors that left mark on her later career. First of all, most people are not aware that Eisenberg
came from a family with long established tradition of medical professions. Her father was a
prominent psychiatrist which put significant pressure on her career choice. Thats why in 1913
she enrolled at the Humboldt University majoring in psychology. Three years later she lost her
father who volunteered as a medic in the World War I. After that she struggled with severe
depression, which she eventually defeated when she first started painting. Soon after getting her
diploma in psychology she enrolled again, this time at the Berlin School of Applied Arts.
During her late University years Eisenberg got interested in DADA because this
movement offered the artistic response to the horrors of the World War I. Like many other
Dadaists Eisenberg was particularly interested in the ways in which psychological trauma can be
expressed through art. She took inspiration from Balls performances, fascinated by how isolated

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and withdrawn he seemed on stage (Demos et al. 10). She incorporated that isolation, along with
the lack of overall coherence of Dadaist art in her series of portraits created in years 1920-1924
in the photocollage technique. These early works were characterized by depicting a human being
as a sum of many parts, mostly not fitting together very well. By not scaling the body parts in
appropriate ways, misplacing them, using elements from different newspapers or photographs
and even occasionally adding some animal characteristics, Eisenberg created a significant
amount of tension in her collages. Her purpose was to hint the psychological turmoil by
depicting human body as fragmented with the elements so isolated from one another, that they
could barely consist a whole. To make her point even more obvious, she would choose dark
backgrounds which added to her works extra layer of edginess.
By the end of 1924 Eisenberg left for Paris in hopes to immerse herself in the vibrant
artistic community of the French capital. Soon after arrival, she became a member in the group
of surrealists lead by the pioneer of that movement - Andr Breton. At this time she abandoned
photocollage and experimented with various techniques, but her main concern stayed the same
to make her works render the depths of human mind.
It may seem shocking that Eisenberg left the movement which appeared perfect for her
only a year after joining. The explanation for that can be found in the letters she wrote to a friend
in Zurich. According to them, by 1925 she was fairly concerned about the increasing affiliation
between the surrealists and the communist party (Short 7). She mistrusted communism and more
importantly, she was not convinced that Lenins ideas were parallel to the ideas of surrealism.
Despite her objections, Breton and many of his fellow artists insisted that communism had the
revolutionary potential much needed by surrealists to finally transform the society and incite
une revolution dans les esprits a revolution in peoples minds (Short 7).

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As stated at the beginning of this essay, leaving the movement did not cause Eisenberg to
abandon surrealist ideas. A proof for that can be seen in one of her most famous works, Psyche,
finished in 1933. This critically received oil painting was created using naturalistic technique
which gives it almost photographic qualities. It differs from Eisenbergs former works because it
does not feature humans, or any other living creatures. Instead, the artist presents us with a desert
landscape and large sand dunes stretching within and beyond the picture frames. One of the
things that make this particular landscape surreal is the artists choice of color. The sand dune
closest to the viewer is willow green, almost yellow at the top and getting darker towards the
bottom. This first dune is different from others that appear dark green, almost black, and
resemble actual mountains as they rise higher and higher in the background and almost touch the
sky, which is only a narrow line at the very top of the picture. The sky, similarly to the sand
mountains, is almost black with a slight yellow outline around the highest mountain tops.
Additionally, even though most mountains appear dark, their tones differ slightly and
occasionally we can even spot a patch of bright green deep into the picture. The overall feel of
the painting is completed by the large, glowing sun which looks particularly disturbing because it
has no place in this nocturnal landscape and also due to its unnatural, scarlet hue.
Another surrealistic feature of the painting is the relation of its two subject matters the
first and more obvious (desert), and the second one hinted in the title (state of human mind). This
is the kind of surrealism which features two clashing realities, seemingly unconnected, yet bound
within the artwork by the imagination of the artist. Psyche resembles in a way a dream reality
and from the available biographic notes we know that Eisenberg was fascinated with Freuds
research about the unconscious mind. The desert may seem empty, but it holds some
unidentified, profound presence which emerges as the depths of mind that contain within it

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strange forces capable of augmenting those on the surface, or of waging a victorious battle
against them (Breton). The sand mountains seem then to cover the unconscious mind (we can
only wonder what is behind or beneath them), but they also become the embodiment of the
unconscious due to their raw, untamed potential. Potential, that is multiplied due to the fact that
the painting is not completely enclosed in the picture frames. The mountains seem to stretch
beyond any boundaries which, again, points to the hidden capacity of human mind.
I think the above analysis explains why Petra Eisenberg should be perceived primarily as
a surrealist artist. Despite dabbling into DADA and leaving Bretons group, her interests were
always close to the surrealist ideals. In large part it was due to her personal experiences, from her
initial choice to study psychology, to the tragic death of her father followed by severe depression
and a successful recovery. Due to large amounts of biographical data that are available, we can
track her progression toward surrealism and observe that once she discovered the ways of artistic
expression offered by that movement, she has never turned away from it, not even as a mature
artist.

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Works Cited

Breton, Andr. "Manifesto of Surrealism." TCF. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
<http://tcf.ua.edu/>.
Demos, T.J., David Joselit , Amelia Jones , Leah Dickerman , George Baker, Uwe Fleckner ,
Marcella Lista , Arnauld Pierre , Jeffrey Schnapp, Matthew Witkovsky, Hal F Foster,
and Molesworth Molesworth. "Zurich Dada: the aesthetics of exile." The Dada
Seminars. Washington: he National Gallery of Art, 2005. .. Print.
Short, Robert S. "The Politics of Surrealism, 1920-36." Journal of Contemporary History 1.2
(1966): 3-25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/259920 . Web. 3 Mar. 2014.