A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words?

Well, Une Semaine de Bonte is certainly an interesting piece. I'd love to find out how the collages were actually formed physically and what underlying concepts sparked their conception. (That tends to be my immediate reaction to collages in this class: How was it formed? It's become an obsession; I really want to know.) Aside from this, the format is interesting as well. I like how each section is associated with a day of the week, and an element, yet is left unexplained. How does a baron with a lion's head embody "mud"? That's up to the reader to figure out. My favorite "theme", if you will, was "Water." I enjoyed how Ernst manipulated the ocean or rushing tides into each picture, especially the ones where women are sleeping. In this way, water seems to take on a dream-like and feminine quality. (So many men are drowned in this section! What the hell!) Is this because women are fickle, fluctuated, and "dependant" on the moon? Because we're swift like a coursing river? Have the force of a great typhoon? I also found it...maybe a little disconcerting...that at times the pictures began a narrative (I'm thinking of "Fire") but never upheld it fully. Or rather, I should say, there seemed to be a narrative, but I couldn't make any sense of it. It drove me nuts, but in a good way, I guess. (That's to say I didn't mind it terribly.) I think this collage best exhibits the "many interpretations" aspect that we discussed at the beginning of the semester.