Le fossoyeur

Author: Esmee Postma

Kristians Tonny is the only Dutch Surrealist who actually took part in the activities of André Breton’s Surrealist movement as early as the nineteen-twenties. Although he was not officially a member of the Parisian Surrealist group, Tonny was invited to exhibit at important group exhibitions, including the first Surrealist exhibition La peinture surréaliste in 1925 in Galerie Pierre. He attended meetings and became friends with some of the original members, including Georges Hugnet, Benjamin Péret and René Crevel.[1]

It was his work on paper that attracted the Surrealists’ attention and was to bring him his greatest recognition – particularly his drawings in ‘transfer technique’. This was a form of automatic writing where he drew ‘blind’ and was able to put impressions and associations on paper quite freely, without the intervention of such rational considerations as composition or structure, which chimed with the ideas of the Surrealist movement.[2] From the nineteen-twenties onwards, Tonny developed considerable virtuosity in this technique, with fantastical and extremely dynamic depictions of fanciful beings and landscapes. Nevertheless, he was at the same time sceptical about the role of automatism: he saw it as a thinking exercise that preceded making, rather than an improvisation on paper. Tonny maintained that the final creation of a Surrealist artwork, by himself as well as by his kindred spirits, is actually carefully considered.[3]

While his drawings reflect the speed and spontaneity with which they were made, his paintings are more deliberate compositions. He elaborated on the inventions in his drawings and played with unconventional colour combinations of oil paint, oil chalk and tempera, often applied in thin, overlapping layers.[4] From 1930 onwards, when he undertook long trips to Morocco, Mexico and Guatemala, the impressions he acquired resonate in his scenes. Perhaps the mysterious flora and fauna in this painting, dating from around 1936, are examples of this. It depicts a dream landscape of animated plants and fabulous beasts in sultry colours that tower above the human figure in the left foreground. The mysterious, dark atmosphere and the motif of the fantastic landscape call to mind the work of Max Ernst, an artist Tonny admired.[5] Ernst’s ‘jungle landscapes’ of disproportionate bushes in which all kinds of strange beings are hiding are particularly akin to Tonny’s painting, although Ernst’s brushwork is much more detailed.

Unlike the drawings, where he concentrated on the movement of his hand rather than the composition that emerged, the paintings are a more balanced reflection of his experiences. Or, as a critic said of Tonny’s work in 1929: ‘his great art is to make the fabulous universe of his dreams probable and plausible.’[6]