André Masson

Dating from the earliest years of the Surrealist movement, Torse d'homme combines the sinuous, disjointed forms developed from Cubism, with a complex symbolic structure. André Masson's primary contact with the nascent Surrealist group came at the time of his first solo exhibition, organised by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler at his Galerie Simon in 1923. The works he showed, principally post-Cubist compositions and mysterious forest scenes, caught the attention of André Breton, who acquired the painting Les quatres éléments for his own collection. Following the official birth of the movement with Breton's 1924 Manifesto, Masson became increasingly influenced by the ideas being developed by the Surrealists, especially 'automatism'. This term had been appropriated by the group and was used to describe techniques of spontaneous writing, drawing and painting. While the theory led certain artists, such as Max Ernst, to invent techniques which employed chance (frottage or grattage), Masson preferred to be inspired by the unconscious, executing 'automatic' drawings while in a state of intoxication or hallucination.

The torso was a common motif in Masson's painting of the early 1920s. In the present work, Masson employed it as a means to communicate numerous concurrent messages through symbolic associations. Just above the navel, shaped intriguingly like an eye, a small form is visible, reminiscent of a puncture. The latter is most probably a personal souvenir of when the artist was very seriously wounded in the chest during the First World War, at the infamous Chemin des Dames offensive in 1917. These experiences evidently left their mark, for death and mortality are recurring themes in Masson's work - 'the self was ruined for ever', as he would recall.

It is understandable therefore that the torso appears to be missing its head, which has been replaced by a bird. All that remains is the chest, with the sex at its base. The torso's eye-navel shows perhaps the viewer's only means of access, or perhaps an indication that the viewer should look at this work through his or her stomach. Typically for Surrealism, Masson unites these images of violence and sex. A pomegranate, the symbol of femininity and fecundity often employed in Masson's work of the 1920s, is placed in the lower right corner. It casts a shadow over the male torso's sex, thereby marking its realm, in the same way as the red arrow whose tail is visible is front of the bird points menacingly.