Victor Brauner (Romanian pronunciation: [?viktor ?brawner], also spelled Viktor Brauner; June 15, 1903 – March 12, 1966) was a Romanian Jewish painter of surrealistic images. He was born in Piatra Neam?, the son of a timber manufacturer who subsequently settled in Vienna with his family for a few years. It is there that young Victor attended elementary school. When his family returned to the country in 1914, he continued his studies at the Evangelical school in Br?ila; he began to be interested in zoology in that period. He attended the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest (1919–1921) and Horia Igiro?anu's private school of painting. He visited F?lticeni and Balcic, and started painting landscapes in the manner of Paul Cézanne. Then, as he testified himself, he went through all the stages: "Dadaist, Abstractionist, and Expressionist". On September 26, 1924, the Mozart Galleries in Bucharest hosted his first personal exhibition. In that period he met poet Ilarie Voronca, together with whom he founded the 75HP magazine. It was in this magazine that Brauner published the manifesto The Pictopoetry and the article The Surrationalism. He painted and exhibited Christ at the Cabaret (in the manner of George Grosz) and The Girl in the Factory (in the manner of Hodler). He participated to the Contimporanul exhibition in November 1924. In 1925 he undertook his first journey to Paris, from where he returned in 1927. In the period 1928-1931 he was a contributor of the unu magazine (an avant-garde periodical with Dadaist and Surrealist tendencies), which published reproductions of most of his paintings and graphic works: "clear drawings and portraits made by Victor Brauner to his friends, poets and writers" (Jaques Lessaigne - Painters I Knew). In 1930 he settled in Paris, where he met Constantin Brâncu?i, who instructed him in methods of art photography. In that same period he became a friend of the Romanian poet Benjamin Fondane and met Yves Tanguy, who would later introduce him to the circle of the Surrealists. He lived on Moulin Vert Street, in the same building as Alberto Giacometti and Tanguy. He painted Self-portrait with enucleated eye, a premonitory theme. In 1933, André Breton opened Brauner's first personal exhibition in Paris, at the Pierre Gallery. The theme of the eye was omnipresent: Mr. K's power of concentration and the strange case of Mr. K are paintings that Breton compared with Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi, "a huge, caricature-like satire of the bourgeoisie". In 1935 Brauner returned to Bucharest. He joined the ranks of the Romanian Communist Party for a short while, without a very firm conviction. On April 7, 1935, he opened a new personal exhibition at the Mozart Galleries. Sa?a Pan? wrote about it in his autobiographical novel Born in 02: "April 7, 1935... An exhibition surrealist in character. The catalogue shows 16 paintings; they are accompanied by verse, surrealist images that are exquisite by their bizarreness - they are perhaps the creations of automatic dictation and they certainly bear no connection to the painting itself. They are written in French, but their colorful taste is kept in their Romanian language translation. The exhibition brought about many interesting articles and takings of position regarding Surrealism in arts and literature". Another remark about Brauner’s participation to Surrealist exhibitions: "Despite its appearance of abstract formula,… this trend is a point a transition to the art that is to come." (Dolfi Trost, in Rampa of April 14, 1935). In Cuvântul liber of April 20, 1935, Miron Radu Paraschivescu wrote in the article Victor Brauner’s exhibition: "In contrast to what one may see, for instance, in the neighboring exhibition halls, Victor Brauner’s painting means integration, an attitude that is a social one, as far as art allows it. For V. Brauner takes attitude through the very character and ideology of his art". On April 27, he created the illustrations for Gellu Naum’s poetry collections - The Incendiary Traveler and The Freedom to sleep on the Forehead. In 1938 he returned to France. On August 28 he lost his left eye in a violent argument between Oscar Domínguez and Esteban Frances. Brauner attempted to protect Esteban and was hit by a glass thrown by Domínguez: the premonition became true. That same year, he met Jaqueline Abraham, who was to become his wife. He created a series of paintings called lycanthropic or sometimes chimeras. He left Paris during Nazi Germany's invasion of France in 1940, together with Pierre Mabille. He lived for a while in Perpignan, at Robert Rius', then at Cant-Blage, in the Eastern Pyrenees and at Saint Feliu d'Amont, where he was forcibly secluded. However, he kept in touch with the Surrealists that had taken refuge in Marseille. In 1941, he was granted the permission to settle in Marseille. Seriously ill, he was hospitalized at the "Paradis" clinic. He painted "Prelude to a civilization" in 1954, now in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting is in encaustic on Masonite. After the war, he took part in the Venice Biennale, and traveled to Italy. In 1959, he settled in the workshop on Lepic St. In 1961 he traveled to Italy again. In the same year, New York City's Bodley Gallery mounted a solo exhibition of Brauner's work. He settled in Varengeville in Normandy, where he spent most of his time working. In 1965 he created an ensemble of object-paintings full of inventiveness and vivacity, grouped under the titles Mythologie and Fêtes des mères. The themes are connected to the mythology of the modern world, where man is depicted with humor, tenderness and pessimism, alienated by his new "mothers" - L’automoma and L'aeroplapa. Criticism or acceptance of this world, that once seemed "so terrifying" and in which "reality became an extremely harmful thing", but which actual life made more acceptable. It is undeniable that these paintings, made in Varengeville and in Athanor (1964), where Brauner retreated, are the visions full of humor and imagination of a future world that he wanted to leave to us as a gift. This Mythology includes the last foretelling painting, La fin et le début (made in 1965), which reminds us that "when the painter's life ends, his work starts living" (Dominique Bozo in Le petit journal des grandes Expositions - Victor Brauner - au Musée National de l'Art moderne - Paris du 2 juin au 28 septembre 1977). In 1966 he was chosen to represent France at the biannual exhibition in Venice, where an entire hall was dedicated to him. He died in Paris as a result of a prolonged illness. The epitaph on his tomb from the Montmartre cemetery is a phrase from his notebooks: "Peindre, c'est la vie, la vraie vie, ma vie" ("Painting is life, the real life, my life"). The painter’s notebooks with private notes, which he handed to Max Pol Fouchet, partly enclose the "key" of his creation: "Each painting that I make is projected from the deepest sources of my anxiety..." Victor Brauner's brother, Harry Brauner, was a folklorist who later married Lena Constante. (Source : WIKIPEDIA)

This painting was inspired by Jean-Paul GAVARD-PERRET with the following:

Dit l’un :" C’est ainsi que j’ai vécu, vidangeant le bouillon par le trou de mon pantalon et répandant bien plus que le pissat du silence. Etant donnée toute ma honte bue jaillit sous moi un feu d’artifice. Surtout le soir. D’abord à la chandelle et plus tard au néon. Ce n’est jamais ficelle et même maintenant cela n’est plus du même chanvre mais passons. Nous sommes tombés dans l’univers. Nous y faisons de risibles fontaines. Parfois certains ne sont même que des pissotières. Et dans tous les cas abîme nous sommes, abîmes nous serons. C’est bien là ce que le temps accorde. Alors célébrons le désordre du monde en fraction du caillou là où nous creusons notre trou. Creuse toujours dit le Malin pour achever ta farce humaine. Face à lui prière, prière n’est que matière. Si bien que nous essuyons nos mains jointes sur notre derrière, bref sur nos deux fesses qui jouxtent le trou humain. Il expectore souvent son CO2 soufré sans demander son reste. Rien donc ne nous éclaire. Alors remue tes quilles, porte la main à tes oreilles pour goûter tes approximations mentales, Ô Animal, Ô serpent. Et surtout ne le tue pas en toi. Il colle aux quintes et aux coptères, il chimpanze, ouistitite. Emoi de lui en son tourment. Je suis ta peau de chien et toi peau la peau de chèvre. Je vis comme beaucoup étant donné la crise. Economiquement faible et écologiquement pronominable. Il n’existe pas plus de je que d’homoncule. Pas même encore d’hormones du peuple. Je suis polychineur, singe du singe. J’aboie, je grogne. Mais je retiens en moi la panthère à la patère noster. C’est la fête, c’est Noël. Battez ouicarde, battez les œufs dans le même panier. Oh plénitude ! Oh noces talgies. Chacun est ainsi l’effigie de la nature humaine. Mais à chaque âge suffit sa peine. Je suis valseur de fion, vilnéraiteur, lit et rateur, homo sapince. Personne parmi les aveugles pour me montrer mon obscurité."
L’autre dit : "Tu es gentil, tu es le nyctalope aux canoniques charmes au moment de la messe des (petites) morts. Tu es le chien rongeur de ton propre cadavre. Stupre et turlutte suffisaient à ta peine. Dieu restera matière. Pour preuve, les Saintes mouillent et leur œil pétille devant l’équilibre de la Croix. Je pardonne au Seigneur de t’avoir conçu. Le visage labouré par tes ongles tu te tiens le regard perçant devant moi afin que je récapitule mes hontes. Je suis ni plus ou moins que les autres. Je trempe dans le même bouillon. Créatures nous sommes et nous n’avons même plus l’audace de nous en scandaliser. Notre fraternité est une fraternité de clients. Certains semblent plus sentimentaux, d’autres plus intelligents. Certains le sont vraiment. Moitié par jeu moitié pas désarroi, quoique rodés et roués, eux aussi passent à table. Mais en dépit de tous les serments personne ne change. Chacun accepte la complicité plus ou moins tacite. L’essentiel est de pouvoir tout se permettre du moins ce qui est possible d’envisager quitte à professer à grands cris sa propre indignité. Chacun continue à s’aimer, à se servir des autres. La confession des fautes permet de les reprendre d’un cœur plus léger. Bref d’en jouir deux fois plutôt qu’une. Parfois lorsque le nuit est claire et que la lune est pleine mon doute revient mais très vite il est facile d’accabler les êtres et les choses. Et nous voici requinqués. Saluons le ciel au dessus de nos têts d’yeux vides et rouillés. Saluons le Seigneur de Méchanceté. Nos villes et la nature sont sculptées dans une montagne de sel. Soustrait à ses tendresses un nuage hasardeux traverse les cieux. Il fait tomber une pluie rageuse et brève. Puis reviennent les histoires qui nous tiennent de vérité, de rêverie, de projet. Le désert crie partout. Mais nous savons nous mentir. Nous trouvons chaque fois un fétiche où nous accrocher : miel du temps sur murs luisants, fleurs des nœuds, chambre fermée, coffre clair, armoire secrète, ménagerie de verre, nuit d’ivresse. Il reste une source qui glace la bouche ou brûle l’estomac. Comme je me raye et m’use. Ma voix jadis canaille s’écaille mais la mélodie demeure témoin sans pitié de notre obscénité animale qui nous unit jamais mais sépare. Alors on fait tout pour tenir salement dans nos propres bras ignorant quelle pourrait être notre prière, ni pour qui, ni pourquoi."
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret.