For his figure Habakuk (illustration p. 129), Max Ernst Stacked up three casts of flower-pots in alternating positions, so that the narrower bases and broader tops were matched up to each other. He then moved the top cast back somewhat and tilted it up at a slight angle, completed the join with the cast on which it rested beneath and modeled the gap between the two flower-pot forms into a mouth. He inserted a fourth cast into the bottom one and the narrow section of this which was visible served as the base for the figure. This base, in turn, was acentrically positioned on a circular plinth. In a first version (illustration p. 72), the area of the plinth not taken up with the base of the figure was occupied by a pipe, as a further reminder of the craftsman’s pipe from the Dadaist period, and a cast of Penrose’s stone. The bronze cast taken in 1971 from an altered version includes an indentation which is recognizably a negative impression of the eyestone, in addition to a cast of the eyestone itself. There are also adjustments to the figure’s beak-shaped head-piece, so that it now appear to be looking upward, instead of downward, as before. Two further casts of Penrose’s stone here function as eyes. Whereas these had originally been fixed directly on to the edge of the pot adjacemnt to the beak form (or nose-shape), they are now only fastened to the beak, and elimination of visual distraction serves once more to emphasise their prominence and isolation. These changes, which Max Ernst made in the course of the thirties,42 are to be explained by a different interpretation which he gave to the Habakuk. In the original version he created a portrait of the small Old Testament prophet who was embittered by the fact that no one heeded his warnings. In the reworked version he concentrated instead on the connections which he perceived between the soothsayer and visionary of the Bible and the visionary, transcendental aspects of his own work. Indicative of this was his inclusion on the plinth of an emblematic representation of the duel nature of vision, directed inward as well as outwards; in additional, the focus on this work is displaced from the biblical figure onto the bird figure, who is the private phantom of the artist. Both Oedipe I (Oedipus I) and Oedipe II (Oedipus II) (illustrations pp. 130 and 131) were likewise assembled from casts of flower-pots. In both, a horned figure is surmounted by a second figure, set slightly to one side, whose compositional structure echoes that of the Habakuk. Apart from the more pronounced lips, the only difference is in the formation of the eyes, which are semi-circular protrusions, rather than rounded sockets. In contract, the horned figures are quite differently constructed. In Oedipe I the mouth bordered by narrow lips is placed on the narrow concave meeting-point between two flower-pot casts, and a segment stepped back twice serves, in this instance, as a foot.

- Jürgen Pech