Painted in 1942 during his exile in the United States, André Masson’s Les grandes larves belongs to a pivotal moment when the artist moved from surrealist automatism toward more violent and organic visions. Marked by the trauma of war and nourished by mythological and biological references, his paintings of this period fuse abstraction, biomorphic figuration, and hallucinatory intensity. In this work, incandescent reds, electric blues, and deep greens clash in an explosive composition. The forms, outlined in black, resemble shifting carapaces or embryonic shapes, animated by rhythmic lines, bursts of color, and scattered signs. The title, Les grandes larves, underscores a state of metamorphosis—life caught between genesis and decay, an unsettling image of fragility and transformation.

With its convulsive energy, the painting encapsulates Masson’s attempt to give form to the hidden forces of existence. More than a depiction, it is a vision of matter in flux, a metaphor for both chaos and rebirth, reflecting the turbulence of a world at war.