Following his stay in America between 1942 and 1945, André Masson was fascinated by the wildness of nature and the new cosmic dimension he found there. Celestial bodies, nebulae and meteors make their appearance in his canvases, alongside more earthly germinations. In Enfantement, ca. 1950, we witness a cosmic birth. One wonders whether the milk that appears is not a reworking of the myth of the Milky Way, born from the breast of Hera?

The mid-1950s were a fertile period for Masson, during which he felt unrestrained by any dominating thematic or technical modes and drew on his own past practices as well as pushing forwards in new directions. During his war-time stay in the USA, Masson had seen Chinese painting for the first time and its impact, as well as his intensive studying of Zen, had a profound influence on his work. A great attraction of Zen for Masson was its emphasis on the immediate mystical experience as the way to ultimate truth. On the surface this seems identical with the old Surrealist concern with automatism ...

Masson himself described this new and all embracing activity:
"The mythic elan has reappeared ... The line, banished, is once again favoured ... Along with lyric inventions appalling realities are encountered ..."