Hans Bellmer’s earlier work, The Doll, was created as a critique of fascist aesthetics and a rebellion against the Nazi idealization of the body. In contrast, The Games of the Doll (French: Les Jeux de la Poupée) shifts its focus inward, using the fragmented doll’s anatomy as a metaphor for the fractured human psyche and the complexities of desire. Created in post-war France, the work consists of a series of hand-colored photographs presented within an artist’s book, pairing the images with surrealist poetry by Paul Éluard. The collaboration with Éluard imbues the project with a surrealist philosophy, elevating the doll to a poetic and symbolic plane where the boundaries between object, subject, and fetish blur.
In the wake of post-war Europe’s fractures, The Games of the Doll replaces the stark monochromes of its predecessor with pastel hand-colored tones, giving the fragmented forms a ghostlike quality that reflects the disjointed realities of war and surrealism’s fascination with the uncanny.
The photographs depict the doll in intricate, often unsettling poses described as grotesque, sexual, fragmented, and dismembered, arranged in unnatural shapes. The backgrounds range from domestic interiors, such as beds, walls, and staircases, to outdoor settings, including woods and parks, adding layers of context to each composition. Bellmer employed dramatic lighting and elements like lace, tulle, and artificial roses to heighten the unsettling atmosphere, enhancing the interplay of vulnerability and menace through intricate compositional choices.
Early visibility through Surrealist channels—publication in Minotaure (1934) and inclusion in the Paris exhibitions of 1936 and 1938—positioned the series within debates on "convulsive beauty." Later retrospectives, notably Bellmer: Anatomie du Désir (Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2006), renewed scrutiny of its ethics and form. Frequently noted for its role in photography’s dialogue with sculpture and narrative, the work has informed artists from Cindy Sherman to Louise Bourgeois.
