"Le code de l´amour" is a well-known composition by Max Ernst. The turmoil of the war seemed to be a trigger for Ernst's creative imagination. It was precisely these years in which Ernst produced 'the most striking paintings of his career'.

These works were brilliantly coloured paintings, dominated by red/green and yellow/blue polarities. They are set in underwater realms with plants and fish. Colours compete against defined froms and abstract, amorphous shapes, between quasi-organic and quasi-geometric forms, which may be perceived as fish turning into machines or machines into fish.