Surrealist Construction with Cooked Beans: Dalí's Premonition of the Spanish Civil War
Surrealist Construction with Cooked Beans: Dalí's Premonition of the Spanish Civil War
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This surrealist painting by the Catalan artist Salvador Dalí is considered one of the fifty most famous in the world.
Dalí created this work, a little before the start of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, saying it was a prophecy of his subconscious mind of what was to come.
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In it, he portrays the anxiety of the time, visually predicting the violence, horror, and disaster that many Spaniards felt during the subsequent government of General Franco.
The composition manages to express his political indignation, where we can observe two grossly elongated and exaggerated figures, trapped in a tense and horrific struggle, where neither seems to be the winner.
A vast human body bursting into monstrous protrusions of arms and legs tearing each other apart in a delirium of self-strangulation.
The cooked beans that originated the title, probably refer to the simple stew that was eaten by the poor citizens who lived this difficult moment in Spain.
Dalí explained: I embellished this soft structure of the great mass of warring flesh with cooked beans, because it was unimaginable to swallow all that unconscious flesh without the presence, however unattractive it may have been, of some starchy and melancholic vegetable.
Subsequently, the artist continued to create paintings about politics and war in a series of works involving World War II.
This image also brings to mind the masterpiece of Pablo Picasso on the subject, his famous Guernica of 1937.
The Influence of War on Art
The Spanish Civil War had a profound impact on 20th-century art, inspiring works such as Salvador Dalí's Surrealist Construction with Cooked Beans.
The images of violence and destruction that emerged during the war influenced the work of many artists, including Dalí, Picasso, and others.
Guernica by Picasso is a classic example of how art can be used to express outrage and horror at war.
Surrealist Construction with Cooked Beans by Dalí is another example of how art can be used to express the human experience during war.
Dalí's work is known for its imagination and creativity, and Surrealist Construction with Cooked Beans is a perfect example of this.
The composition of the work is complex and intriguing, with elongated and exaggerated figures, and a vast human body bursting into monstrous protrusions of arms and legs.
The cooked beans that originated the title are a touch of ironic humor in the work, and serve as a reminder of the reality of war.
Surrealist Construction with Cooked Beans is a masterpiece of 20th-century art, and is a perfect example of how art can be used to express the human experience during war.
AUTHOR : SALVADOR DALÍ
YEAR: 1936
TECHNIQUE: Oil on Canvas
DIMENSIONS: 101.3 x 100 cm
LOCATION: Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA
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