Soft Construction with Boiled Beans
-Premonition of Civil War 1936.
Oil on canvas.
By ESQ
Wall Card (
Spanish Born 1904, died 1989
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans
(Premonition of Civil War)
1936
Oil on canvas.
Dali’s gruesome allegory of the Spanish Civil War depicts his homeland as a deformed body tearing itself apart. It was painted shortly before General Franco’s nationalist forces revolted against the democratic government of the
The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection
1950, -134-41
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans
Premonition of Civil War, 1936
The media used was oil paint on canvas. The artwork measured 39 ½ X 39 ½ in. enclosed in a square frame and is currently being presented in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Iconography
Genre: Representational Art. (Representational Surrealism)
Dali’ Soft Construction with Boiled Beans presents some very familiar objects like different body parts (head, hands, feet), natural environment consisting of the sky, clouds, landform, and a partial mountain, a chest of drawer, a well dressed figure of a man, beans strewn on the ground, modern constructed buildings in the distance and the figure of another person in the same direction.
Style:
The focus of this art piece is mainly concentrated on the huge and exaggerated features of a grotesque figure that seems to be in agony and in the process of ripping itself apart. This unusual looking figure seems to be stretched out towards the square sides of the frame with parts of the head, knee, hands and skeletal feet almost touching the edges of the picture. The entire figure spans almost three quarters of the artwork and locates itself in the upper regions of the illuminated sky with a lot of cloud formation. The other one quarter of the figure is situated on the ground. The compact nature of the ground is featured mostly in the darker colors of brown and gray and contains a multitude of objects. Juxtaposed to the compactness of the ground is the vastness of the sky that is illuminated with bright and fluorescent colors of blue and green with white as well as black cloud formations. The intensity of the agonized figure is complemented with a discolored white, gray, brown, black and touches of red. The figure on the whole seems to be asymmetric and distorted to resemble parts of a human body that is somewhat mangled.
Analysis/Interpretation:
The head of the figure seems to be tilted backwards, with the eyes shut and the face grimacing in agony. With somewhat unkempt hair, red lips, and a tensed face with veins popping out from the neck, a scene of unbelievable pain, suffering and senselessness seem to be displayed. The head face in the direction of the patch of dark blue, almost murky black corner of the sky thus emphasizing an even more profound and complimentary level of agony. Behind the head, dark and black patches of cloud seem to cushion the impact of the pain that is being transmitted.
Below the head, a blackened and seemingly scarred/burnt hand reaches out to grab part of a body that looks very much like an accentuated female breast with a profound red nipple showing. The grabbing intensity of the darkened and probably burnt hand seems to show power and determination to hang on to a pronounced body part which holds up the upper body regions at an angle. In contrast, the other hand displayed is tilted at 90 degrees towards the direction of the ground. Its grasps seem to be loose, lifeless and powerless. This limp hand devoid of the arm muscles seem to be the counterpart of the other hand and it is profoundly different as it does not show signs of struggle, life, force or tension. However, this hand can be said to support the whole structure to the left.
A well dressed and scholarly looking man is situated on the top portion of this limp hand. The man seems to be examining something or is in a reading posture looking downwards. This man seem to exemplify a person of culture, education or reasonableness and can perhaps be interpreted to mean the small voice of reason and rationality as opposed to the vicious and chaotic irrationality of War as displayed by the hideously large figure tearing at itself. The tiny figure of this person stands in stark contrast to the large monstrous figure. Also, very tiny structures of development (man-made buildings) are evidently portrayed on both sides of this limp hand further emphasizes the insignificance of a civilized community structure in the face of armed civil struggle.
A leg with muscular calves but an almost skeletal foot is displayed standing on top of what looks like a torso on the far right. This foot looks somewhat alive, or at least has some form of energy left in its gait. In contrast, another foot is featured below the torso that looks somewhat lifeless and deformed or decomposing. Nevertheless, this foot supports the torso and the other structures above it on the right.
The middle part of the torso that seems to connect the two hands on the left and the two feet on the right seems to be smooth and has a rounded curved form. Its bright gray colors tend to complement this unusual figure identifying it as part of the whole figure. Below the lower central portion of this torso is a chest of drawers which seems to be holding up the entire figure from the central location and firmly planted on solid ground. Dali often used drawers as an object to indicate where secret/ private things are kept. Perhaps, we can interpret these drawers to mean the rationale for War (in this case the Spanish Civil War) is often times hidden, publicly unknown or kept secret. What seems to look like a piece of brown crusted bread is seen to hang over the part of the torso on the lower right and its colors complement the brown mountain and rocks beneath. Elsewhere, grey beans are scattered on the ground and on parts of the torso. The colors of the beans seem to complement the colors of the grayish white figure. The bread and beans may be said to symbolize the dependence or recognition of life supporting fundamentals (food and food sources) even in the face of social and political turmoil and war. Perhaps man’s dependence on food matters just as much to its survival as the politics of war.
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