Surrealistic Painting: The Lugubrious Game By Salvador Dali

The three main elements of Cecily Brown’s work (figuration, tension, and abstraction) contain references to past artistic personas and movements. She is influenced by the dark expressiveness of Francisco Goya’s figures, Edgar Degas's creation of nearly sadistic scenes with strong colors, and the fluid vulgarity of Abstract Expressionism. The successful mixture of these elements has branded Brown as a “Neo-Expressionist” and as a result she has met much success in establishing a painting career in New York

Francisco Goya’s The Executions of May 3, 1808, is a remarkably interesting piece of art. This piece represents a protest against the Napoleon Occupational Army in Madrid. There are various visual elements and design principles in the art, which will be covered. The beginning of this ILO will contain the visual elements first, followed by the design principles, and what they mean in the artwork.

Similarly, in 1948 Balakian described the work of the Surrealists with a patronizing tone, stating that due to the realistic imagery required in Naturalistic Surrealism, the works produced were uninteresting in their application, becoming “… a smooth, academic, almost banal way of using the painter's material” (Hodin).

This painting depicts the scene from the Bible known as the last supper, where Jesus and his twelve disciples ate their last meal together before Jesus died. Dali is not the only artist to paint this famous scene, Leonardo Da Vinci, along with many other artists, created their own version as well. The difference is that Dali used his surrealism background to create this scene in a completely unique way. Instead of painting the twelve disciples of Jesus as individuals, Dali painted them symmetrically so that each man had another mirroring the same pose across the table. This element, along with placing the setting of the last supper in a dodecagon and showing the beautiful background, creates a calm and peaceful environment for the disciples to pray. Dali also created two focal points in this painting, while most artists tend to only choose one. The floating torso is obviously the surrealist element of this painting, but also completes the message that Dali is communicating. Though the three elements, symmetry, setting and focal points, Dali created a completely unique rendition of the last

This mental stress manifests itself in the form of art; the violent nature of the scene is explained by Bataille (1961) to signify humanity’s estrangement from the natural world (as cited in Lippit 2002:27). All in all, though the actual nature of the struggle is explained differently by the two authors, one conclusion of the significance of Lascaux between the two articles is that it shows the difficulties and challenges of life.

From this point onwards, Dali built up the painting to continue the themes of forbidden erotic desires. First is Dali’s representation and interpretation of the ancient motif of Venus and the sailor. In Dali’s distortion, the man interacting with Venus is holding an anchor. This image is a reference to Titian’s original painting, but is distorted into an act of prostitution by Venus with a dock of sailors. Imagery of seashells, sea-rocks and sea-life in the images surging from the ‘lacerated body’ and the net held in the hand of the man on the right bottom corner of the piece support this

I chose this image because of the bold, graphic and moving nature. In this essay I will be stating the different types of pieces that were created by different artists. In Gentileschi’s canvas painting the background is dark which makes the action of the murder a bit more dramatic

“With Spanish director Luis Bunel, Dalí also made two Surrealistic films- Un Chien andalou (1928; An Andalusian Dog) and L’Age d’or (1030; The Golden Age)- that are similarly filled with grotesque but highly suggestive images” (Encyclopædia). A film he helped develop that steered from vulgar content, was a piece called “Destino.” The film was a project that took about 60 years to complete after both creators’ deaths; Disney and Dalí were great friends, but didn’t necessarily see eye to eye on certain aspects during the making of the film. The film was about a woman looking for the love she lost. Disney was in charge of production while Dalí was responsible for concept. “To express the agony and ecstasy in pursuing romantic love and desire, Dalí threw into Destino many of his most familiar Surrealist images: Melting clocks, cracked statuary, vast barren landscapes, elongated shadows, among others, all make an appearance” (Canemaker). Dalí was a big believer in having amazing visuals and wanted to make sure the piece both him and Disney worked hard on was very symbolic yet easy to understand.

This painting features symbolism and anarchic themes. The very setting of the game of chess could be seen as one of the many examples of symbolism in this painting. The girls are surrounded by trees in grass, obviously outside. One could ask why the game of chess isn’t inside, where the girls could be safe, protected and sheltered.

The painting required sketches on panel, 25 drawings and three important preliminary studies. The skirt of the woman in the center with a parasol is painted in an orange-pink hue. It casts a blue shadow. Her red jacket is seen against bright green grass. The orange dress of the young girl running (to the right) has a blue-tinted shadow. The skirt of the woman with a parasol walking beside a man is predominantly purple, so it seems, but is made up of a myriad of hues. Notice the lighter yellowish “halo” separating the skirt from the foreground grass, particularly just behind her skirt. At the same time, Seurat defines form by brushstrokes: close, parallel strokes define the contour of the woman’s bustle. He continuously experiments in his manner of applying paint; in the sunlit grass, for example, short, even strokes are laid over one another. It is clear that Seurat never followed any of the popular theories rigidly. His paintings are also intended to convey social commentary. The La Grande Jatte makes use of symbols. A monkey in French (and female) is known as “singesse,” denoting a prostitute. The smartly dressed woman is fishing but for what? Then, as now, spectators have questioned Seurat’s meaning. Whether Seurat intended the Bathers and this painting to be considered as pendants (a pair) is still debated; certainly he contrasts the natural world with the unpleasant artificiality of bourgeois life, as these artists saw it. However, the critics applauded such elements as the controlled surface of the painting, the use of aerial perspective, which gives an impression of space, and Seurat’s deeply shadowed foreground that leads into a light, bright distance. Strictly speaking, Pointillism refers to the technique of using dots of pure color in such a way that, seen at the appropriate distance, they achieve maximum luminosity. However, a pointillist painting is no more “luminous” than anything else that is printed with small dots,

The image that I have chosen from Artstor, to demonstrate the understanding of the visual culture is a painting titled, “Hockey Game”. This image was created by Andy Warhol who was an American painter, printmaker and filmmaker from 1928 until 1987. There is no date on this piece. The actual size of this image is 8 by 10 inches and the material used is Gelaton silver print. Among the images found in Artstor, there is more than one image called the Hockey Game, created by the same author which are shots in time of pieces of specific hockey games. The image I choose, was of two pairs of players fighting with another player with a referee. Finding this image was achieved through the digital library Artstor, choosing all collections and

The painting “Dream Caused By The Flight Of A Bee Around A Pomegranate A Second Before Awakening” was painted by Dali in 1944. The painting is an oil on canvas painting with a dimension of 51cm x 40.5 cm. Salvador Dali was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Spain. In his masterpiece he uses many different lines and colors to enhance what is going on in the painting. He illustrates a fruit, a fish, tigers, a rifle and a woman wearing no clothes sleeping. With every single object and or living thing shown he is making a statement and everything in the painting itself symbolizes something in the world. Dali’s “Caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before awakening” depicts vulnerability and

The repetition of the painting’s subject – Gibbi provides a sense of unity while the different actions of the subject between the four images offer variety. This variety moves the viewers’ eye around the painting. In each image, the viewers’ attention is centered on the various actions of the subject’s hands and the gestures of the subject’s face to express the meaning of each phrase written on the top of each rectangle. The first image on top left represents “speak no evil” with Gibbi’s hands covering her mouth. “See no evil”

The era of Mannerism is renown for its increasingly complex works of art, much like the High Renaissance before it, and the discipline of sculpture is no exception. Out of this period comes more intricate poses, forms, and emphasis on the illusion of movement which is perhaps most evident in Giambologna's "The Rape of the Sabine Women". His sculpture depicts a young man attempting to carry a struggling young woman as he stands over the contorted body of an older man, either the woman's husband or father. What is interesting about this work is not only the realistic human forms and perceived chaos of the moment, but also the lack of a dominant side from which this sculpture would be viewed. In order to achieve these features, Giabologna utilizes a combination of various textures and diagonal lines to create the complete illusion of muscle, flesh, energy, and multiple focus points.

This painting is divided into three equal parts by the arches in the background and the characters correspond to each of these arches (TV12). The father is in the middle portion of the painting. The lines of perspective created by the tiled floor, draws our attention to the swords that the father is holding and the vanishing point lies just behind the handles of the sword. Our angle of vision is such that we are looking directly at the main figures groups, particularly the father. A single light source from the left of the picture illuminates the characters and also focuses our attention to the father holding the sword. This creates a ‘theatrical’ effect. The background is simple and stark so our attention is focussed on the figure groups in the painting. The painting has a wide tonal range that makes the composition logical and balanced. The colours used in this