Art Critique of Surreal and Post-Impressionist Works

Art Critique

Critique of Surreal and Post-Impressionist Works of Art

Dali's Autumn Cannibalism (1936) http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/dali_retrospective/dali_pma_05_07.htm

Salvador Dali is one of the great and mercurial figures in art history. The surrealistic Spanish painter was influenced heavily by the tumultuous period of history in which he lived and by the haunting images in his own psyche. Both are on dramatic display in the 1936 piece, "Autumn Cannibalism." Here, Dali paints a depiction of the military conflict tearing his motherland apart from within, offering us this terrifying rendering of civil war as seen through the eyes of one consumed by it.

In the confrontation between the social commentary and the internal reflection that comprise this piece, Dali creates a piece that is decidedly representative of the surrealist movement both in aesthetic and motif. In spite of Dali's incredible influence, surrealism was ultimately a short-lived movement, leaving its impression on the art world through a peak lasting from the mid-twenties until just prior to World War II. At a time when the Great Depression left the world with very little external inspiration, artists were finding more than enough ideas in the murky depths of their own anxieties, as such, painters like Dali would find the artistic philosophies of his Dadaist forebears to be of great use. The deconstruction of formalities forged by the Dada movement allowed surrealists such as Dali to explore unencumbered by rules of form, function and aesthetic appeal.

As the Civil War in Spain, an early warning of the European continent's eventual and total unraveling, Dali's work would carry the unmistakable tone of critical resistance. With Autumn Cannibalism, the disturbing depiction of a man and woman consuming one another at the head, with a city burning in lava behind them and lengths of desert between, connects the individual human experience with the terrible civic realities of war. In an ironic sense, this monstrous image brings a decidedly humanizing dimension to the discourse over war. Here, the beholder can observe Dali unflinchingly peering through the eye of his own psyche, facing the horrible realities of the world and their effect on him with devastating honesty.

In this regard, Dali would accomplish, with this piece, a feat for which he was most often celebrated. His willingness to splash the most bizarre and terrifying images from his subconscious onto a canvas, to speak nothing of his stunning technical mastery, would allow Dali to create highly personal and revealing works that nonetheless made as their primary subject matter such sweeping and encompassing things as the carnage of World War II. This may indeed be the reason that Dali stands above many of his contemporaries in influence and popular appreciation. Surrealists, as a general rule of the milieu, used painting as a medium for symbolic expression of the subconscious. And at a time in history when the psychoanalytic revelations offered by Freud and Jung elicited a variant of interpretations, so too did they elicit a wide variance of surrealistic visual expressions. Here, the surrealist movement found itself divided into two distinctive camps. Some surrealists were most driven by a desire to interpret the elusive, mysterious and disturbing qualities of the subconscious. And perhaps most famously, Salvador Dali would undergo constant and intense self-scrutiny with the interest of producing meaningful and relatable expressions of his own psyche.

For Dali, this was a driven by a twofold interest in performing an act of mental hygiene not unlike the discursive sessions being pioneered by Freud and an act of social catharsis in which a produced work might help others to experience this same mental hygiene. Autumn Cannibalism accomplishes both with the exhibition of a remarkably evocative moment of human indignity punctuated by a backdrop of devastation. In the way that Dali's nightmares revealed this connection between war and human indignity, so too does this painting illustrate the connection for the appreciation of others. This makes it a powerful statement regarding war and an indelible figment of the human condition. Here and through his whole body of work, Dali would demonstrate that much of the most powerful moral dissention will come not from the imposition of society but from within the deepest reaches of one's own psyche.

Van Gogh's Olive Trees (1889)

http://www.freewebs.com/senia52/Vincent%20van%20Gogh/olive_trees.jpg

In 1889, Dutch post-impressionist Vincent Van Gogh unveiled Olive Trees, a standout work among his many richly colored landscapes. The brilliance of this particular piece is its simplicity and its brightness. Contrary to the complexity and darkness of the Dali piece described here above, Van Gogh's work would radiate with a sense of brightness looming over the horizon. The irony of this work can perhaps only be properly contextualized with the understanding that its painter would take his own life only a year after its completion. This fact seems to contradict the warming texture of Olive Trees but may in fact be detectable in a certain melancholy just beneath the painting's surface.

Van Gogh succeeds in creating something highly emotive by blending extreme hues, drawn directly from nature but distinguished by the artist's signature style and technique. Here, he presents a place that is captivating for its realism and likewise disturbing to the senses in its suggestion of the painter's fragmented and unraveling perception of the world. In both metaphorical and visual regards, the painting presents itself almost as a maze. It demands that the person viewing it seeks a way from the dark soil of the olive orchard to the sunny possibilities in the unseen valley. The contrast is perhaps one of life and death, with the emotionally disturbed Van Gogh taking the position that the insufferable context of life will give way to the promise of a paradise beyond. In this regard, it is the right of each man to stumble through the maze in pursuit of what we might think of as the afterworld.

To the person viewing it, the painting is an exciting visual picture of the test that is life, challenging him to find his own way through. The deep green color of the trees in the olive orchard is particularly moving. It offers a contrast to the otherwise bleak ground. With the hindsight afforded us by history, we remember the painter's suicide and can suggest that Van Gogh battled with a destructive uncertainty over his feelings on life. Pretty in its appearance, its fruit can be quite bitter, like an olive just off the branch.

There is a certain amount of space between the trees, and the way the forest is laid out, it is as though it is commanding its viewer to follow a path. To my view, a path in the direct center of the piece becomes apparent. It seems a route to safety from a coming difficulty.

The ground of the orchard is unstable in its appearance, rumbling with menace like waves across the land. The blue and black shadows cast by the trees give the ground a water-like haze and the mysterious suggestion that there is yet some approaching danger, like tremors before the earthquake.