Surrealist painter Salvador Dali painted The Face of War in the year 1940. His inspiration for this piece came from his personal experience of war in his home country Spain and from the speculation the start of the Second World War created. In this piece Salvador Dali gathered all the negative aspects of war and fused them in to a single piece. In this piece Dali gave war itself a face that broadcasts the evils of war. Dali unquestionably used this painting to criticize the society’s tendency to always find a reason for war. Like many other artists Dali used his paintings as an instrument of protest for issues of the era. In this case, Salvador Dali used this paining to express his discontent with war. Salvador Dali is considered one of the
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According to Duran surrealist like,
“ Dali, clearly believed in the liberating effect of the unconscious. However, the surrealists' early infatuation with Freud obscured Freud's contention that the unconscious was something to be expressed in dream, art, etc., in order to divest oneself of its pernicious effects in bourgeois society… Most surrealists, however, ignored Freud's negative approach to the unconscious, and used Freud as a scientific justification for rebellion against … society (Duran, 301).”
This means that even through Surrealist artists were heavily influenced by Freudian ideology it was also many times simply a pretext for defying societal norms and for bringing important social issues attention. In addition, Surrealism allowed artist to separate themselves from the evils associated with the rich. In the article From Dada to Surrealism John G. Frey mentions, “This tendency, which represents Surrealism's closest approach to its goal of fusion of real and unreal, was systematized… and in the field of painting it has been widely applied by Salvador Dali (Frey, 15).” This means that Salvador Dali was one of the best surrealist painters because he was able to blend the real and unreal in a methodical way. Surrealist artists like Dali used a lot of symbolism to embody many social issues that they thought needed attention in a way that caught people’s attention regardless of …show more content…
Dali painted this piece in the year 1940 when he lived in California after fleeing his home country of Spain. Dali had to flee Spain because of the violent civil war that began in 1936 and lasted until 1938. Dali most likely painted The Face of War as a reaction to the recent civil war in his native country of Spain. He used this painting as a way to convey to the world the ugliness of war and to express his feelings the way he knew best. In fact, it is very likely that in addition to painting this piece as a reaction to the Spanish Civil War Dali might have also painted this in protest to the just begun World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. In essence, the war-ridden conditions of the era were responsible for Dali’s inspiration to paint this
According to Duran surrealist like,
“ Dali, clearly believed in the liberating effect of the unconscious. However, the surrealists' early infatuation with Freud obscured Freud's contention that the unconscious was something to be expressed in dream, art, etc., in order to divest oneself of its pernicious effects in bourgeois society… Most surrealists, however, ignored Freud's negative approach to the unconscious, and used Freud as a scientific justification for rebellion against … society (Duran, 301).”
This means that even through Surrealist artists were heavily influenced by Freudian ideology it was also many times simply a pretext for defying societal norms and for bringing important social issues attention. In addition, Surrealism allowed artist to separate themselves from the evils associated with the rich. In the article From Dada to Surrealism John G. Frey mentions, “This tendency, which represents Surrealism's closest approach to its goal of fusion of real and unreal, was systematized… and in the field of painting it has been widely applied by Salvador Dali (Frey, 15).” This means that Salvador Dali was one of the best surrealist painters because he was able to blend the real and unreal in a methodical way. Surrealist artists like Dali used a lot of symbolism to embody many social issues that they thought needed attention in a way that caught people’s attention regardless of …show more content…
Dali painted this piece in the year 1940 when he lived in California after fleeing his home country of Spain. Dali had to flee Spain because of the violent civil war that began in 1936 and lasted until 1938. Dali most likely painted The Face of War as a reaction to the recent civil war in his native country of Spain. He used this painting as a way to convey to the world the ugliness of war and to express his feelings the way he knew best. In fact, it is very likely that in addition to painting this piece as a reaction to the Spanish Civil War Dali might have also painted this in protest to the just begun World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. In essence, the war-ridden conditions of the era were responsible for Dali’s inspiration to paint this