Introduction

Who Controls Reality? Do we as individual control it? Does our society as a whole? How about our government? Can it even be boiled down to one single entity? To me, it is a mixture of all three. Reality is a combination of our surroundings and their influence as well as what we as people perceive reality to be. By looking at five different works of art by Kruger, Fairey, Banksy, Dali, and Escher this blog will attempt to decipher the different realities.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Soft Construction With Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), Salvador Dali (1936)


Dali was born and raised in Spain. Many of his artworks show his love of Spain. Dali attended San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. He is best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His skills are attributed to the influence of Renaissance painters. In his youth, Dali embraced anarchism and communism. By the end of his life, though, his ideas were changing. Once the Spanish Civil War broke out, he fled the country and escaped to the United States, were his talent flourished(Dali Museum). 
 In this painting Dali questions what is left in humanity. He named it Premonition of Civil War. This is about the Spanish Civil War that broke out during Dali’s lifetime. In this painting, the human body has become a very strange reality due to war. Limbs no longer connect or make sense at all. The face is in pain – perhaps due to the effects of the war. This piece is very dark and pessimistic, but the whether and setting is somewhat light and warm. It is a fairly sunny, bright day, which contrasts the excruciating pain the face is making. The hands and feet in this are clenched, as if in agony. Dali is trying to show the hardships of war and how destructive war can be on people and their reality. After war it is hard to see happiness, even if it is all around you, you are constantly reminded of the pain you experienced during the war. This lingering pain and memory can be symbolized through the chest in the bottom center of the painting. You can try to hind your feelings and pain about reality into a small chest, but it doesn’t make it go away.

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