Word Count: 973
This essay will explore two separate pieces of work by different artists. I have chosen to look at Salvador Dali and Francis Bacon, and analyse their works and the qualities which define them as modern artists. Modern art came about after the time of the Impressionists, which came to an end in the late 19th century, and lasted until about the 1970’s, making way for Postmodernism.
The painting above is by Salvador Dali, a Spanish artist who worked for most of the 20th century, mainly creating surreal paintings, but also using mixed media to invent unconventional 3d items, such as the lobster telephone. This painting is entitled The Burning Giraffe, and was completed in 1937. It was made using oil on panel, and the brush strokes are very clear in most places, such as the blue skin/cloth draped over the figures, and the flames on the back of the giraffe; this adds emphasis to the tone, shading and definition of the piece.
Dali much admired the work of Sigmund Freud, and he was perhaps the biggest influence on his work. The draws on the left leg, and chest, of the figure at the forefront of the painting represent pathways to the narcissistic attitudes of the subconscious, and the phallic growths on both figures backs, which are held up by crutches, are a representation of society’s weaknesses and flaws.
Another distortion on the larger figure, is the hands, wrists and face. All of these body parts have had the skin peeled off to reveal the muscular tissue, leaving the face in particular, undefined.
The night time blue colour of the background, complements the orange of the flames, drawing one’s attention to the burning giraffe, which Dali believed was a ‘masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster'1, and which was a premonition of war. Similarly, the smaller figure holds up a piece of meat, which represents the human race’s supremacy and power to destroy things for it’s own benefit.
The second painting I have chosen to analyse is by Francis Bacon, who did not fit in to any movements of the Modern art era. He is an Irish-born painter who created a lot of work in the mid 20th century and thereafter, until his death in 1992. The oil painting above is named Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion and was made in 1944. Bacon cited many influences for this painting, particularly the story of Eumenides, which is the third part of Aeschylus’ Oresteia, a Greek myth in which three men: Apollo, Erinyes and Orestes, go to the Goddess Athena to judge Orestes’ freedom, after he murdered his mother.
Other inspiration comes from the appearance of spirits in photographs, and the work of Pablo Picasso, another modern artist and cofounder of the Cubist movement. However, Bacon originally related these anthropomorphic figures to the saints portrayed at the bottom of the cross in religious paintings, and planned to paint a large crucifix and have these creatures under that.
The dull, blotchy orange backgrounds in this triptych really set off the frustration of the invalid figures in this work, which comes across to me from the isolation of the creatures, as well as the lack of limbs, but presence of features including mouths and ears, as if they are trying to materialise into fully formed beings. Perhaps the strange appearance of the figures indicates that Bacon was feeling restricted in certain ways at the time of painting this work. Maybe he was feeling isolated and lonely, or even struggling to come to terms with an event he had experienced.
Dali’s work is of the surrealist movement, within the Modernist era, which is one of the most radically different movements to the Impressionist style. Instead of portraying the image in front of oneself, surrealism uses visual metaphors to describe the artist’s thoughts. The Burning Giraffe is a great example of how the painting, on the surface, shows a non-realistic scene with many interpretations, but which actually has hidden meanings in terms of Dali’s thoughts and emotions.
Along those lines, Bacon’s triptych, despite it’s influences, has some major modernist qualities about it. One is that these paintings are an imagination, rather than a record of a scene. The figures are an abstract representation of the characters from Eumenides which, whilst it is a very, very old play, it shows that artists can look to other things for inspiration in their work.
Another reason to define Dali and Bacon as Modernist artists, is that both of their styles contribute to completely different movements, which were among many other movements of the time, as Modern art was about finding a variety of new ways of working, and with the progression of photography, Dali and Bacon in particular, have found a way of painting that stops the image becoming obsolete, just because it can be recorded in an easier way.
Moreover, modern art attempts to move away from the materialistic portrayals in Impressionist paintings. A lot of the scenes of Impressionist work include the everyday rich lives of the bourgeoisie. However, Bacon’s and Dali’s work is far from materialistic. Both of these paintings show the fantastical images within their minds which are less about aesthetics and wealth, and more about portraying the thoughts and feelings of the artists.
In conclusion, we can see that, due to the concepts behind Dali‘s and Bacon‘s paintings, they both show characteristics of modernist art into their work. As well as being artists right in the middle of the era of Modern art, and although Bacon was not part of any particular movement, their work looked for less obvious forms of inspiration and ways to portray this, for example, through contorted and misshapen figures, and metaphors which have completely different meanings to what they look like they should, a key idea of the Modern era.
Bibliography:
www.scribd.com/doc/24275909/The-Burning-Giraffe-by-Salvador-Dali
www.dali-gallery.com/html/analysis/1937_01a.htm
http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=674
http://gogeometry.com/great_paintings/francis_bacon_three_studies_crucifixion_golden_rectangle.html
1Dali, S ‘masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster’
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