Premonition of Civil War (Salvador Dali)

The famous painting “Soft Composition with Boiled Beans: A Premonition of the Civil War” was painted by the artist in 1936 - during his programmatic surrealist art. When the civil war began in Spain, S. Dali took the side of the Falangists and saw in General Franco a politician who could do much more for the country than any new government. “But Salvador Dali’s countless comments about everything and nothing,” as A. Rozhin writes, “should not always be taken literally. Therefore, his inconsistency, according to Schnide, is especially obvious when he seems to glorify dictatorial power with one hand, and with the other at the same time creates one of his most impressive and terrifying works - “Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: A Premonition of Civil War.”

Indeed, two huge creatures resembling deformed, accidentally fused parts of the human body are frightening with the possible consequences of their mutations. One creature is formed from a face distorted by pain, a human chest and a leg; the other is made of two hands, distorted as if by nature itself, and likened to the hip part of the form. They are locked in a terrible fight, desperately struggling with each other, these mutant creatures are disgusting, like a body that has torn itself apart.

These creatures are depicted against the background of a landscape painted by S. Dali in a brilliant realistic manner. Along the horizon, against the backdrop of a low mountain range, are miniature images of some ancient-looking towns.

The low horizon line exaggerates the action of fantastic creatures in the foreground, while at the same time it emphasizes the immensity of the sky, obscured by huge clouds. And the clouds themselves, with their alarming movement, further intensify the tragic intensity of inhuman passions.

The painting “Premonition of the Civil War” is small, but it has a genuine monumental expressiveness, which is born from emotional contrast, from the large-scale opposition of boundlessly living nature and the crushing heaviness of unreal mutant figures. This work opens an anti-war theme in the work of S. Dali, it sounds frightening, warns the mind and appeals to it. The square figure formed by the limbs is reminiscent of the geographical contours of Spain. The artist himself said: “Bad premonitions of the impending civil war tormented me,” Dali recalled, “and six months before the events began, I painted this picture. Seasoned with boiled beans, it depicts a huge human body in the form of monstrous growths of arms and legs that break each other in a paroxysm of madness. ... These are not just monsters - ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, but of war as such in general.”

Salvador Dali- myth and reality of 20th century art. Of course, not from childhood, but already during his lifetime his name was surrounded by a halo of world fame. No one other than Pablo Picasso could match his fame. Despite the fact that we know many well-reasoned, although sometimes opposing, versions of the phenomenon of this outstanding artist, they cannot finally convince us of the correctness of individual points of view of this or that author or win us over to the side of one of them. Apparently this is inevitable. After all, just as there are inexplicable phenomena in nature, so in art much is completely incomprehensible.

Trying to get closer to understanding creativity Dali, let us turn to his own thoughts and judgments: “... when the Renaissance wanted to imitate Immortal Greece, Raphael came out of it. Ingres wanted to imitate Raphael, and from this came Ingres. Cezanne wanted to imitate Poussin, and it turned out to be Cezanne. Dali wanted to imitate Meyssonnier, and this resulted in Dali. Nothing comes of those who do not want to imitate anything. And I want people to know about it. After pop art and op art, Pompier art will appear, but such art will be multiplied by everything that is valuable, and by all, even the craziest, experiences of this grandiose tragedy called Modern art (art nouveau).”

Dali never ceases to amaze viewers with the paradoxical nature of its imaginative worldview, asserting its monopoly on ingenious unsurpassability. With his inexhaustible imagination, extravagance of nature, seeming absurdity, unmotivated actions, and hypertrophied ambition, he created the ground for the mythologization of his own person. Dali possessed a truly universal gift and managed to brilliantly realize his talent in various fields of creativity - in the fine arts, cinema, literature... Art criticism and art history, partly contrary to Dali’s idea of ​​​​his own exclusivity, simplifying his task, determined his leading place within conventional boundaries one artistic movement - surrealism. But, apparently, the time will come when this will clearly not be enough and the existing theoretical model will be replaced by a more in-depth and complex attitude towards the heritage of the great master. Perhaps only the future can feel a certain closeness of Dali’s art to the spiritual quest of Russian culture, the genius of N. Gogol, F. Dostoevsky, M. Bulgakov, and their universal phantasmagoria. The experience of such parallels, in our opinion, would be fruitful and would allow us to break out of the narrowed circle of established views, but today we are not sufficiently prepared for this. Contrary to this kind of predictions, let us return to the traditional model of the history of surrealism and its role in its development today. Dali.

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali Domenech (Salvador Dali). 1904-1989.
Soft design with boiled beans (Premonition of Civil War). 1936.
Canvas, oil.
100x99 cm.
Museum of Art, Philadelphia (USA). Previously in the Peter Watson Collection.

Dalí's return to Spain after the London Surrealist Exhibition in 1936 was prevented by the civil war, which began with the uprising of General Franco and his loyal troops against the people's government. The government was forced to flee to Valencia, and then, when the city began to be in danger, to Barcelona, ​​Dali's Catalan homeland.

Dali's fear for the fate of his country and its people was reflected in his paintings painted during the war. Among them is the tragic and terrifying "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: A Premonition of the Civil War" (1936). The feelings expressed by Dali in this painting are comparable to Picasso's stunning Guernica.

Two huge creatures, reminiscent of deformed, accidentally fused parts of the human body, frighten with the possible consequences of their mutations.
One creature is formed from a face distorted by pain, a human chest and a leg; the other is made of two hands, distorted as if by nature itself, and likened to the hip part of the form. They are locked in a terrible fight, desperately struggling with each other, these mutant creatures are disgusting, like a body that has torn itself apart.

These creatures are depicted against the backdrop of a landscape painted by Dali in a brilliant realistic manner. Along the horizon, against the backdrop of a low mountain range, are mini-images of some ancient-looking towns.

The low horizon line exaggerates the action of fantastic creatures in the foreground, while at the same time it emphasizes the immensity of the sky, obscured by huge clouds. And the clouds themselves, with their alarming movement, add even more tragic intensity to inhuman passions.

The public was indeed more horrified by Dali's realism than by the symbolic abstractions of Picasso's painting. In addition, Dali managed to find a strong image that expresses the horrors of war, symbolized by simple boiled beans - the food of the poor. In addition, behind the crooked hand in the foreground we see a small bent figure - the figure of a simple man, depicted by the artist in "The Chemist of Ampurdan in Search of Absolutely Nothing" as a symbol of the nihilism of modern life.

The painting “Premonition of a Civil War” is small, but it has a genuine monumental expressiveness, which is born from emotional contrast, from the large-scale opposition of boundlessly living nature and the crushing heaviness of unreal mutant figures. This work opens an anti-war theme in the work of S. Dali, it sounds frightening, warns the mind and appeals to it. The artist himself said that “these are not just monsters - the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, but of war as such in general.”

Text: Igor Repkin

Admiration for the policies of Franco and Hitler. Verbal apologetics of fascism. "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of the Civil War)", 1936. A visual demonstration of pacifism. Where is the real Dali - not an enthusiastic creator, but a genuine personality? Jean Ingres stated: “Drawing is the honesty of art.” Let's check.

DUEL WITH A DOUBLE

Salvador Domenech Felip Jacinth Dali and Domenech. His full name. Long, confusing, complicated. Salvador Dali. His creative pseudonym. Bright, assertive, memorial. Photographic precision of the image, coupled with inept, childish strokes. A sign of an academic, but modest artistic gift. Realistic landscapes filled with unreal creatures. A clear confirmation that genius and madness always go hand in hand, and Dali is undoubtedly a genius and, perhaps, a madman. Figueres. A small market town in the Ampurdana Valley in northern Catalonia. Here 110 years ago, on May 11, 1904, Salvador Dali was born. He was a long-awaited child. True, not on its own. Nine months, nine days and 16 hours before the birth of the surreal genius, a tragedy occurred in the family of the respected notary Salvador Dalí y Cusi and his wife Felipa Domenech - their first-born Salvador Gal Anselm died at 22 months. The inconsolable parents named their next child with the same name - in honor of the Savior.

And his whole life will be marked by the presence of a double. Invisible, but more than tangible by Dali the artist.

“All the eccentric actions that I tend to commit, all these absurd antics are the tragic constant of my life. I want to prove to myself that I am not a dead brother, I am alive. As in the myth of Castor and Pollux: only by killing my brother do I gain immortality.”

This confession in “The Unspoken Revelations of Salvador Dali,” published in 1976, is the product of another visit to the cemetery, after which five-year-old Salvador formed his own opinion about parental love, deciding that it was not intended for him, but for his deceased brother.

However, Dali himself, having told about the eternal duel with his namesake brother (if this is not a figment of just a vivid imagination), provides eloquent evidence that all the luxury of parental gifts and permissive behavior went to him.

“I established an absolute monarchy in my parents’ house. Everyone was ready to serve me. My parents idolized me. Once, on the Feast of the Adoration of the Magi, in a pile of gifts, I discovered a royal vestment: a shining gold crown with large topazes and an ermine robe.”

As a result, the child grew up arrogant and uncontrollable. He achieved his goal through whims and simulation, always striving to stand out and attract attention. One day I started a scandal in a shopping area. The candy store was closed. This meant nothing to El Salvador. He needed sweetness. Here and now. A crowd has gathered. The police settled the matter - they persuaded the merchant to open a shop during siesta and give the boy some sweets.

Plus a bunch of phobias and complexes. Fear of grasshoppers, for example. The insect behind the collar drove the boy into frenzied hysterics. My classmates were quite amused by this reaction...

“I am 37 years old, and the fear that this creature inspires in me has not diminished. Moreover, it seems to me that it is growing, although there is nowhere else to go. If I stand on the edge of a precipice and a grasshopper jumps on me, I will throw myself down, just not to prolong this torture!”

What is the reason for this phobia: latent sadomasochism or the symbolism of fear of sexual relations with a woman, as biographers often explain this, is not important. The period of childhood and adolescence determines the rest of life. In Dali this is especially significant. Many experiences, actions, impressions and stresses of childhood and adolescence are rooted in egocentrism and the thirst for wealth, the desire to stand out, albeit through shocking behavior, and the plots of paintings that are obscure without knowledge of the context. Here are the origins of duality: Dali the man and Dali the artist. The start to surrealism is hidden here.

FROM LOJANI TO BUÑUEL

Small impressionist landscape with oil paints on a wooden board. Salvador Dali painted his first painting at the age of 10. And soon he spent whole days sitting in the former laundry room in the attic. My first workshop. Where the situation was shocking, and, often, the behavior of the owner.

“It was so cramped that the cement tub occupied almost the entirety of it.<…>I placed a chair inside the cement tub and placed a board horizontally on it instead of a work table. When it was very hot, I would undress and open the tap, filling the tub up to my waist. The water came from a tank next door and was always warm from the sun.”

At the age of 14, his first solo exhibition took place at the Municipal Theater of Figueres. Dali's ability to draw is undeniable. He persistently searches for his own style, mastering all the styles he liked: impressionism, cubism, pointillism... The result is quite understandable - in 1922, Dali was a student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid.

At first, in the capital, Dali led the life of a hermit, and spent his free time in his room, experimenting with different styles of painting and polishing his academic style of writing. But then he became close to Federico Garcia Lorca and Luis Buñuel. The former would soon become one of Spain's most popular playwrights. The second would later become one of the most respected film avant-gardes in Europe.

Both Lorca and Buñuel are part of the new intellectual life in Spain. They challenged the conservative and dogmatic doctrines of the political establishment and the Catholic Church that formed the basis of Spanish society at the time. Step by step, Dali, confident in the omnipotence of Reason, plunged into the “poetic Universe” of Lorca, who proclaimed the presence in the world of an undefinable Mystery.

In his youth, Dali tirelessly copied Velazquez, Vermeer of Delft, Leonardo da Vinci, studied ancient designs, studied drawing with Raphael and Ingres, and idolized Durer. In the works of the early period (1914–1927) one can see the influence of Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Cezanne.

“Only in the past do I see geniuses like Raphael - they seem to me like gods... I know that what I did next to them is a failure of pure water.” In the 60s of the last century, he will also say that he has always been and remains a supporter of academic perfection of technique and traditional style of writing. “...I eagerly asked them about painting techniques, how much paint to use and how much oil, I needed to know how the thinnest layer of paint is made...” - from memories of the Academy of San Fernando.

In 1928, “Basket of Bread” (1925) was presented at the Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA). The picture is almost photorealistic.

Then qualities begin to emerge that reflect not so much the real world as his inner, personal one.

In the painting “Female Figure at a Window” (1925), Dali depicted Sister Anna Maria looking out of a window onto the bay in Cadaques. The canvas is imbued with the spirit of the unreality of a dream, although it is written in a meticulous realistic style. There is an aura of emptiness and at the same time something invisible that hides behind the space of the picture. In addition, a feeling of silence is created. If this were the work of the Impressionists, the viewer would feel its atmosphere: he would hear the sea or the whispering of the breeze, but here it seems that all life has stood still. The figure of Anna Maria is isolated, she is in another world, devoid of the sensuality of the female images of Renoir or Degas.

In 1929, Buñuel invited Dali to work on the film Un Chien Andalou. Among the most shocking images is a man's eye being cut with a blade. The scene is considered one of the most brutal in the history of world cinema.

It was invented by Dali. The decomposing donkeys in other scenes are also his creativity. Today, the film, which uses images taken from the human subconscious, is a classic of surrealism, of which Dali was to become the king.

And again a paradox. He is an exemplary and diligent student. Extremely respectful of predecessors in art. “When people ask me: “What's new? “I answer: “Velasquez!” Both now and forever.”

At the same time he rebels against everyone and everything. A duality of the psyche, a duality of life goals - for the sake of the desire to stand out at any cost.

A MESSAGE OF DELIBERANCE AND REALITY

“But then what was destined to happen happened,” Dali appeared. A surrealist to the core, driven by Nietzsche's "will to power", he proclaimed unlimited freedom from any aesthetic or moral compulsion and declared that one can go to the end, to the most extreme, extreme limits in any creative experiment, without worrying about any consistency or continuity."

This is what Dali writes about himself in “The Diary of a Genius.”

Indeed, his paintings and his confessions did not bypass the sexual revolution and the civil war, nor the atomic bomb and Nazism and fascism, nor the Catholic faith and science, nor classical art and even cooking. And with literally all the ideas, principles, concepts, values, phenomena, people with whom he dealt, Dali interacts like dynamite, destroying everything in its path, shaking any truth, any principle, if this principle is based on the foundations of reason, order, faith , virtue, logic, harmony, ideal beauty.

Always in one way or another daring, scandalous, caustic, provocative, paradoxical, unpredictable or irreverent.

For him there is only surreal creativity, which turns everything it touches into something new. But! Most surrealists explored the subconscious by freeing their minds from conscious control and allowing thoughts to float to the surface like soap bubbles, without any consciously set sequence. This was called “automatism,” and in writing it was reflected in the creation of abstract forms that represented images from the subconscious.

Dali, in his words, chose the “paranoid-critical method.” He drew images familiar to the mind: people, animals, buildings, landscapes, but allowed them to connect under the dictation of consciousness. He often merged them in a grotesque manner so that, for example, the limbs turned into fish, and the torsos of women into horses.

In one of the most famous paintings of the twentieth century, “The Persistence of Memory” (1931), soft, as if molten, watch dials hang from a bare olive branch, from a cubic slab of unknown origin, from a certain creature that looks like both a face and a snail without shells. Each detail can be examined independently.

Together they create a magically mysterious picture. At the same time, both here and in “Partial obscuration. Six apparitions of Lenin on the piano" (1931), and in "Soft construction with boiled beans (a premonition of the civil war)" (1936), and in "A dream inspired by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate, a moment before awakening" (1944 d.) one can read the clear and absolute thoughtfulness of the compositional and coloristic structure. The combination of reality and delusional fantasy was constructed, and not born by chance.

FASCIST OR PACIFIST

Dali's main personal attitude - to intensify the flow of irrational surreal images - manifests itself sharply and decisively in the political sphere. So much so that it served as one of the reasons for the scandalous break with the group of the writer and art theorist Andre Breton, the author of the “First Manifesto of Surrealism”.

In the 30s of the last century, Salvador Dali repeatedly depicted Vladimir Lenin in his paintings and, at least once, captured Adolf Hitler. The image of the leader of the proletariat remains unsolved. Dali left it to the audience to speculate about his personality. But he commented on his interest in the Fuhrer’s person boldly and defiantly:

“I was completely fascinated by Hitler’s soft, plump back, which was so well fitted by his constant tight uniform. Every time I began to draw the leather sword belt that came from the belt and, like a strap, hugged the opposite shoulder, the soft pliability of Hitler’s flesh appearing under the military jacket brought me into real ecstasy, causing taste sensations of something milky, nutritious, Wagnerian and forcing my heart is pounding wildly from a rare excitement that I don’t experience even in moments of love.

Hitler’s plump body, which seemed to me like the most divine female flesh, covered with impeccable snow-white skin, had some kind of hypnotic effect on me.”

Friends in surrealism could not imagine, however, that preoccupation with the image of Hitler had nothing to do with politics, and the shockingly ambiguous portrait of the feminized Fuhrer was imbued with the same black humor as the image of William Tell with the face of Lenin (“The Mystery of William Tell”, 1933 .).

Dali was considered an apologist for fascism. Fortunately, there was a rumor that Hitler would really like certain subjects in Salvador’s paintings, where there are swans, where there is loneliness and delusions of grandeur, where the spirit of Richard Wagner and Hieronymus Bosch is felt. Breton will later tell you that in February 1939 Dali publicly stated: all the misfortunes of the modern world have racial roots and the decision that must first be made is through the joint efforts of all the peoples of the white race to enslave all colored peoples. Andre claimed that there was not a grain of humor in this call...

“My fanaticism, which intensified even more after Hitler forced Freud and Einstein to flee the Reich, proves that this man occupies me solely as the point of application of my own mania, and also because he amazes me with his unprecedented catastrophism,”– Dali stated in response.

He explained that he could not be a Nazi, if only because if Hitler conquered Europe, he would kill all hysterics like Dali, as they did in Germany, where they are treated like degenerates. Moreover, the femininity and irresistible depravity with which Dali associates the image of Hitler would serve as sufficient grounds for the Nazis to accuse the artist of blasphemy.

In 1937, Dali wrote “The Riddle of Hitler.” The Fuhrer appears as a tattered and grimy photograph, lying on a huge platter under the shadow of a gigantic and monstrous telephone receiver, reminiscent of a disgusting insect. There was, the artist said, a simpler visual manifestation of anti-fascism: they asked for an autograph for Hitler, and Salvador made a straight cross - the exact opposite of a broken swastika.

“Hitler embodied for me the perfect image of the great masochist who started a world war solely for the pleasure of losing it and being buried under the rubble of the empire.”

It is impossible to call his position pro-fascist. A masochistic hero who started a world war for the pleasure of losing it is not the banner under which political forces can be united.

Usually this declaration is not believed: how could he talk about his apoliticality, touching so defiantly on the most acute aspects of the political life of the 20th century...

NOT FOR POLITICS

But why not assume, based on his biography and personality traits, that his outrageousness was a fig leaf for a vulnerable person who was ashamed of his own originality, defending it with an attack on generally accepted norms. After all, it turned out, when one of the surrealists suddenly declared himself a communist, that Dali was an ardent Spanish royalist. When other artists argued that the only path to success was through poverty and bohemian simplicity, he did not hide the fact that he strived for success for the sake of money and convenience. When contemporaries believed that truth in art could only be achieved through avant-garde experimentation, Dali declared that he himself was very old-fashioned.

Six months before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he completed Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of the Civil War) (1936). Two huge creatures, reminiscent of deformed, accidentally fused parts of the human body, frighten with the possible consequences of their mutations. One creature is formed from a face distorted by pain, a human chest and a leg; the other is made of two hands, distorted as if by nature itself, and likened to the hip part of the form. They are locked in a terrible fight, desperately struggling with each other, these mutant creatures are disgusting, like a body that has torn itself apart. The square figure formed by the limbs is reminiscent of the geographical contours of Spain.

The low horizon line exaggerates the action of the creatures in the foreground and emphasizes the immensity of the sky, obscured by huge clouds. And the clouds themselves, with their alarming movement, further intensify the tragic intensity of inhuman passions. In addition, Dali managed to find a strong image that expresses the horrors of war, symbolized by simple boiled beans - the food of the poor.

"The Face of War" (1940). Dali and his wife came to the United States from France, whose troops surrendered to the German invasion. There is no blood in the picture, no fire, no dead. Just an ugly head with long hissing snakes instead of hair, like Medusa's gorgon. But how accurately the thought is conveyed, what fear and horror seizes the viewer! The mouth and arched eyebrows give the head a pained appearance. Instead of eyes and in the mouth there are skulls, inside of which there are other skulls located in the same way. It seems that the head is filled with endless death.

THE MYSTERY REMAINS

“There is almost always something from God in any mistake. So don't rush to fix it quickly. On the contrary, try to comprehend it with your mind, to get to the bottom of it. And its hidden meaning will be revealed to you.”

One journalist asked whether Salvador Dali was just crazy or an ordinary successful businessman. The artist replied that he himself did not know where the deep, philosophizing Dali began and where the crazy and absurd Dali ended.

But this two-facedness of Salvador Dali lies the value of his double phenomenon. Dali the man and Dali the artist.

Another name for the painting is “ Soft design with boiled beans" The painting was painted in 1936. Canvas, oil. Dimensions: 100 × 99 cm. Currently in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The painting was made in the surrealistic manner characteristic of Salvador Dali. If you look at the picture, you get the feeling that the picture presents an absolutely meaningless plot, but everything falls into place if you find out about the artist’s intention. Like many other surrealist paintings, this work is filled with symbols and allegories, in order to decipher which you need to know the history of the creation of the canvas.

The painting was painted by Salvador Dali in 1936, just as the Spanish Civil War began. Then the Spanish opposition, led by General Francisco Franco, who was supported by the fascist regime of Germany, Italy and Portugal, staged a rebellion, as a result of which the Spanish government was overthrown and the Civil War began. These events became fundamental to the painting of the Spanish artist Salvador Dali.

In his work, he expressed his experiences and his ideas about the civil war. In the center of the composition is a strange interweaving of arms and legs. If you look closely, you will notice that the overall shape of the surreal design resembles the outline of Spain. The parts of the body in the picture seem to be locked in a terrible fight, which symbolizes the struggle of two sides. At the same time, the picture shows two legs and two arms, which suggests that the mortal struggle of the two sides is actually one whole, that is, one person who tore himself apart - Spain, which divided into two camps, after which fratricidal violence began war. At the very top of the composition we can see a head with a face that is distorted by pain. At the very bottom is a hand that has already turned black and died. Scattered on the ground are boiled beans, which are considered food for the poor.

The picture may seem creepy and frightening, but this is exactly how Salvador Dali decided to depict all the horrors of war. It is also worth noting that this work, in its design and frightening realism, has been compared to Pablo Picasso’s famous painting “,” which was painted in 1937 and also refers to the Spanish Civil War.

Premonition of Civil War (Soft Construction with Boiled Beans) Salvador Dali

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