Landscape painted by surrealist
Salvador Dali - The Persistence of Memory 1931, Oil on canvas 24 cm x 33 cmxx
Dali is one of my favourite artists because of the quality of his work and his optical illusions. His work is fun - playful but serious at the same time, and I especially love this tiny work which I had the privilege of seeing In the Museum of Modern Art in New York a few years ago. The painting shows a series of absurd objects placed in a desert landscape: some melting watches, ants eating a time piece, a strange animal in the middle and a dead tree on a table. For me the narrative of this work that our lives are melting as time passes if we don’t do something.
Reference
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/art-between-wars/surrealism1/v/salvador-dal-the-persistence-of-memory-1931
Mark Ernst - Europe After the rain, 1940-1942
This is a very interesting painting. At first it looks like a traditional representational landscape with mountains, trees, figures and blue sky, though the subject is a kind of apocalyptic scene. Looking at it more closely however, the depiction of the elements in the picture are very unconventional as they seem to be made from some kind of rotting organic materials. I admire Ernst’s skill but I don’t really like the painting as it makes me feel very unsettled.
Reference: https://www.artsy.net/article/jessica-beyond-painting-the-experimental-techniques-of-max
Giorgio de Chirico - The Uncertainty of the Poet, 1913
This painting reminds me of Dali’s work, though without the playfulness and optical illusions. Though I find this a pleasing composition and I like his style, it’s difficult to get any narrative from it as the composition is somewhat random, and the sculpture, the bananas, the train in the background and the building don’t seem to be related. Perhaps that’s what surrealism is fundamentally - the representation of the absurd.
Reference:
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/de-chirico-the-uncertainty-of-the-poet-t04109
The emotional and subjective aspects of a landscape:
Paul Nash - The Menin road, 1919
This is a very emotional painting. Nash was a war artist, and here he is portraying the destruction in the first war world, and though it’s a sad painting I really like it, the sombre pallet appeals to me.
Reference
https://artsandculture.google.com/
Graham Sutherland - Welsh landscapes with roads 1936
Sutherland’s landscape looks to me a like surrealist painting, the way he represents the landscape is distinctive, the stones, the small figures, the animal skull are very odd but somehow unified by reds, oranges and dark colours, which creates and dramatic and emotional atmosphere.
Reference
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sutherland-welsh-landscape-with-roads-n05666
Emily Nolde Meer - Seascape 1935
Meer’s painting is a very dramatic seascape, using dark complementary colours to create the drama. Reference:http://www.artnet.com/artists/emil-nolde/meer-mit-abendhimmel-seascape-a-ajK1U6mkvYpVR4HV_32Zbw2
Symbolist movement:
Gustav Klimt: The forest of birch trees -
This is a beautiful autumn landscape of reds and oranges using a kind of pointillist technique, suggesting leaves on the ground, with the silver birch shimmering and fading into the background. The high horizon line suggest that Klimt used the rectangular golden ratio on this beautiful landscape.
Reference
http://www.gustavklimt.net/forest-of-beech-trees/
Frida Kahlo: Roots, 1943 -
It was interesting for me to see this painting because the idea I had in my mind of KahIo’s work was the portrayed of the pain and suffering of her life, as if she wanted the viewer to feel her physical or emotional pain. This one is different and seems to show her connection with the land through the roots of a plant.
Reference
http://www.kahlo.org/roots/