For many, modern art conjures up images of a blank canvas dotted with a single red mark representing the inner turmoil of the artist or even the feeling of love. Similarly, Surrealism can manage to confuse the viewer to the point that she doesn’t even want to understand the artist’s work. For those who wish to understand, however, the Phillips Collection’s Surrealism and Modernism exhibit is an excellent opportunity to do so.
Works from Picasso, Munch, Dali, Matisse, Tanguy, O’Keefe and Marini are touring in this exhibit from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Conn. A. Everett Austin Jr., who controlled Wadsworth from 1927-1944, built this collection from the ground up. As a showman, he acquired many of the paintings from great artists for the Surrealism and Modernism exhibit. He added a little flamboyance and education to his displays, attempting to introduce modern ideas to the public.
The most stimulating piece in the exhibit is Salvador Dali’s Apparition of a Face and Fruit Bowl on a Beach. Acquired by Austin in 1938 and described as “the most visually striking painting acquired at the time,” Apparition is easily recognizable by many and presents many different images and ideas at once that prove hard to untangle and take in. The face doubles as a fruit bowl, whose fruit doubles as fur on the back of a dog, whose face doubles as mountains that hover over images reminiscent of Da Vinci.
Other great works in the exhibit include The Painter (1934), The Artist, (1963), Still Life with Fish (1923), and the Women of Algiers (1922). They highlight the progression of Picasso’s style, showing his misrepresentation of reality in cubism to show a new world not so easily accessed. As Picasso said, “Painting is stronger than I, it forces me to do what it wishes.”
Alongside Picasso’s pieces hang two paintings by the German Edvard Munch. The works, Winter Landscape (1918) and Aasgaardstrand (1904) clearly show Munch’s style of painting “not what I see, but what I saw.” The paintings have a blurry, dreamlike quality similar to the reflection of trees in a lake.
The exhibit also features many works from Yves Tanguy. Mostly empty landscapes riddled with sharp objects resembling rocks, Tanguy’s work depicts his inner struggles and anxiety. Unforeseen (1940) shows a scene at the bottom of the ocean; while Rose of the Four Winds (1950) depicts a gray and purple landscape dominated by a tower of sharp objects.
Also remarkable is Max Ernst’s Europe after the Rain (1940-1942), a debased classical setting describing Europe’s broken spirit during the Second World War. The work is characterized by its orange and red color scheme and classical statues and building, all worn and broken.
Of course, no modernist or surrealist exhibit could exist without its extremely avant-garde works. Jackson Pollack’s Number 9 (1949), a silvery mixture of yellow, blue and green splatters, adorns the walls besides Piet Mondrian’s Composition in Blue and White (1935). The composition consists of white boxes juxtaposed with a single blue box on the left side of the canvas. Jean Arp’s Objects Placed on 3 Planes (1928) illustrates the unstable environment of modern day. Rene Magritte’s The Tempest (1931) stands as one of the most important pieces of surrealist art, showing two skyscrapers covered by clouds looking out a window.
Filling entirely the five rooms on the second floor of the gallery, the exhibit itself is large and very well organized. Most of the paintings have a blurb next to them about the artist and the meaning of the painting, helping to diffuse some of the complexities of the modernist’s and surrealist’s styles.
Surrealism and Modernism will be on display until Jan. 18. The Phillips Collection is located at 1600 21st St., NW.
