Surrealism

Yves Tanguy was born on January 5, 1990 in Paris, France. In Paris, Yves was inspired by a magazine called The Surrealiste Revolution, where he found the artist Giorgio de Chirico. When Yves visited Prevert, he met Andre Breton and other Surrealist artists. After meeting these artists, he found an interest in a style of painting that he called his own. In 1938, Yves met is wife, Kay Sage. When they moved to Connecticut, he used an old barn as his art studio. On January 15, 1955, Yves Tanguy died of brain hemorrhage. It is said that his ashes are spread out all through the bay in Brittany, France.
Dorothea Tanning was born in 1910 in Galesburg, Illonois. She attended Knox College in her own town before going to Chicago to study painting. In 1941, she met Julien Lvy, who introduced her to his friends from Nazi France. Dorothea married Max Ernst and they spent 34 years together, until he died in April of 1976. even then, she still kept up with her painting, but also started to write poetry. On January 31, 2012 Dorothea passed away at age 101.





Artist’s Name: Yves Tanguy

Title: From Green to White

Date: 1954

Description: In this piece, Tanguy made a town that is on the horizon. You can tell the horizon by where the town and sky meet. It's interesting to see that the sky takes up most of the picture, but shows a lot of detail. In the bottom of the sky, it looks like there's a face, with lips and an eye.

Analysis: In "From Green To White," the sky takes up most of the picture vertically. Horizontally, the town is spread across the bottom of the page.  

Interpretation: After looking at this picture, I cannot really interpret anything from it.

Judgement: I believe that this piece could have been more successful if it made sense to me, but honestly, it really doesn't. I don't understand the meaning of it, if there is any at all.

Artist’s Name: Dorothea Tanning
Title: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
Date: 1943
Description: Two girls in a hallway, one resting on a door holding a sunflower petal while the other is holding the giant sunflower by the stem.
Analysis: The flower takes up a lot of the picture because of its size, but the length of the hallway is also long too. The girls take up another portion of the picture as well.
Interpretation: This picture draws my attention because it made me wonder what the two girls could possibly be doing with that giant sunflower that they're carrying throughout the house. From the look on the one girl's face, it looks like she's exhausted, possibly from helping with the flower too.
Judgement: I think this piece is interesting because as mentioned above, it makes me wonder what they did or are doing with the sunflower. Also, the opened door on the left side gives off a mysterious feeling.


These artists have two very different styles to their artwork. In Tanguy's work, he more so mixes his colors. His pictures are also mostly hand drawn. In Tanning's work, she gives a lot of detail to every picture of her paintings, specifically in the one above. After looking at Yves Tanguy's artwork, all of his pictures start looking the same, while Tanning's are all very different from the previous one. Overall, I believe that Dorothea Tanning's artwork is my forte, because of the detail she puts into her pictures.