A few years ago, I moved into the home of a fellow artist here in rural Japan who has passed on. Her sister, my landlady, gave me a series of art history books that belonged to her. I was just recently working on my proofreading/translation portfolio and decided to use a passage from one one the books... about a piece from Tanguy. The authors proposed that the misty qualities of Tanguy's backgrounds were actually influenced by undersea scenarios, given his seafaring background. I do find that pretty interesting, and since then this line of thought has influenced how I view Tanguy's works, especially his earlier ones. To me, as much as they look dreamlike, they also look as though they're occurring on the bottom of the ocean- instead of some vast, post-apocalyptic wasteland. However, the thing I love about Tanguy and related artists' works is that they can mean so many things to so many people. There isn't one "right" answer, and that's kind of my favorite thing about it.
I totally see it, especially the forms, to me they almost look like sea sponges (specifically deeper sea carnivorous sponges) but the knowledge of them at the time was limited, with most species only being identified recently, really incredible how much they look like either marine or microscopic life, almost reminds me of things like neurons, bacteria etc. under a slide, the eeriness of his work is both beautiful and really unsettling, the heavy shadows have such an aura to them, although in another way, thinking of the era of his life (ww1 and 2) they remind me a lot of those photos of bombed/destroyed buildings, especially homes, with things like furniture, metal pipes, pottery and homewares etc. all broken or ruined, it’s a strange combination of both for me
his art speaks multiple truths, and I guess if it speaks any truth then, truth of reality, I guess he's reached his goal as a surrealist, the true embodiment of surrealism
There's a Yves Tanguy in an exhibit at my work that's sadly being rotated out soon. His work is arguably my favorite out of the entire exhibit, and just seeing it and studying it instead of doing my actual job had influenced my own art into leaning into abstractism and surrealism like his.
Great video as usual. I find with Tanguy’s work that you try to find something recognisable, but, just as you get a handle on it, it slips away leaving you in an enigmatic and quite uncomfortable place. A powerful artist.
Multiplication of the Arcs which I first saw back in the 1970's and Tanguy's other work has always filled me with awe. I have had a long running series of drawings titled Multiplication of the Arcs that have appeared in numerous zines and small press publications spanning several decades. Thank You for making this great video!
The last painting, multiplication of the arcs, is my favorite. It gives me a feeling of loneliness but freedom, simultaneously. Like I could walk through all the structures for years. His art also reminded me of my experience in Arches National Park! Tall, domineering structures in a vast landscape. Makes you feel a certain way. Thanks for another great video!!
I REALLY APPRECIATE what you do. It is a service, distinguished, and perceptive. It has really helped me grow and feel welcomed into my subconscious. Changing my perspectives and I feel more human and connected to all. I thank you kindly. Mark😊👍
I have always thought of Tanguy’s work to depict what life would look like on a gas giant planet… I am blown away by the way some surrealist painters captured what some AI art would look like in the future this was huge with Tanguy as well as Roberto Matta.
I would've loved to see how Tanguy was working instead of just analyzing the results. I bet his process was very meditative, since as you already stated was working very intuitively and without big concepts. Great video, as always :3
The Multiplication piece looked like a city was cut down. The white pillars look like they used to hold up a large building. Maybe it's saying when you take down towering corporate buildings you can finally see organic life and humanity in the world.
The light and realism of the objects in the paintings of Tanguy is indeed staggering, given the fact indeed that something non-existent is depicted. Great artist (the influence on Dalî is very noticeable) maybe somewhat underrated? Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much for this video. I've been studying Tanguy's work for inspiration. Some of those panning shots, for some reason, made me very emotional. I love this type of work, and it appeals deeply to me and my subconscious.
Your documentaries are great I totally love them. You show the paintings. Spend some time on them and comment on them without sounding pretentious. I love how you personalized the documentaries by commenting on yourself and your own artwork. Also, you give other artist the opportunity to be seen, which is incredible. I can’t tell you how much I totally think your documentaries are the best art documentaries on RUclips Brad Kollus
Another illuminating video.I have always felt Yves Tanguy was a one off among the surrealists,his paintings to me aren't jarring but strangely calming,his biomorphic vision have a timeless enigma that is unfathomable,there is a stilled poetic air to his art,a sense of live after mankind is long gone.(Matt)P.s you definitely tapped into the visual openendedness of his art,which I feel he infused into his paintings
The Rose of the Four Winds picture reminded me of a war memorial (tall structure on the left) next to a military graveyard (low structures on the right), the light coloured structures under that bruised sky just brought a trip to a cemetery to mind. Good work showing new artists, I enjoyed that section too.
So well done. Articulated, open, and an invitation to explore a Man, who is, and has long time been, a favorite inspiration. A Man whose every brush owns my breath.
EXCELLENT work! Tanguy is a major influence for me as an artist and your interpretation of his work is outstanding! I thoroughly enjoyed this video! Keep up the amazing work!!!
As a child looking through the encyclopedia entry on art, I was captivated by a Tanguy dreamscape. The seemingly infinite expanse with enigmatic shapes seemed at once strange and familiar, as if Tanguy had painted an image from a dream I couldn’t quite remember.
please do like a part two to this, you'd make me so happy if you'd do like an hour long video on Yves tangy, but im probably dreaming there, id watch it like 100 times
Thank you for introducing me to this amazing artist, I'm very surprised to have never heard of him! On the note of surreal and untangible art, I would love to see works of Ivan Seal to be discussed on your channel someday ❤
Thank you for your thoughtful insights on this artist. And really excited to explore more of his work. I'm also super intrigued by Matej Kollar's work. I really enjoy your narrating voice and intelligent writing style. Peace.
Thank you for this insightful interpretation of Yves work. I absolutely agree that the disconnected artifacts in the 1st painting depict Emotions - All emotions have impact, but some leave greater shadows on the soul. . I strive in my own drawings which have evolved over the last 2 years, to depict emotions in many ways. Yves and other surrealists seem to have mastered this already. Indefinite Divisablilty appears like a prophetic view of recent - as AI learned to create art.
Yves Tanguy I would say is a true surrealist that evoked a lot of hidden meaning and really evokes the imagination. I was lucky enough to see one of his works at the TATE MODERN many years ago. I saw Indefinite Divisibility which was very interesting but I didn’t know who the artist was until later after I read about him.
Thanks a lot Blind Dweller . Perhaps we should listen to " Crippled Symmetry" by Morton Feldman while drifting away , escaping all thought while entering the Tanguy state of mind . Great Video !
This is kind of odd, since I've often described the structural forms in Tanguy's paintings as being "asymmetrical" (which I guess would be a fairly common response). But as a term, "Crippled Symmetry" describes them far far better. Thank you!
It's very refreshing to know that a semi-megalomaniacal semi-narcissist like Salvador Dali could actually be so honest in his admission to another artist's influence. Please don't get the wrong idea: I like Dali quite a lot, but the guy did have a monster-sized ego---as he himself occasionally conceded.
I sometimes have dreams of which I remember only a single scene. That's how i'd describe Tanguy's artwork. A scene in a dream that you remember being a part of but have no sense of familiarity towards. No, I haven't been there, but oh do I know it from somewhere deep inside my head
Tanguy always electrified my imagination, even when I first discovered him as a kid. Seemed as if Dali wanted to do what Tanguy did, but somehow failed. Tanguy was one of a kind. Still fascinates me, and I can examine his works for hours...
Survival Research Laboratories ROCK! Anyone who hasn't seen any of their amazing videos should download them for an evening's (or afternoon's) viewing.
You should look into julia soboleva for a video! Dont know much a about her but her paintings were the first to make me stop and think "wow". Sometimes I find them interesting, and other times I see them in a different way and spend ages looking through all her paintings- truly magical.
5:23 Mama Papa is Wounded: I always thought of the long spike to the right was Papa and the gray cloud was his trauma, a spread of blood or even the exhaust from a war machine. I also saw the cactus-like figure as Mama and that she was coming to embrace Papa. I thought the little beans in the center were the children, with the smallest one being so young that it's just floating and not even grounded like the other figures.
My opinion of the multiplication, if youd like. I feel like it shows the human exploration of earth but not the world. We build relentlessly, creating cities and homes. Yet the sky will always be clear and untamed by man. Planes were common by the 1920s and this was made in the 1950s. But those are only temporary, and we cannot actually build in the air or sky. Thank you!
As far as I'm concerned, Tanguy is the uncontested maestro of Surrealist landscape (or "mindscape", as I like to call it), surpassing by leaps the formal illusionistic refinements of Dali and Magritte. You rightly pinpointed Chirico as a primary influence; but whereas the latter's haunted cityscapes---with their fleeting shadowy apparitions, ominously inviting architectures, ambiguous perspectives, and dreamily enigmatic atmospheres---remain grounded in the setting of a familiar and still identifiably human realm, Chirico's admirer formulated a thoroughly alien pictorial vocabulary inhabited by amorphously defined lifeforms and asymmetrical structures carefully rendered in a precise three-dimensional biomorphic style wherein one finds few referents to anything resembling an objectively recognizable human world. I've always been drawn to the way Tanguy's horizons---with their diaphanously milky bands cutting uninterruptedly through the picture plane---evoke an endless extraterrestrial planet whose inner-layered structures bring to mind a distinctly forbording (though not at all earth-like) desert terrain. (And while mulling over the evocation of extra-terrestrial other-worldliness it's apt to point out how a distinct "Tanguy style" had plainly worked itself into the graphic art that came to illustrate so much of pulp science fiction and fantasy. I would invite anyone to examine a representative sampling of paperback SF book and magazine covers from the Fifties, Sixties, and into the Seventies. I think you'll see what I mean.) (And by way of closing, allow me to offer a boffo suggestion for a possible future segment: I'd love to see you take on the beautifully grotesque & polymorphously perverse art and no doubt still controversial legacy of Hans "The Dollmaker" Bellmer. Now there's a genuinely subversive artist to challenge every type of sensibility.)
Dweller, love your channel. Was wondering if you’d consider an idea of a video on James Hampton’s Throne Of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly. It’s story is worth looking up.
This makes me think of a New Yorker cartoon. A monk is looking at Michaelangelo painting the ceiling at the Sistine chapel and saying, "It's nice Michaelangelo, but is it art?"
I"m always surprised to visit the instagram pages of those in the artist corner. Matej has about 150 followers. The man is basically a master and that's what he gets. Some endless beginner will post low effort sketches daily and will be drowning in attention.
The stalk with the hairs in the painting 'Mama, papa is wounded' resembles a burned out match I think, the cloud in the background maybe the result of a fire caused by the match which turned itself into a kind of plant afterwards. 😊 Maybe some some pun is at the base of this painting (it would be typical for the surrealists, who were also inspired by the writings of Raymond Roussel, who used this kind of literary devices)? Interesting to know as well is that Tanguy used matchsticks and sewing threads in his early collages like the work 'Le Phare' (the lighthouse) from 1926, now in Centre Pompidou .
I enjoyed your insightful video on the work of Yves Tanguy who depicted things never-before-seen with convincing realism. There is one detail concerning his painting, “Rose of the four winds” you may have missed. Since French was his mother tongue, this title must be his own English translation of “Rose des vents” which is a term more often rendered in English as “compass rose” - the name given to that ubiquitous device featured on ancient nautical charts indicating the cardinal directions and therefore permitting the determination of wind direction for navigational purposes. What is striking is the dominant tower and the homogeneously strewn array of jumbled objects beneath it in an otherwise featureless world. Could the tower be the indicator of North? But does the concept of North even exist in this alien landscape? And are all other directions meaningless and void, spread flat in the jumble beneath?
Amazing video!! Would you be able to do a video on Shinji Kanda? I found him through his Pokémon card illustrations funnily enough, but those and the non Pokémon art he’s made is absolutely surreal, alien, and fantastic 😊
I like to think *Mama, Papa is Wounded* was just Tanguy doodling then was like, “dude, how hilarious would it be to give this some random, messed-up title, lol.” I’m pretty sure that’s historically accurate.
Rose of the four winds feels oddly hopeful for me. Especially since after the war, after the violence, we could start to rebuild. It feels hopeful of the future for me
In the first painting, the long tall spiky plant reminds me of a match stick, and the black behind it could be smoke from the flames the match stick created.
It's funny - I see the cast of characters in Mama Papa is Wounded another way. The terrible grey mass is Papa, leaning against a crutch (covered in hairs, not spikes, as it is his replacement leg). Papa is badly scarred, perhaps disfigured and carries war with him - the beans are bullets, the sagging pillar in his background is the ruins. The lines joining the black flames on the ground between Papa and Mama are the lines of communication of the news. She is still far away, in a place without war, imagining a wounded and mentally scarred Papa.
Noyer Indifférent can allude to someone drowning who doesn't care. Suicide by inaction - like someone who falls into the depths and doesn't mind what's to come. A dark thought. This work of his has always made me uncomfortable - I think that waa the point. Looks like we fell deep into water, sinking sinking.. we see our spirit leave and our vision go. But maybe there is still hope. Maybe the spirit isn't ours but a guardian telling us to keep trying- swim swim swim. We haven't yet crossed the line of no return, there is hope. Just my thoughts, I have always loved Yves Tanguy.
There's an extra layer of uncanniness in that the shadows are strongly cast on the ground even as it merges into the cloudscape (Not through birds etc.).
The amorphous dark mass on the upper right is a woman’s shoulders and flowing hair looking out from the viewer. But wtf do I know? He’s been one of my admired artist since art school.
you have the best art channel on youtube in my opinion
I couldn't possibly agree more
@@DeathMetalDerf I agree also!
I don't agree, but I concur.
@@Ogma3bandcamp 😀🙏🏽🥸
Clearly u don’t know the beauty, the magnificence, of the drawfee sonic butthole saga
A few years ago, I moved into the home of a fellow artist here in rural Japan who has passed on. Her sister, my landlady, gave me a series of art history books that belonged to her. I was just recently working on my proofreading/translation portfolio and decided to use a passage from one one the books... about a piece from Tanguy. The authors proposed that the misty qualities of Tanguy's backgrounds were actually influenced by undersea scenarios, given his seafaring background. I do find that pretty interesting, and since then this line of thought has influenced how I view Tanguy's works, especially his earlier ones. To me, as much as they look dreamlike, they also look as though they're occurring on the bottom of the ocean- instead of some vast, post-apocalyptic wasteland. However, the thing I love about Tanguy and related artists' works is that they can mean so many things to so many people. There isn't one "right" answer, and that's kind of my favorite thing about it.
I totally see it, especially the forms, to me they almost look like sea sponges (specifically deeper sea carnivorous sponges) but the knowledge of them at the time was limited, with most species only being identified recently, really incredible how much they look like either marine or microscopic life, almost reminds me of things like neurons, bacteria etc. under a slide, the eeriness of his work is both beautiful and really unsettling, the heavy shadows have such an aura to them, although in another way, thinking of the era of his life (ww1 and 2) they remind me a lot of those photos of bombed/destroyed buildings, especially homes, with things like furniture, metal pipes, pottery and homewares etc. all broken or ruined, it’s a strange combination of both for me
his art speaks multiple truths, and I guess if it speaks any truth then, truth of reality, I guess he's reached his goal as a surrealist, the true embodiment of surrealism
There's a Yves Tanguy in an exhibit at my work that's sadly being rotated out soon. His work is arguably my favorite out of the entire exhibit, and just seeing it and studying it instead of doing my actual job had influenced my own art into leaning into abstractism and surrealism like his.
Great video as usual. I find with Tanguy’s work that you try to find something recognisable, but, just as you get a handle on it, it slips away leaving you in an enigmatic and quite uncomfortable place. A powerful artist.
Maybe the man just like vs n ps and abstract shapes.....sometimes I be throwing random tts in my landscapes
One of my favorite artists. Thank you Blind Dweller.
Multiplication of the Arcs which I first saw back in the 1970's and Tanguy's other work has always filled me with awe. I have had a long running series of drawings titled Multiplication of the Arcs that have appeared in numerous zines and small press publications spanning several decades. Thank You for making this great video!
They're so sci-fi futuristic in a modern way for the time they were made. It gives me chills.
Honestly some of them have a weird modern feeling like coming out of late 90s early 2000 CGI.
@@digitalcthulhu143true
The last painting, multiplication of the arcs, is my favorite. It gives me a feeling of loneliness but freedom, simultaneously. Like I could walk through all the structures for years. His art also reminded me of my experience in Arches National Park! Tall, domineering structures in a vast landscape. Makes you feel a certain way. Thanks for another great video!!
This channel will never run out of artists. Painters are more common than video games
You must do a video on Hans Bellmer at some point. His art seems like it would really suit a video on this channel.
Great suggestion, his work is extremely thought-provoking!
Great suggestion? OUTSTANDING suggestion! AND his art is so Wonderfully Weird too! SHEEEEEEIIIIT!@@BlindDweller
I always listen to your videos when I paint. It’s a very powerful experience. Thank you for saving my passion from the void.
It's always nice to see people talking about one of my favourite painters ever.
I REALLY APPRECIATE what you do. It is a service, distinguished, and perceptive. It has really helped me grow and feel welcomed into my subconscious. Changing my perspectives and I feel more human and connected to all.
I thank you kindly.
Mark😊👍
The featured artist *Matej Kollar* in the closing ...work is incredible
It is. Oh, it is!
Definitely inspired by Bosch and Giger
I have always thought of Tanguy’s work to depict what life would look like on a gas giant planet… I am blown away by the way some surrealist painters captured what some AI art would look like in the future this was huge with Tanguy as well as Roberto Matta.
I would've loved to see how Tanguy was working instead of just analyzing the results.
I bet his process was very meditative, since as you already stated was working very intuitively and without big concepts.
Great video, as always :3
I love the art of Kollar shown at the end. Reminds me of MSDOS games and metal album covers.
The Multiplication piece looked like a city was cut down. The white pillars look like they used to hold up a large building. Maybe it's saying when you take down towering corporate buildings you can finally see organic life and humanity in the world.
Thanks in part to you, BD I am learning more about Tanguy's art, which has fascinated me for a long time but I never heard anyone talk much about him.
The light and realism of the objects in the paintings of Tanguy is indeed staggering, given the fact indeed that something non-existent is depicted. Great artist (the influence on Dalî is very noticeable) maybe somewhat underrated? Thank you for sharing.
He is the bridge between Dali and Ernst
Thank you so much for this video. I've been studying Tanguy's work for inspiration. Some of those panning shots, for some reason, made me very emotional. I love this type of work, and it appeals deeply to me and my subconscious.
Your documentaries are great I totally love them. You show the paintings. Spend some time on them and comment on them without sounding pretentious. I love how you personalized the documentaries by commenting on yourself and your own artwork. Also, you give other artist the opportunity to be seen, which is incredible. I can’t tell you how much I totally think your documentaries are the best art documentaries on RUclips Brad Kollus
Another illuminating video.I have always felt Yves Tanguy was a one off among the surrealists,his paintings to me aren't jarring but strangely calming,his biomorphic vision have a timeless enigma that is unfathomable,there is a stilled poetic air to his art,a sense of live after mankind is long gone.(Matt)P.s you definitely tapped into the visual openendedness of his art,which I feel he infused into his paintings
Absolutely fascinating artist, thank you for introducing him to us.
The Rose of the Four Winds picture reminded me of a war memorial (tall structure on the left) next to a military graveyard (low structures on the right), the light coloured structures under that bruised sky just brought a trip to a cemetery to mind.
Good work showing new artists, I enjoyed that section too.
Excellent work...Tanguay is long overdue. Thanks
Love your videos Blind Dweller!
So well done. Articulated, open, and an invitation to explore a Man, who is, and has long time been, a favorite inspiration. A Man whose every brush owns my breath.
You pick the best artists, thank you!
I was wondering who pinched who, figures. The "beans" gave it up.
The bonus artist makes beautiful art too.
Truly stimulating, the paintings and your commentary! Thank you!
A new video by you always makes me so happy! And I have never heard of this artist before! I'm watching it right now! Awesome😮😅😊
EXCELLENT work! Tanguy is a major influence for me as an artist and your interpretation of his work is outstanding!
I thoroughly enjoyed this video!
Keep up the amazing work!!!
As a child looking through the encyclopedia entry on art, I was captivated by a Tanguy dreamscape. The seemingly infinite expanse with enigmatic shapes seemed at once strange and familiar, as if Tanguy had painted an image from a dream I couldn’t quite remember.
please do like a part two to this, you'd make me so happy if you'd do like an hour long video on Yves tangy, but im probably dreaming there, id watch it like 100 times
Thank you. Always leaves me inspired, drawing on my innermost thoughts toward a new creation.
Thank you for introducing me to this amazing artist, I'm very surprised to have never heard of him!
On the note of surreal and untangible art, I would love to see works of Ivan Seal to be discussed on your channel someday ❤
I just discovered and loved this artist recently this is so perfect I love your channel so much !!
22:48 to me, that vague shape in the sky looks like some far away nebula that's barely visible, obscured by the polluted atmosphere
Thanks again for another great video, I really admire all the work you do!
Thank you for your thoughtful insights on this artist. And really excited to explore more of his work. I'm also super intrigued by Matej Kollar's work. I really enjoy your narrating voice and intelligent writing style. Peace.
Love his art! Big fan 👍
Thank you for this insightful interpretation of Yves work. I absolutely agree that the disconnected artifacts in the 1st painting depict Emotions - All emotions have impact, but some leave greater shadows on the soul. . I strive in my own drawings which have evolved over the last 2 years, to depict emotions in many ways. Yves and other surrealists seem to have mastered this already. Indefinite Divisablilty appears like a prophetic view of recent - as AI learned to create art.
For years my appreciation of Tanguy's paintings just grows. Creepy but amusing dude
Space age junk left on a desolate moon
Thank you. I feel better now.
Yves Tanguy I would say is a true surrealist that evoked a lot of hidden meaning and really evokes the imagination. I was lucky enough to see one of his works at the TATE MODERN many years ago. I saw Indefinite Divisibility which was very interesting but I didn’t know who the artist was until later after I read about him.
great video, keep it up
Great presentation! Your vids are the best!
Superb analysis. Thank you so much.
He remains outrageously underrated.
We've got a Tanguy in the local art museum and it really grew on me.
I thoroughly enjoyed that.
what is the name of the track you used in the beginning? Ty! Amazing choice and fits the paintings atmosphere perfectly.
Verism mixed with abstraction mixed with biomorphism mixed with surreal landscape painting. Thanx for this one Blind Dweller. Love Ras Steyn MFA❤❤❤
There really is a connection to the methods I see in Salvador Dali's work. It's amazing!
Thanks a lot Blind Dweller . Perhaps we should listen to " Crippled Symmetry" by Morton Feldman while drifting away , escaping all thought while entering the Tanguy state of mind . Great Video !
This is kind of odd, since I've often described the structural forms in Tanguy's paintings as being "asymmetrical" (which I guess would be a fairly common response). But as a term, "Crippled Symmetry" describes them far far better. Thank you!
Salvador Dali to Yves Tanguy's neice:
"I stole everything I know from your uncle Yves."
It's very refreshing to know that a semi-megalomaniacal semi-narcissist like Salvador Dali could actually be so honest in his admission to another artist's influence. Please don't get the wrong idea: I like Dali quite a lot, but the guy did have a monster-sized ego---as he himself occasionally conceded.
@@ashleys9397 and add fascist, to adjectives of Dali
I sometimes have dreams of which I remember only a single scene. That's how i'd describe Tanguy's artwork. A scene in a dream that you remember being a part of but have no sense of familiarity towards. No, I haven't been there, but oh do I know it from somewhere deep inside my head
Tanguy always electrified my imagination, even when I first discovered him as a kid. Seemed as if Dali wanted to do what Tanguy did, but somehow failed. Tanguy was one of a kind. Still fascinates me, and I can examine his works for hours...
Wow never heard of this artist and I love their work! Reminds me of NMDA receptor journeys
I wish you would consider doing a video on painter Phillip C. Curtis, Wilfredo Lam as well as things like Survival Research Laboratories.
Survival Research Laboratories ROCK! Anyone who hasn't seen any of their amazing videos should download them for an evening's (or afternoon's) viewing.
I didn't know him. Thank you for wideming my horizon
You should look into julia soboleva for a video! Dont know much a about her but her paintings were the first to make me stop and think "wow". Sometimes I find them interesting, and other times I see them in a different way and spend ages looking through all her paintings- truly magical.
5:23 Mama Papa is Wounded: I always thought of the long spike to the right was Papa and the gray cloud was his trauma, a spread of blood or even the exhaust from a war machine. I also saw the cactus-like figure as Mama and that she was coming to embrace Papa. I thought the little beans in the center were the children, with the smallest one being so young that it's just floating and not even grounded like the other figures.
My opinion of the multiplication, if youd like. I feel like it shows the human exploration of earth but not the world. We build relentlessly, creating cities and homes. Yet the sky will always be clear and untamed by man. Planes were common by the 1920s and this was made in the 1950s. But those are only temporary, and we cannot actually build in the air or sky.
Thank you!
Non lo conoscevo...è strabiliante come sia in molti modi affine a me.grazie
As far as I'm concerned, Tanguy is the uncontested maestro of Surrealist landscape (or "mindscape", as I like to call it), surpassing by leaps the formal illusionistic refinements of Dali and Magritte. You rightly pinpointed Chirico as a primary influence; but whereas the latter's haunted cityscapes---with their fleeting shadowy apparitions, ominously inviting architectures, ambiguous perspectives, and dreamily enigmatic atmospheres---remain grounded in the setting of a familiar and still identifiably human realm, Chirico's admirer formulated a thoroughly alien pictorial vocabulary inhabited by amorphously defined lifeforms and asymmetrical structures carefully rendered in a precise three-dimensional biomorphic style wherein one finds few referents to anything resembling an objectively recognizable human world. I've always been drawn to the way Tanguy's horizons---with their diaphanously milky bands cutting uninterruptedly through the picture plane---evoke an endless extraterrestrial planet whose inner-layered structures bring to mind a distinctly forbording (though not at all earth-like) desert terrain.
(And while mulling over the evocation of extra-terrestrial other-worldliness it's apt to point out how a distinct "Tanguy style" had plainly worked itself into the graphic art that came to illustrate so much of pulp science fiction and fantasy. I would invite anyone to examine a representative sampling of paperback SF book and magazine covers from the Fifties, Sixties, and into the Seventies. I think you'll see what I mean.)
(And by way of closing, allow me to offer a boffo suggestion for a possible future segment: I'd love to see you take on the beautifully grotesque & polymorphously perverse art and no doubt still controversial legacy of Hans "The Dollmaker" Bellmer. Now there's a genuinely subversive artist to challenge every type of sensibility.)
Dweller, love your channel. Was wondering if you’d consider an idea of a video on James Hampton’s Throne Of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly. It’s story is worth looking up.
This makes me think of a New Yorker cartoon. A monk is looking at Michaelangelo painting the ceiling at the Sistine chapel and saying, "It's nice Michaelangelo, but is it art?"
I've always been intrigued by Tanguy's works.
Some other artists that draw me are Matta and De Kooning. Have you made videos about them?
Brilliant video as always. What’s the background music? Ambient and industrial. I love it
I"m always surprised to visit the instagram pages of those in the artist corner.
Matej has about 150 followers. The man is basically a master and that's what he gets.
Some endless beginner will post low effort sketches daily and will be drowning in attention.
Learning a lot.
If you haven’t already, please make a video about Bertrand-Jean Redon 🙏🏼🙏🏼
The stalk with the hairs in the painting 'Mama, papa is wounded' resembles a burned out match I think, the cloud in the background maybe the result of a fire caused by the match which turned itself into a kind of plant afterwards. 😊 Maybe some some pun is at the base of this painting (it would be typical for the surrealists, who were also inspired by the writings of Raymond Roussel, who used this kind of literary devices)? Interesting to know as well is that Tanguy used matchsticks and sewing threads in his early collages like the work 'Le Phare' (the lighthouse) from 1926, now in Centre Pompidou .
Excellent ❤
great essay, thank you
I enjoyed your insightful video on the work of Yves Tanguy who depicted things never-before-seen with convincing realism. There is one detail concerning his painting, “Rose of the four winds” you may have missed. Since French was his mother tongue, this title must be his own English translation of “Rose des vents” which is a term more often rendered in English as “compass rose” - the name given to that ubiquitous device featured on ancient nautical charts indicating the cardinal directions and therefore permitting the determination of wind direction for navigational purposes. What is striking is the dominant tower and the homogeneously strewn array of jumbled objects beneath it in an otherwise featureless world. Could the tower be the indicator of North? But does the concept of North even exist in this alien landscape? And are all other directions meaningless and void, spread flat in the jumble beneath?
Amazing video!! Would you be able to do a video on Shinji Kanda? I found him through his Pokémon card illustrations funnily enough, but those and the non Pokémon art he’s made is absolutely surreal, alien, and fantastic 😊
Fascinating. I heard of the artist through a J.G. Ballard story called The Drought.
I like to think *Mama, Papa is Wounded* was just Tanguy doodling then was like, “dude, how hilarious would it be to give this some random, messed-up title, lol.”
I’m pretty sure that’s historically accurate.
I was drawn to the geometric lines which reminded me of man’s attempt to organize or find reason in things
Rose of the four winds feels oddly hopeful for me. Especially since after the war, after the violence, we could start to rebuild. It feels hopeful of the future for me
In the first painting, the long tall spiky plant reminds me of a match stick, and the black behind it could be smoke from the flames the match stick created.
@Blind Dweller I could've sworn you had a William Blake video on your channel but I can't find it. Am I wrong?
It's funny - I see the cast of characters in Mama Papa is Wounded another way.
The terrible grey mass is Papa, leaning against a crutch (covered in hairs, not spikes, as it is his replacement leg). Papa is badly scarred, perhaps disfigured and carries war with him - the beans are bullets, the sagging pillar in his background is the ruins.
The lines joining the black flames on the ground between Papa and Mama are the lines of communication of the news. She is still far away, in a place without war, imagining a wounded and mentally scarred Papa.
Noyer Indifférent can allude to someone drowning who doesn't care. Suicide by inaction - like someone who falls into the depths and doesn't mind what's to come. A dark thought. This work of his has always made me uncomfortable - I think that waa the point. Looks like we fell deep into water, sinking sinking.. we see our spirit leave and our vision go. But maybe there is still hope. Maybe the spirit isn't ours but a guardian telling us to keep trying- swim swim swim. We haven't yet crossed the line of no return, there is hope.
Just my thoughts, I have always loved Yves Tanguy.
Where I get that is the French for Noyer (drowning) and Indifférent (same as English, indifferent)
There's an extra layer of uncanniness in that the shadows are strongly cast on the ground even as it merges into the cloudscape (Not through birds etc.).
Do one of Wayne Barlowe please
I see I have something remarkably in common w/ *Tanguy* ... we have the same hairstyle🤔
love your videos but really wanna see a video on charles bronsons art
How was he painting like this ? Incredible
Please do Nam June Paik.
In "Mama, Papa is Wounded", that long spiked trunk on the right side of the painting looks a lot like a spider's leg as seen under a microscope.
woo!!!
There was one that looked literally like a flattened city...a city levelled.
The use of space & angles implies affine geometry.
Many of the shapes give me the impression that he may have been trapped on a boat with nothing but an anatomy book and a mathematician.
I always wondered if Yves Tanguy had tan lines 🤔
He certainly talked in tangents.
Tangibly so.
Dude had tan lines clear up his wazoo. Believe it.
The amorphous dark mass on the upper right is a woman’s shoulders and flowing hair looking out from the viewer. But wtf do I know?
He’s been one of my admired artist since art school.
I think the last painting of his represents the equality and limitations of humankind - noting the everything stays below the horizon line
💜💜💜