Yves Tanguy was a French surrealist painter famous for eating spiders as a party trick and painting misshapen rocks and molten surfaces. He painted the hyper-real world with exacting precision which helped him communicate his ideas easily.

Like most of the surrealist painters, Tanguy relied largely on personal symbolism. For example, in this painting called Mama, Papa is Wounded! the title complicates rather than clarifies the meaning of the work. I personally think that this painting and its name represent World War I. The post-apocalyptic look of this artwork gives the viewer a deep feeling of anxiety and loss.

 

Storm is somewhat different from most of Tanguy’s works. It looks more like an underwater scene rather than desert-like landscape. The life forms that swim across look a lot like real animals like jellyfish, while most of his other work is a lot more surreal.

 

Sources

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-tanguy-yves.htm

https://www.wikiart.org/en/yves-tanguy

http://davidsartoftheday.blogspot.com/2015/03/yves-tanguy-storm-black-landscape.html