COMPOSITION: TÊTE FANTASTIQUE (COMPOSITION: FANTASY HEAD)
1939
Medium : pen, china ink, colored pencils on slightly grey paper
Dimensions : 27,3 x 25 cm
“Composition: Fantasy head” is a drawing in ink and colored pencil executed by Julio González on January 29, 1939.
Drawings are an important aspect of González’s work. They serve as laboratories for formal experiments, often in conjunction with his sculptures, while being artworks in their own right.
The central element of this drawing is an open-mouthed, upward-turned abstracted head, placed on top of a curved pyramidal base, and surrounded by pointed shafts. Three volumetric forms, in the shape of an arrow and a sphere, are situated to the left.
This fantastical head corresponds to a series of metamorphic works featuring half-human, half-plant creatures. It may initially conjure a radiant sun. However, the pointiness of the rays, the long sharp teeth and the screaming mouth all give the figure a menacing air, as though it were an aggressive carnivorous plant.
The date of execution—January 29, 1939—is the key to interpreting this work. It was created only three days after Barcelona fell to the Nationalists, whose coup d’état against the IInd Republic began the Spanish Civil war in 1936. The fall of Barcelona sounded the death knell for democratic Spain and signaled the beginning of the “Retirada”, the exodus of some 500,000 Spanish Republicans into France over the course of two weeks.
The blind rage exuded by this hostile hybrid creature captures González’s own anger and desperation at seeing his hometown, and soon his entire native country, fall into fascist hands. Julio González’s political engagement was featured in several exhibitions commemorating the art and legacy of the Spanish Civil War.
“Composition: Fantasy head” was donated to the Musée National d’Art Moderne by Roberta González in 1955, in honor of her aunt, Lola González. It is housed today in the Centre Pompidou Paris’s collection.
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