gaurdian angels

Dorothea Tanning was born August 25, 1910 in Galesburg Illinois. She was an artist from a very young age, showing interest in her free time, as she worked first in a library, then doing school publications, and finally a booth at Chicago’s World Fair in 1931. She moved to New York and found work as a freelance commercial artist. By 1936, her career had begun, discovering dada and surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1946, she painted Guardian Angels

In an iconographic analysis of a Tanning painting, the viewer is easily lost in the surrealism; I am no exception. The surrealism of her pieces has left me with more questions than answers, but some conclusions can be drawn through a formal analysis, and educated guesses. When I tried to understand Tanning’s intent from my normal point of view, I only noticed how it was unlike reality, a dream. I hardly can understand my own dreams, much less someone else’s , so I changed my point of view. I attempted to enter Tanning’s realm of expression. Inside I found the depth of Tanning’s perception, a work of detailed symbols and emotion.

The first thing I noticed in Guardian Angels was the overall feeling I got from the paintin

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Instead, a viewer should look at it with their own perception, and take from it what they can. I believe this too, was the intent Tanning had. Finally, you reach the present moment, where the angels are in action and it becomes clear what happened to the past beds. For instance, could it mean that their innocence has been taken,? They are no longer sleeping girls, but now like the guardian angels? This should be left up to the individual viewer. The sequence begins with the furthest bed in the distance, empty. The subtle display of the sequence of the kidnapping, didn’t come to my attention until I had already started to write this paper. The blackness on the background on the right creates a sense that this world of beds is ongoing, surrounding the viewer, becoming lighter towards you as though the attention is on you; you’re next. The final frame, a display of a girl in the color and texture of the angels, being carried away.

After my mind processed the general overtone, my eyes traveled around the painting, first going to the redness in the lower center. The color red can represent many things besides the mere opposite of green, such as blood or heat. The speculation of its meaning is subject to relativity of the viewers politics, culture, and social position, which is different for everyone; I believe Tanning’s paintings are what her thoughts were at the time, and what any viewer’s thoughts are in the present. If I look deep into the image, as though I were standing on the sheets, I can see the coldness surrounding me with nowhere to run, the next in line to be carried off. If violence was the redness, it would make the act seem distinctly wrong to the viewer, even to the point that it could appear like the angels are killing the girl in the bed; I think that was her intent.

Not long after noticing the redness, my eyes traveled along the highlights of the angels.

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