Artwork: The Face of War
Artist: Salvador Dalí
About the Work: Painted in 1940 in reaction to the Spanish Civil War, Dalí’s hauntingly surreal The Face of War represents the master at his most profound. Dalí was impacted heavily by the war, and death was a sobering reality never far from his mind.
The implication of infinite sorrow portrayed in the faces that fill the eye sockets of those that came before is a stark reminder of war’s place in modern culture. As long as humanity strives for better, we will always find justification for our atrocities – past, present, and future.
Interestingly, Dalí insisted that the handprint on the bottom-right corner of the piece was his own. It is the only work in which Dalí imprinted a part of himself, but whether it was accidental or a symbolic gesture by the artist will forever remain a mystery.