Sopa D Europa Analysis

Sabal Basnet
Professor Anderson
Arts 1301-73203
21st March, 2016
Museum Critical Review Image Courtesy of the Meadows Museum
Sopa d’ Europa (Soup of Europe) is a Spanish work of art painted in 1885 by Miquel Barcelo. The piece 53 5/8*75 7/16 inches resides in the Meadows museum of the South Methodist University which is famous for housing beautiful Spanish arts. “In the painting a person is seated on the table facing the viewer with his heads in his hands. A single book lies open on the left of the table, while on the right there is a pile of books which seems like it would collapse at any moment. The figure in the painting neglects all the objects around him and seems to stare at the bowl right below him.
Barcelo also tries to bring a third dimension to the painting which otherwise would be only two dimensional by varying the depth of the painting by using various layers of paints. The figure and the gold embroidery pops out of the painting due to a thicker volume of applied pigments in those parts of the painting. The light seems to be coming directly above the figure which implies more focus on the subject and the figure staring at the bowl is more distinct. The use of primary colors in this painting is limited only to the globe which has blue color representing the water in earth. The right side of the painting is lit up by the gold covered walls in the painting whereas the left side is darker giving an emotionally jarring emotion. The painting has a lot of texture due to the uneven layers of colors around it. The figure is inside a triangle which shows it is the main subject and the painting is balanced equally with the pile of books on the right and the globe and an open book on the left though the painting is brighter on the right side compared to the left. The time in the painting is difficult to distinguish as it represents everything indoors. The scale and the proportion is true to the real world. There is a repetition of the bright and the darker patterns through the color gold and silver. “Barcelo while returning to Mallorca in 1976, he joined the avant-garde group “Taller Lunatic” and created wooden and glass boxes filled with rotting food in a meditation on decay and metamorphosis. While he would soon turn away from conceptual art, this early interest in the metaphoric potential of the transformation of organic matter persists throughout much of his oeuvre” (Meadows Museum). Barcelo in this painting gives a perfect example of what he has learnt with the pigments with his