Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man Seminar
Our class recently had a socratic seminar concerning the painting to the left, which is titled Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man. This painting, by Salvador Dali, portrays a man struggling to emerge from an egg that is the Earth. As he struggles, his hand smashes Europe, representing the destruction and a power shift away from the continent as a result of WWII. To the right are two figures. One of them is old and frail, while the other is an infant hiding behind the older figure's legs. The older figure is painted a style of old world Europe born during the renaissance. The figure's frailty represents that they may not be able to survive in the new world. This, along with the man's being born from the United States, represents a power shift from the European continent to the new superpower. The healthiness of the child, on the other hand, suggests that they will be able to survive and perhaps thrive in this new world, while the disproportionate size of their shadow represents their inheritance and what is expected from them. The drop of blood emerging from the egg represents the pain and struggle that the transformation and power shift is both causing and is a result of. The white sheets along with the liquidity of the third world represent the departure of the European powers that had such a firm grip on their land. Now that this grip has been relinquished, the third world is falling apart. This painting overall represents the growing power of the United States and its replacing of the European continent as the world's main superpower, while the figures represent the new replacing the old and the death of the old world.
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