Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood (1900-1930) is a Liverpool-born painter who strongly influenced the modernist and avant-garde movement, even if he died at an early age. He jumped under a train, probably because of his strong addiction to opium. Zebra and Parachute is one of Wood’s last paintings going
in pair with Tiger and Arc of Triomphe, with its exotic touch and Surrealist flavor. It is probably inspired by the naive style of Henri Rousseau.
In the background is depicted a building with a modernist architecture, inspired by the Villa Savoye, designed by the famous architect Le Corbusier, that Wood knew very well from the time he lived in Paris. The distinctive lines of the monument contrast with the zebra’s stripes. This painting is a classical Surrealist array of the implausible and the theatrical. Similar to other Surrealist artists and poets, Wood has put unexpected things together (zebra, building, parachute) in his artwork. By this strange combination, he is creating a weird dreamlike atmosphere. If some critics saw the zebra as a representation of a modernist zoo, the addition of a parachutist swinging unhappily adds a surreal twist and a feeling of mystery.
The zebra, near a raised flowerbed that looks like a coffin heaped with funeral bouquets, is the focal center because it is placed at the convergence of two main angles while the line of the shadow leads the eye to the parachute. The parachute is the single note of decided color in this composition, successfully placed close to the canvas edge, while the color scheme for the rest is restrained (white, black, grey, and grey-blue).
The zebra may have inspired the painter Lucian Freud, who also included a zebra head in his painting entitled The Painter’s room (1944). The red and yellow zebra might be a tribute to Wood, to both the parachute and the zebra.
- Tony Goupil
P.S. We love that Surrealistic scene! Did you know that among Surrealists, there were many talented women artists? Read about them and the tribute Christian Dior payed them here. <3