Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110
Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110 is part of a series comprising more than 140 paintings, which Motherwell worked on throughout his long career. The series functioned as the artist's memorial to the Spanish Civil War, an event that had come to symbolize for him the human tragedies of oppression and injustice. No. 110 is typical in its stark black and white palette, and interplay of ovoid and bar-like rectilinear forms. What exactly those forms are intended to mean, though, has been the subject of great debate. Some compare them to architecture, or to ancient monuments, while others read them as phalluses and wombs, which, along with the pictures' somber palette, might suggest the cycle of life and death.
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