Punching General
The Collector's Press Lithography Workshop (associated with)
1969 (Date manufactured/created)
Color lithograph on ivory wove paper
Lithograph
25 inches H
X
31 inches W
Color lithograph on ivory wove paper. Italian artist and writer Enrico Baj’s grotesque and childlike rendering of a bust-like punching bag of a military general laden with medals is part of larger series from the 1960s of army officers shown standing, saluting, or in spread-eagled positions. While stylistically Punching General bears witness to Baj’s explorations of Dada, Surrealism, and CoBrA, it also reveals his anti-war sentiment and concern over military power. In 1966, Baj narrated a short anti-war film by Raffaele Andreassi, with words that capture his social criticism: “‘Wars, generals, decorations, wounds, amputations. As a consolation, the motherland gives you a few pretty colored ribbons and maybe a medal that bears the inscription ‘smelted from the bronze of the enemy.’ All madness. Total madness.”
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