“I cannot, nor, consequently, want to try to give a definition, even a simple one, to what I paint. If I did try, I would risk very much closing myself in a definition that would later become like a prison for me.”
– Yves Tanguy

hyper-real world

molten surfaces

fictional landscapes

nonrepresentational surrealism

limited palette of colours

alien landscapes populated with various abstract shapes

Tanguy was best-known for his misshapen rocks and molten surfaces that lent definition to the Surrealist aesthetic. He painted a “hyper-real world” with exacting precision. His landscapes, a high-octane blend of fact and fiction, captured the attention of important artists and thinkers from Dali to Rothko who admitted their debt to the older artist. And even Carl Gustav Jung used a canvas by Tanguy to illustrate his theory of the collective unconscious. (theartstory)

Tanguy's paintings have a unique, immediately recognisable style of nonrepresentational surrealism. They show vast, abstract landscapes, mostly in a tightly limited palette of colours, only occasionally showing flashes of contrasting colour accents. Typically, these alien landscapes are populated with various abstract shapes, sometimes angular and sharp as shards of glass, sometimes with an intriguingly organic look to them, like giant amoebae suddenly turned to stone. (Tate)