What is the title of Salvador Dalí’s 1936 painting of soft beans linked to the Spanish Civil War?

Salvador Dalí’s 1936 painting of soft beans and a contorted body is titled Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War).

The painting presents a monstrous, self-destructive form made from interlocking limbs and distorted anatomical shapes. Small boiled beans appear on the ground, providing the unusual food reference in the title. Dalí used the image to evoke the violence and internal conflict associated with Spain’s political crisis.

Dalí completed the work in 1936, shortly before the Spanish Civil War began in July of that year. The subtitle “Premonition of Civil War” connects the imagined body to the conflict, although the painting is not a literal historical scene. Its exaggerated anatomy reflects Dalí’s interest in irrational imagery and psychological disturbance.

The work is sometimes shortened to Premonition of Civil War, but the full title identifies the soft construction and its boiled beans. It is held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.