SALVADOR DALI AND SURREALISM
To appreciate surrealism one must first understand it. Take a pen or a pencil, think for a minute, and write down the first words that come into your mind exactly as you think of them. Forget about the meaning of the words, and do not change one word for a better one; that would only interfere with the pure act of creation. Surrealism is the kind of writing that you just produced in that experiment. In the 1920 s a group of French writers felt that one could record as accurately as possible the thoughts of the unconscious mind. (Young 2251) However, as a result their writing made little sense to the ordinary reader. Among such senseless writing, one famous phrase elephants are contagious, by Paul Eluard, means little to the reader. Unless one realizes surrealists are more interested in free expression than in making sense in the usual way. (2251) Surrealistic painting became much more widely known than surrealistic writing in the 1920 s and 30 s. Freud had presented some exciting discoveries about dreams- how they reveal a person s innermost thoughts and how they relate to the unconscious mind. (2251) Like surrealistic writers, surrealistic painters felt that art could come out of the unconscious mind – untouched by a person s educated values. For this reason they painted their dreams. Of the many well-known painters who introduced surrealism to the public, Salvador Dali was the best and most famous by far.
The Essay on Surrealism Surrealistic Art
Surrealism "Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in an absolute reality, a surreality." - Andre Breton Surrealism was a movement in visual art and literature that took place in Europe between the first and second world wars after the Dada movement. It was ...
Rebel, genius, eccentric; so many words can be used to describe Salvador Dali, yet no one seems to understand his talents, thoughts, or actions. Salvador Dali was born May 11, 1904 in Figueras, Spain to Salvador Dali Sr., and Felipa Dome Domenech. Dali s family took notice to his growing talent and encouraged his early interests in the arts. They also created a studio in there home for young Dali to work in. As Dali s interests in art grew, he decided to enroll in The National School of Fine Arts in Madrid, 1921. There his student career echoed his future as an artist: though recognized as remarkable talent, he was eventually expelled as a troublemaker. Later on he served a short time in prison for anti government activities.
Dali s surreal, often unsettling representations have had a huge impression on modern art, as we know it today. More than anyone else, he made his audience believe that nonsense could make the best sense (and the most memorable sense too).
(Artists, 89) Dali successfully showed his childhood fears, fascinations, and dreams in a meticulously realistic style where objects from the cogent world are set upon immeasurable, dreamlike landscapes and composed with bizarre images. One writer, James Thrall Soby noted- With extraordinary invention, he has created a Freudian world which may be partly disentangled by pathological research, but which offers at face value a striking phenomenon in contemporary painting. Dali developed a widely celebrated technique during his expedition to Paris in 1928 in pursuit for a group called The Surrealists. Paranoiac-critical is a technique, which requires the artist to attain a genuine state of delusion, schizophrenic paranoia, while functioning as an interpretive medium for unconscious images. While in Paris he met surrealistic painters Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso. In 1929 Dali officially joined this group, and many of his most famous works were from this period. Such works included The Great Masturbator and The Enigma of Desire. Though some reviewers deemed his subject matter as obstinate and his symbolism as perplexing, Dali s early paintings were praised for their irreverent wit and originality.
The Essay on An Art Criticism of the Painting “Flora”
In the oil painting, Flora (Carrie Mainsfield Weir), by Julian Weir, a well-dressed Victorian woman is depicted, portrait style, sitting next to a small black table. The woman, Carrie, is also holding an array of flowers in her hand and several more stems of flowers are strewn across her lap. A silvery-gray vase sits on the table next to a large bowl filled with flower buds. Behind Carrie is a ...
The decade span from 1928 to 1938 would prove to hold some of Dali s most enduring works. Of these, the best known, and the painting most often identified with surrealism, is The Persistence of Memory. This painting typifies Dali s surrealistic art, with its precise, almost supper realistic style; the finest details of an impossible world are rendered impeccably. (Artists.92)Only a closer inspection of Dali s paintings would reveal the unsettling elements in Dali s work that made his art more a product of nightmares, rather than of dreams. Watches are malleable and melt like Velveeta on cheese fry s, odd things hatch from eggs, insects smother objects, and Beautiful women are propped up with crutches. The image of the face in The Persistence of Memory is often interpreted as a self-portrait expressive of shame and impotence. (Modern 154)
During World War II Dali and his wife moved to the United States. There, through his showy lifestyle and love for publicity, he had gained a greater status than his art ever did. Dali was very often seen engaging in some outrageous behavior in the trendy Hollywood or New York City. It is reported that once he crashed through a window of a Fifth Avenue gallery to rearrange a display of his works. Dali was also very often criticized for pulling such stunts just for the attention he would receive from the press. In fact, some think that he had little left to say in his art, and merely became consumed with his celebrity status. Toward the end of Dali s life he was also accused of signing blank sheets of paper-so that either he or someone else could add a drawing to the paper that bore his valuable signature and one day profit from it; though it was the people who ran his business life that were primarily blamed.
Egomaniac, rebel, genius, virtuoso; Salvador Dali was all of these, including a revolutionary artist who had perfected a truly modern style. Praised by many people and shamed by many critiques, Salvador Dali had created a stronghold in modern art that would have never been the same without him. By far, Salvador Dali the best and most well known surrealistic painter of all time.
The Term Paper on Salvador Dali Art Life Paintings
... modern society as well as art enthusiasts. His paintings explore the connection between fantasy and reality, stemming from the subconscious mind. Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali ... as a quintessential artist in the world today. Works Cited Rojas, Carlos. Salvador Dali, Or the Art of Spitting on Your Mother's Portrait. University ...
