Apparently, I’m not much of a dreamer, at least where it counts. Had I been a patient of Sigmund Freud, he’d still be wallowing in obscurity; and the Surrealist Art Movement would have simply faded along with the majority of my dreams every morning.
Salvador Dali; now there’s a dreamer if this Spaniard's art is any indication!
Salvador Dali; now there’s a dreamer if this Spaniard's art is any indication!
Watching Camembert cheese melt proved inspirational for Dali’s famous "The Persistence of Memory."
By some accounts, Salvador Dali was an eccentric paranoid, as controversial as he was provocative. It’s the egg versus the chicken dilemma. Which comes first – the artist or the eccentric?
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
Let me reiterate; I’m not much of a dreamer, at least when it comes to slapping oil on canvas. I’m decent when it comes to a gallon of paint and four walls.
Most would agree Dali was one of the greatest when it came to surrealist art.
I’m certainly not much of a surrealist artist, either. No dreams (at least any I can recall in the morning) to fuel my creativity.
Recurring images of burning giraffes and melting watches became Dali’s surrealist trademarks. The man was obsessed with physics: molecules and matter, space and time, particularly history and clocks.
Most would agree Dali was one of the greatest when it came to surrealist art.
I’m certainly not much of a surrealist artist, either. No dreams (at least any I can recall in the morning) to fuel my creativity.
Recurring images of burning giraffes and melting watches became Dali’s surrealist trademarks. The man was obsessed with physics: molecules and matter, space and time, particularly history and clocks.
Dali's famous burning giraffes, "Design for the film with the Groucho Marx Brothers" movie, 1937.
What can I say; with all his irrational and instinctual drives of the unconscious vividly depicted, Dali undoubtedly would have made Freud proud. Never mind the distinctively psychedelic dimension to much of Dali’s work.
I rather like Dali's timepieces! "Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory", 1952-1954.
Dali was quoted as saying, “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.”
Ah, yes, the man was definitely high on himself. How he got there, no one will ever really know.
During a recent visit to St. Petersburg’s stunning Dali Museum (more on this west coast Florida gem in a moment), I found Dali's paintings both creepy and beautiful; many were reminiscent of macabre photographs from some alien universe, the detail and clarity amazing given the medium, oil on canvas.
Ah, yes, the man was definitely high on himself. How he got there, no one will ever really know.
During a recent visit to St. Petersburg’s stunning Dali Museum (more on this west coast Florida gem in a moment), I found Dali's paintings both creepy and beautiful; many were reminiscent of macabre photographs from some alien universe, the detail and clarity amazing given the medium, oil on canvas.
Is that Dali playing a starring role in his "Geopolitical Child Watching the Birth of the New Man?"
And speaking of photographs, all my images in today’s post are digital pictures of Dali posters that were on sale inside the Museum gift shop. No photography was allowed inside the actual gallery.
Dali, an academically trained and technically brilliant 20th century painter was the master of shock and unease. Ya think! He was obsessed with themes of eroticism. No comment! Early in his career, in the 1920s, he painted bodies, bones, and symbolic objects that reflected sexualized fears of father figures and impotence; he also frequently incorporated ants to symbolize the decay that follows the inevitable, death. I can deal with ants; snakes are another thing altogether. Freud would have a field day with me!
Dali’s surrealist dreamscapes were not all nightmares, though. I rather liked his The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. In his homage to Spain, commissioned by Huntington Hartford for the opening of the Museum Gallery of Modern Art on Columbus Circle in New York in 1959, Dali covered history, religion, art, and myth with his usual flair. Granted it took a very large 14 feet by 9 feet canvas to cover it all adequately.
Dali, an academically trained and technically brilliant 20th century painter was the master of shock and unease. Ya think! He was obsessed with themes of eroticism. No comment! Early in his career, in the 1920s, he painted bodies, bones, and symbolic objects that reflected sexualized fears of father figures and impotence; he also frequently incorporated ants to symbolize the decay that follows the inevitable, death. I can deal with ants; snakes are another thing altogether. Freud would have a field day with me!
Dali’s surrealist dreamscapes were not all nightmares, though. I rather liked his The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. In his homage to Spain, commissioned by Huntington Hartford for the opening of the Museum Gallery of Modern Art on Columbus Circle in New York in 1959, Dali covered history, religion, art, and myth with his usual flair. Granted it took a very large 14 feet by 9 feet canvas to cover it all adequately.
No denying Dali's love for his native Catalan culture of Spain in this picture.
Dali was quite clever with using double images in his paintings following Leon Harmon’s photomosaic artistic approach in The Recognition of Faces, (Scientific American, November 1973). Heralding from the land of Lincoln (Illinois for those historically challenged; we all have our crosses to bear), I rather fancied Dali’s Lincoln in Dalivision.
Apparently counterfeits of this lithograph are as common as pancakes in a pancake house.
Up close, Dali depicted his wife, Gala, looking at the Mediterranean Sea. When I stepped back, this huge painting (another one of Dali’s very large canvases) transformed into a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Try squinting!
Then there was The Hallucinogenic Toreador, another extremely large canvas. Dali’s technique combines a dreamlike blur with startling clarity to create a bullfighter embedded in the Venus de Milo figures. Look for the bullfighter’s nose and mouth and chin defined by the Venus de Milo statue, second from the right. Can you see the bullfighter’s green tie; the red cape; the sequins; the montera/hat?
Then there was The Hallucinogenic Toreador, another extremely large canvas. Dali’s technique combines a dreamlike blur with startling clarity to create a bullfighter embedded in the Venus de Milo figures. Look for the bullfighter’s nose and mouth and chin defined by the Venus de Milo statue, second from the right. Can you see the bullfighter’s green tie; the red cape; the sequins; the montera/hat?
Stare too long and you could slip into a dreamlike trance.
All told, ninety-six Salvador Dali paintings are part of the permanent collection at St. Petersburg’s Dali Museum. The Museum itself was an impressive example of surrealist art that paid homage to a monumental pioneer of 20th century art.
Photo courtesy of http://www.archiii.com.
Maybe it's me, or it's simply too much Dali, but doesn't St. Petersburg's Dali Museum look a bit like a Dali landscape?
No? Okay, how about this version?
No? Okay, how about this version?
Yes, I'm obsessed with Photoshop, particularly given my memory lapses when it comes to my dreams.
Do those palm trees look like burning giraffes?
Tomorrow, a closer look at that phenomenal fortress on Florida's hurricane-prone west coast, the Dali painting that started it all, and fifteen minutes of fame.
Meanwhile, sweet dreams.
Tomorrow, a closer look at that phenomenal fortress on Florida's hurricane-prone west coast, the Dali painting that started it all, and fifteen minutes of fame.
Meanwhile, sweet dreams.
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