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Dali’s ‘Transparent Simulacrum…’ Has a Buttery Precision About It

By Paul Chimera

Dali Writer/Historian

 

Your dali.com blogger today is keeping it “local” with my focus on a wonderful picture Salvador Dali painted in 1938: “The Transparent Simulacrum of the Feigned Image.” The work is the one and only Dali oil in the permanent collection of the Albright-Knox Art Museum in my hometown of Buffalo, New York – and it’s a terrific example of surrealism at its finest.

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Not surprisingly, it’s one of the very first examples of original Dali art I’d ever seen. In fact, as I think about it, it surely must have been the first Dali painting I’d ever seen in the flesh, given its easy accessibility just 15 minutes down the road from my home.

 

What I remember more than anything else, upon first seeing this painting, was how buttery smooth it looks. Everything in it is photographically precise. And the predominant sandy beach foreground almost literally looks like butter. The technique is flawless and soft, precise and radiant. It makes you feel like you want to touch it.

 

It reminds us that Dali was a gifted painter whose Renaissance-like technique allowed him to make plausible even the most preposterous figments of the wildest imagination. “Hand-painted color photography” indeed!

 

Dali was a master at titling his works, and “Transparent Simulacrum of the Feigned Image” gives us an unambiguous clue as to what this picture is about. It has a wonderfully effective dream-like vibe to it, doesn’t it? From the furtive floating head at right – an image of Dali’s wife, Gala (seen positioned and portrayed in the exact same way in his “The Endless Enigma,” also of 1938, and which also features the table and fruit bowl motif) – to the sharp, exacting technique that’s consistent with the vivid nature of most dreams.

 

Dali’s penchant for double-imagery again rears its eye-fooling head, this time in the middle distance. Do you see a mountain range whose foreground offers up a body of water that spills out onto the expanse of sandy beach? Or, instead, do you see pieces of fruit in a bowl?

 

Moreover, what about that beach? Is it a beach? Or is it a table, over which part of an abandoned white cloth hangs?

 

For many years I’ve enjoyed seeing this beautifully painted canvas, my eye inevitably drawn to that realistically rendered but somewhat enigmatic cloth. What exactly is it doing there? Is it merely a random item, and thus part and parcel with the phenomenon of dreaming? Perhaps.

 

But some observers have pointed out that the cloth approximates the shape of a bird: its wing flopped over the beach’s (table’s) edge, its beak pointing to the west. Do you see it? Do you buy it? Or is this merely someone thinking he or she sees something that wasn’t actually intended? Personally, I think any resemblance to a flying bird is purely coincidental.

 

Indeed, Dali was told often by fans that they saw this, that, and the other in certain details of his works. Often he’d reply, “You ees having one very good idea – but Dali nevair theenk of it!”

 

Is it a bird? Is it a silk cloth? Is it something else? Oh, the joy of this man’s art! Be it a Dali painting, a Dali print, a Dali sculpture, or works in other mediums. As Dali used to quip, “Never a dully moment with Dali!”

Here’s Dali’s “Endless Engima,” in which you can see the same floating head of Gala at right, along with a table-like foreground and similar fruit dish double-image:

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No One Did Double-Imagery like Dali!

By Paul Chimera

Dali Historian/Writer

 

One thing Dali is best remembered for is his mastery of the double-image. What fun he must have had orchestrating and executing these eye-fooling, mind-bending visual effects. And what fun we have enjoying them, because most everyone likes to be astonished by great, engaging, sometimes playful art.

 

One of the best examples of Dali’s double-imagery is “Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach” (1938). I’ve seen this picture in Dali’s “Optical Illusions” traveling exhibition, when it opened in Hartford, Connecticut, and again some years later in a special exhibition in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

 

It’s a truly great painting, meticulously executed and replete with rich, wonderful details.

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In typical enigmatic, intentionally confusing fashion, nowhere in its title is the most prominent image mentioned – that of the large beagle dog. Its body emerges from various details of entirely different elements: a bridge or aqueduct doubles as its collar; its snout is a white winding road; its eye is a whole cut through mountainous background terrain; its right front paw is at the same time the “foot” of the white fruit dish; and the top of the dog’s back simultaneously serves as an arrangement of pears.

 

Meanwhile, the stem of the dish becomes the bridge of the nose of the central face, whose eyes are formed by a shell (or is it a vase?) and a sleeping child, while the lips are one and the same with the back of a veiled seated woman.

 

The table-like beach – or the beach-like table – recalls Dali’s  canvas, “Transparent Simulacrum of the Feigned Image,” also of 1938; both also feature a strewn white cloth. And both feature fruit in a dish – fruit that doubles for something else as well.

 

So why was Salvador Dali so fascinated with double-images?

 

I think the answer is two-fold. Dali loved visual phenomena and optical illusion. I think he fancied himself as something of a magician, an alchemist. He could turn a dog’s dark nose into the highlight of a distant passageway better than anyone else. And he knew this kind of thing was simply clever and fun.

 

A second reason for Dali’s focus on double-imagery is that it was a technique consistent with the notion of true paranoia, a phenomenon with which Dali was obsessed.  He knew that actual paranoid people often see things that aren’t there. Or think they do, I should say.

 

Dali went on, in fact, to devise his so-called “Paranoiac-Critical” creative method, essentially a system whereby he would invoke a paranoid state to produce the kind of visions paranoids might have – hidden images, double-images, disappearing images – yet possess the “critical” ability to transcribe these visions onto canvas, so that the rest of us may see them.

 

There are additional and impressive double-image details in “Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach,” especially in the distant space under the dog’s head. It reminds the astute Dali observer of the kind of endless background double-imagery we find in another great Dali painting, “Impressions of Africa” – and, yes, this one was also painted in 1938.

 

Colorful, beautifully painted, and full of visual surprises, “Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach” is truly one of Dali’s best examples of pure surrealism – and a favorite work in the collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut.

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‘The Great Masturbator’ Holds a Mirror to Dali’s 25-Year-Old Psyche

By Paul Chimera

Dali Historian/Writer

 

For this blogger, the toughest thing I have to grapple with when talking about Dali’s “The Great Masturbator” is its title. Call me a hopelessly conservative guilt-ridden old curmudgeon, but I still cannot say I’m fully comfortable telling people the name of this work.

 

But this blog is all about Dali – and this painting (OK, I’ll say it again: “The Great Masturbator”) is part of the open book that was Dali’s life at this time, shared via his revealing surrealist paintings of the very late 1920s and the mind-probing decade of the 1930s.

 

“The Great Masturbator,” painted in 1929, is almost literally a lobotomist’s view into the mind of a 25-year-old Dali, swirling with angst, sexual yearnings and fears, erotic thoughts, and curious sources of personal shame and terror.

 

The huge yellow head, its long-lashed eye closed, its prominent nose shoved to the ground, derives from a very specific rock formation Dali saw daily along the landscape of his home in Port Lligat, Spain. It was the impetus for the same-shaped figure – some call it fetus-like – that appears in the foreground of Dali’s most famous picture, “The Persistence of Memory.” And, as in “Persistence,” in “Masturbator” it is meant to be a self-portrait. (Some have suggested it looks like a painter’s palette – a perfectly plausible interpretation.)

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So what was on Salvador’s mind when he was painting this picture? Everything! Let’s start with sex, shall we. Eroticism underpinned a great deal of Dali’s art, and here we see a seductively posed woman on the cusp of fellatio. A phallic lily flower is close by, and, coupled with the trickle of blood, conjures up thoughts of deflowering (or possibly castration).

 

Lovers embrace at the bottom center of the painting, but something huge and menacing towers above them: a horrifying grasshopper in immense scale, its belly bloated with a swarm of ants, as the insect clings to Dali’s face! Such a concept literally terrified Dali, whose panic fear of grasshoppers was widely known.

 

Meanwhile, a lone figure at far bottom left points up a sense of isolation and dread, adding to the angst-riddled nature of this remarkable example of surrealism at its finest: everything is out there; no restraints. A self-pleasuring, anxiety-driven, erotic-minded 25-year-old lad is hardly a far-fetched concept: this was truly a Dali self-portrait!

 

A work like “The Great Masturbator” reminds us how Salvador Dali art was driven by a host of influences: the world he actually saw, the world of his dreams, and the emotions that affect us all. Speaking of dreams, one might conclude that the precariously balanced rocks and shells seen in the upper left represent the dream world, where there’s always that delicate balance between the world of dreams – and nightmares – and the waking state. One small disturbance and the balance is off; everything changes.

 

The rock-inspired head in this important painting informed countless Dali paintings, Dali prints and other works that followed – the most significant of which was 1932’s “Persistence of Memory.” Underscoring how important Dali’s native countryside was in influencing the imagery that appeared so impressively on the canvases of the Catalan master.

 

 

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‘Apotheosis of Homer’ is Quintessential Surrealism and more!

By Paul Chimera

Dali Historian/Writer

 

If there’s any doubt that Salvador Dali was a genius and master painter, it’s promptly dispelled when you feast your eyes on his 1944-’45 painting, “Apotheosis of Homer.”

 

This just might be a kind of masterful surrealist counterpart to Dali’s more pop and op art sensation, “Tuna Fishing” (1967-’68), in that – like “Tuna Fishing” – “Apotheosis of Homer” manages to synthesize a medley of ideas, influences and techniques in a single truly impressive masterpiece.

 

On the broader perspective, the title tells us Dali has paid homage to the Greek poet, Homer, whose works “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad” are iconic examples of classic literature. Dali’s art was heavily influenced by mythology, and he himself believed his ancestry could be traced to Greece.

 

Homer was blind, and Dali brilliantly conveys that by depicting the bard hewn from rock, while the angel of speech – as Dali explained it – is born from his mouth, not without a drop of blood.

 

Moving from left to right, we see a Baroque scene in the sky of rearing horses, naked women, and trumpeting cherubs, while, at right, a reposed Gala – looking very much as she did in “One Second Before Awakening from a Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate” (1944) – dreams of a mélange of images, some not so comforting.

 

One is the twisted, contorted and melting human figure, perhaps symbolizing nightmares. The nightmare of war – in the wake of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima – doubtlessly influenced Dali here, conveying a disquieting mood of unease.

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To my knowledge, your Dali.com blogger is the only Dali expert to have pointed out recently that this horrifying figure is unmistakably the forerunner of the similarly anguished central figure in Dali’s “Vision of Hell” of 1962.

 

On a more specific level, “Apotheosis of Homer” opens the floodgates on an admixture of extraordinary details floating around in this exceptional Dalinian dream snapshot – surely one of the greatest paintings in all of Surrealism. And some of the familiar Dali symbols and visual devices make an appearance here as well.

 

The iconic Dali crutch appears in several places, including one tied with a string to a thick piece of bamboo – helping to support the forward-leaning statue of Homer.

 

Dali’s fascination with how the shape of one thing can suddenly morph into something different can be seen in the painting’s upper left. A bird with outstretched wings becomes, below it, the shape of a snake, below which is the similar form of a bow (and arrow), and then – moving further down – the same basic form becomes a recumbent man over a supine woman.

 

A strange bust of a man, whose head is also a walnut, is seen again, reduced to broken pieces on the ground. Balls, peaches, beans and other elements populate this truly fanciful canvas painted with the precision of a Renaissance master.

 

Indeed, it’s more than likely that Dali was influenced by Hieronymus Bosch’s renowned masterpiece, “Garden of Earthly Delights.” The big difference here is that, unlike the dark spirit of Bosch’s work, Dali imbues his work with the bright light of the Mediterranean, which informed most of his work most of his life. The city of Munich, Germany, is surely fortunate to have this remarkable painting in its midst.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Soft Watches on a Grand Scale at Dali’s 1939 World’s Fair Pavilion!

By Paul Chimera

Dali Historian/Writer

 

A large Salvador Dali painting (done in four adjoining sections) often overlooked when considering the wall-size works of the Surrealist master is his 1939 “Dream of Venus.”

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Thirty-five-year-old Dali created this picture – chockablock with iconic Dalinian images and symbolism – expressly as a backdrop inside his trippy and controversial Dream of Venus pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City.

 

Dali was one smart surrealist! He knew how vital this high-visibility project would be to his quest to bring Surrealism to the masses. And a little dash of controversy didn’t hurt.

 

Dali’s originally proposed entrance-way to his fantastic pavilion was to feature his reassignment of a fish’s head on the famous figure of Venus from Botticelli’s well-known painting, “Birth of Venus” (1482). But World’s Fair officials rejected the idea, claiming it was too outrageous.

 

Furious, Dali published a manifesto, protesting the fair authorities’ decision. It was titled, “Declaration of the Independence of the Imagination and the Rights of Man to His Own Madness.” The cover featured Dali’s sketch of the fish-head Venus he’d envisioned for his pavilion.

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This document and the conviction behind it – coupled with Dali’s exoneration by a court magistrate, after he’d been detained the same year for smashing through the Bonwit Teller store window after protesting a rearrangement of his window display without his permission – helped catapult the artist into high regard for his sense of authenticity and defense of creative license.

 

Speaking of imagination, Dali’s “Dream of Venus” 4-panel painting is, as noted, a painting seemingly forgotten about when one considers large-scale Dali works, and his most famous painting, “The Persistence of Memory” in particular.

 

Here we have a huge re-interpretation of “Persistence of Memory,” eight years after that small jeweled masterpiece was created. Ironically, many people who’ve seen reproductions of the original 1931 canvas assume it’s large; it’s actually about the size of a laptop computer screen!

 

Eight years later, Dali painted the multi-panel version, remaining faithful to the composition of “Persistence,” but now on a gigantic scale – and with several added elements, including a burning giraffe and a figure with drawers, sporting a lobster hat.

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The pavilion – an undersea grotto – featured a provocative array of partially nude women (mermaids) and a mélange of curious props that made for a sexy surreal experience. It had to be the most exotic and “naughtiest” pavilion at the ’39 World’s Fair!

 

Dali’s own lifelong dream was to fulfill a promise he’d made to his mother, who died when he was just 16: he would become not only a successful artist, but the most famous one in the world. Three years before his World’s Fair sensation, he landed on the cover of TIME magazine – about as quintessential a symbol of success as one could hope for.

 

And, on the cusp of the 1940s – where Dali spent most of the decade in the United States during World War II – he was about to be deluged with numerous commissions, from society portraits to endless commercial projects. Salvador Dali was well on his way to fulfilling the pledge to his mother, and then some!

 

 

 

 

 

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Dali’s ‘Lincoln’ Remains One of His Most Beloved Works of Art!

By Paul Chimera

Dali Historian/Writer

 

Given the absolute stunner of a presidential race just concluded in America, let’s look at Salvador Dali’s depiction of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, in a work commonly referred to as the “Lincoln” painting, or “Lincoln in Dali-Vision,” but whose actual title is “Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at a Distance of 20 Meters is Transformed into the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko),” 1976.

 

You’ll note that year was the U.S.A.’s celebration of its bicentennial, and it made sense that Dali would pay homage to the nation that in effect served as his second home for so many years.

 

It’s known that Dali was first inspired to choose this subject after seeing a computer-quantified image of Lincoln in this basic fashion – comprised of monochromatic cubes loosely assembled, but which invited the mind to “fill in” the missing space to allow a discernment of Lincoln. The image appeared in Scientific American magazine, a favorite read for the inquisitive, scientific-minded Dali. The optical science behind it all intrigued him.

 

Dali didn’t care much for purely abstract art, but he liked using abstraction as a jumping-off point, then developing a more representational work. Such is the case here, gaining some inspiration and nodding to popular abstract-expressionist Mark Rothko, who popularized large square and rectangular shapes and a color-rich palette.

 

No surprise, of course, that Dali’s wife Gala would literally be front and center, seen nude from behind contemplating the sea onto which she gazes through a cross-shaped window, above which we find reference to Dali’s iconic religious masterpiece, “Christ of St. John of the Cross.” This time Christ’s head does double duty as the blinding sun as well.

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It still surprises me – because it’s uncharacteristic of the enigmatic Dali – that he actually included, in the lower left of this large canvas, a small image of Gala pointing toward a more easily discerned image of Lincoln. Thanks, Salvador, for being so helpful here!

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As many times as I’ve looked at reproductions of this very popular Salvador Dali painting, I must say I was delightfully surprised at how truly vivid and spectacular it is in person; no reproduction does it justice. It hangs in the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

 

Some works are consistent crowd pleasers, and Dali’s “Lincoln” clearly is one of them. Museum-goers tend to have great fun finally seeing the Lincoln portrait. Often they need to squint their eyes to flatten the depth of field in order to bring the portrait into focus. Or, alternatively, they’re advised to step back – just as Dali instructed in the picture’s title – before the iconic U.S. president’s image appears out of nowhere.

 

A Dali print of this colorful and impressive image has remained a popular one, just as this oil is a big hit at the St. Pete Dali Museum. A similar though slightly different version of this work – painted on photographic paper, oddly enough – is in the collection of the Teatru-Museu Dali in Figures, Spain.

 

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The Beautiful Vaulted Dali Painting No One Knows About!

By Paul Chimera

Dali Historian/Writer

 

When your journey takes place in the head of Salvador Dali, there are bound to be mysteries along the way.

 

Today’s post explores one of the finest Dali paintings no one ever talks about – because virtually no one knows of it! It goes by either “The Hour of the Monarchy” or “The Royal Hour.”

 

*** (Further in this post, I reveal how Dali came up with the intricate mosaic around the circumference of this work.) ***

 

There’s good reason why the10-foot-diameter painting is round: it was meant for and appears on the domed ceiling of the Albeniz Palace in Barcelona, Spain. This grand building is where Spain’s king stays when he visits Barcelona, and my research indicates no one but Spanish royalty is allowed in this edifice, and then only on very special occasions.

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This would account for there being very little known, or at least published, about this unique Salvador Dali masterpiece. It’s presumed Dali painted it at Port Lligat and then it was installed on the palace ceiling. But for all we know, Dali may have literally painted it directly on the ceiling, a la Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel! (Doubtful, but intriguing to ponder.)

 

What we can consider, with some certainty, are some of the interesting elements in this work.

The outer circumference mosaic – I believe this fact has been virtually unknown to most Dali aficionados until now – is based directly on Andrea Mantegna’s ceiling fresco in Mantua, Italy, titled “Putti and Servants.” Here’s an image of it — see for yourself:

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Dali often quoted details from other artists’ work in his own creations. In this case, he did a literal transcription of the Mantegna piece, as you can see from the reference photo I’ve included here. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Mantegna can feel flattered indeed! Moreover, it’s clear that the entire concept of the low-angle perspective — forcing us to look heavenward — owes to Mantegna’s concept.

 

Moving inward from this interesting outer-ring design, our eye is drawn upward into the work and the sky to which everything is headed, thanks to the foreshortened perspective Dali chose. He was able to paint his models quite accurately this way through the use of a glass floor in his studio. It’s inevitable that we might compare this angle of vision to that seen in Dali’s “Ascension” painting of 1958, which I recently blogged about. A similar effect was achieved in Dali’s lovely “Dance of the Flower Maidens,” itself a circular composition.

 

Dali’s signature soft watch is a delightful tromp l’ oil detail, drooped over a dowel – again plucked directly from the Mantegna fresco (the dowel, not the watch!) – whose shadow is realistically cast on the outer design work. The cypress trees link the work to Dali’s Spanish countryside, while the wooden art manikin reminds us of the fundamentals of the craft of which Dali was a master.

 

Meanwhile, swallows fly in a circular pattern, appearing smaller as we move deeper, or rather higher into the painting, ultimately forming a logarithmic spiral whose mathematical properties Dali was fascinated with.

 

Finally, the silhouetted female figure at left is surely Dali’s wife and muse, Gala, who has made an appearance in countless Dali paintings, drawings, and watercolors. A red crown tops off the royal aura of this magnificent work, which, sadly, precious few have had the opportunity to see.

 

Call it “The Hour of the Monarchy.” or “The Royal Hour.” Or, perhaps, “The Royal Mystery”!

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‘Ecumenical Council’ Perhaps Best Known for Dali’s Self-Portrait

By Paul Chimera

Dali Historian/Writer

Whenever Salvador Dali took on any major project, the world watched and waited – sometimes with bated breath. With so unpredictable a figure as Dali, you never quite knew what to expect from this eccentric denizen of contemporary counter-culture.

 

So when Dali declared in 1959 that he was working on a major canvas in homage to the coronation of Pope John XXIII and his revolutionary Ecumenical Council – which portended seismic changes in the Catholic Church – the public wondered just what would land on Dali’s 10 ft. x 8 ft. canvas.

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True to form, Dali created what has come to be applauded as a dynamic and beautiful religious tribute – even if it seemed he had a pact with himself – like Norman Rockwell – to put his own image in many of his masterpieces. And, while he was at it, who should appear in the pose of Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses but Dali’s wife, Gala!

 

Dali depicts the Trinity with God the Father at the top, whose face we never see; the Son is seen with a cross in his left hand; and the Holy Spirit symbolized by the dove above his head.

 

Patron Reynolds Morse, who purchased this 1960 work ($250,000, as I recall) for what is now the Dali Museum of St. Petersburg, Florida, was fascinated by its underlying mathematics. He noted that the cross is at the center of converging lines, forming four triangles that neatly section the composition. Just below that point is the scene of the Coronation.

 

But what “The Ecumenical Council” has come to be most noted for is the extraordinary self-portrait of Salvador Dali. It is clearly a nod to Dali’s favorite artist, Diego Velasquez, reminiscent of the 17th century master’s self-portrait in his legendary painting, “Las Meninas.” It is a wonderfully realistic and trenchant image of Dali and is one of the most reproduced details of any Dali work.

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I remember, when I was publicity director of the original Dali Museum in Beachwood (Cleveland), Ohio, watching Eleanor Morse talk to groups about this part of the painting. She would note that, while Dali always said he wanted to achieve true three-dimensionality from a flat surface, she believed he had already achieved it in this remarkable self-portrait.

 

When you go to the Dali Museum in Florida, take note of how Dali’s right hand seems to project from the canvas – almost like the holograms he created 10 years later!

 

That kind of realism – also seen in the impressive technical handling of Gala’s garment – is counterpoised with the zig-zag technique with which Dali painted the Christ image. This and other instances of a more free-form approach in “Ecumenical Council” was intended to represent the fast-moving atomic particles that had so fascinated Dali, as modern science was focused on nuclear physics – a phenomenon that was informing much of Dali’s work at the time.

 

While some questioned Dali’s judgment for putting himself and his wife in a holy picture like “The Ecumenical Council,” I look at it this way: Dali was proud of himself…he worshipped Gala…so why not!

 

 

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Dali Turns Mundane into Masterpiece with ‘Dionysus’ Miniature

By Paul Chimera

Dali  Historian & Writer

There are so many Dali paintings, Dali prints, Dali drawings, Dali…everything that are positively stunning, yet often don’t garner the banner headlines the artist’s larger, more widely known works do.

 

Dali art doesn’t have to feature soft watches, burning giraffes, spider-legged elephants – or be massive in size – to be sensational.

 

Today’s post is a case in point – a shout-out to Salvador Dali’s miniatures. There are plenty of very small paintings by Dali that are tiny in dimension but huge in wow factor.

 

Case in point is the delightful Dali canvas spotlighted in today’s blog post: “Dionysus Spitting the Complete Image of Cadaques on the Tip of the Tongue of a Three-storied Gaudinian Woman.” What’s remarkable about this gem of an oil is that, in its small but stunning space, it actually expresses a multitude of styles.

 

Once again, as previous posts have noted, Dali could take anything – virtually any everyday object – and, like an alchemist, turn the mundane into the miraculous. The grapes, oranges and cherries are quoted from a school primer, but destined to be the jumping off point for this 12-1/4-inch by 9 inch 1958-’60 miniature masterpiece.

SPAIN: SALVADOR DALI "PRESSENS BILD PHOTOGRAPHE" "LASCH KARY H." ESPAGNE "PHOTO D'ARCHIVE" CADAQUES "ANNEES 50" "DALI SALVADOR SEUL" "ARTISTE FONCTION" "PEINTRE FONCTION" "ESPAGNE NATIONALITE" "SEANCE DE POSE" CLOSE-UP "CHEZ LUI ATTITUDE" INTERIEUR ATELIER "TRAVAILLANT ATTITUDE" "PEIGNANT ATTITUDE" "DESSINANT ATTITUDE" TABLEAU PEINTURE TAILLE CHEVALET "EN JAUNE ATTITUDE" "IMAGE NUMERISEE"

Dionysus was the god of fertility and wine, and here Dali’s inventive mind – the most creative in all of Surrealism – takes over to show the phallic wine bottle become part of Dionysus, who spits out – as the picture’s title promises – an image of Cadaques, Spain, which is being deposited on – what else! – the tongue of the Guadinian woman. The reference is to Antoni Gaudi, the Barcelona architect whose undulating building style greatly influenced Dali.

 

Dali makes no effort to shield the female figure’s genitalia, while the bold red cherries double as the other figure’s testicles!

 

I mentioned earlier the many styles Dali reflected in this action-packed picture. In the upper left we see a precisely executed pointillist scene of field workers — surely a nod to Millet, the French painter whose painting, “The Angelus,” Dali was obsessed with.

 

As your eye follows from that point clockwise, the technique becomes more “atomic,” revealing Dali’s growing interest in nuclear physics and the dematerialization  of matter. Even a few rhino horns make an appearance, as Dionysus’s leg begins to disintegrate (Dali was taken by how a rhinoceros horn is a naturally occurring logarithmic spiral.)

 

The precision of the paint application when we study the oranges, the books and other elements in this tight miniaturist composition remind us that Salvador Dali was a supreme realist who could match technical skill with anyone.

 

We’d love to know exactly what was going through Salvador’s mind when he set out to create such an unusual work as “Dionysus Spitting….” But one thing worth pointing out is the man often had a sense of the beautiful and the grotesque running through his mind simultaneously. Even if it began with a children’s school book!

As a result, we see the eroticism and somewhat disquieting aggression of the spitting male figure and the bare-breasted female with distended vagina, while at the same time enjoy a sun-suffused outdoor scene, including children playing, above the image of Cadaques.

 

Perhaps Dali was like that box of chocolates from Forrest Gump: you never quite know what you’re going to get.

 

 

 

 

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Ancient Sculpture Inspires a Modern Dali!

By Paul Chimera

Dali Historian & Writer

Salvador Dali was influenced by…EVERYTHING! A random shadow cast by tree limbs gave rise to inspiration. A commercial image on brand name packaging triggered a vision.

But there were also certain long-standing interests Dali cultivated that drew him in and shaped the ideas for his next masterpiece.

Such was the case in his seldom considered but quite fascinating “Rhinocerotic Disintegration of Illisus of Phidias” (1954). In this case, a classic Greek sculpture of Illisus, the river god – from the Parthenon in Athens – proved an ideal body of water for Dali to navigate.

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Greek mythology was one of numerous interests Dali passionately pursued throughout his career, accounting for many of the prevailing themes, as well as smaller elements in his paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture.

Painted at the height of Dali’s Nuclear-Mystical period, “Rhinocerotic Disintegration” is a textbook example of how Dali melded classical themes with contemporary interests – in this case his fascination with nuclear physics and the discontinuity of matter. These were things science was revealing at the time, and Dali reflected these discoveries in the “atomic” manner in which he was now depicting ordinary objects.

The “ordinary object” here is Phidias’s marble statue (see photo of actual sculpture) – reimagined through a Nuclear-Mystical lens. What an exciting example of the “Dali difference,” to which I’ve been referring in my blog posts, exclusively for The Salvador Dali Society, Inc.

Dali shows us what an ultra-solid object like a marble statue essentially looks like at the sub-atomic level: a phenomenon where protons and electrons of unimaginable minuteness reveal a world where particles of matter do not touch; everything is “rumping and jumping about!” to quote Dali’s amusing explanation.

The chest of Illisus is transparent, and the cube within it is a nod to geometric principles devised by the ancient Greeks. Meanwhile, his legs and left arm are dematerialized in a riot of atomic-like particles, many in the shape of rhino horns, whose naturally occurring logarithmic curve captivated Dali to pretty much an obsessive degree.

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Even the sea above which the river god reclines is detached from the earth, further emblematic of the nuclear view Salvador Dali was taking of the world at this point in his prodigious career. Meanwhile, the starfish and sea urchin shell, together with the distant terrain, inexorably link the painting to the influences of Dali’s Spanish homeland.

We cannot help but sometimes draw comparisons between Dali works. The detachment of the sea from the ground below it undoubtedly reminds Dali aficionados of Dali’s 1950 painting, “Dali at the Age of Six When He Thought He Was a Girl Lifting the Skin of the Water to See the Dog Sleeping in the Shades of the Sea.”

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I think it was Dali patron Reynolds Morse who coined the term “Dalinian Continuity,” whereby Dali linked his various morsels of Surrealism by intentionally repeating certain concepts and images.

How satisfying it must have been to Dali, being able to pay homage to the Greek artists and gods he revered, while holding up a mirror to the modern world in which he became his era’s greatest artist.

(“Rhinocerotic Disintegration of Illisus of Phidias” is in the Teatru-Museo Dali, Figueres, Spain.)