Dali’s ‘Solitude’ might Capture a Certain Sentiment of the Season

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

Sometimes we get so focused on the large paintings, intricate prints, and masterful drawings of Salvador Dali that we tend to overlook some of his less prominent yet still very revealing works.

Today I’m putting the spotlight on a small oil on canvas (approx. 10” x 14”, private collection), that in a sense is profound in its simplicity. And relevant in the emotion it evokes, as unfortunately many people this time of year feel a sense of isolation.

I’m talking about Solitude (sometimes titled Solitude – Anthropomorphic Echo) of 1931.

This was the period most every critic and scholar of Dali’s life and work says was the artist’s most fertile, creative, and important in his prolific career. I’ve acknowledged that the 1930s were indeed the heyday of Dali’s best surrealism – but by no means necessarily the only period in which Dali’s talent soared.

In fact, I personally think the period beginning in the late 1940s and running into the mid-1970s was far more inventive. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Solitude presents a curious male figure who seems to be practically absorbed by the rock formation against which he leans. Part of his form morphs into shells – a kind of prop often seen in Dali’s works, such as in several important works around this same period: The Great Masturbator, The Lugubrious Game, and Illumined Pleasures, for example.

Indeed, virtually the same male figure similarly positioned is seen on the right side of Illumined Pleasures – another of countless examples of so-called Dalinian Continuity, where Dali intentionally linked many of his paintings in a thread of similar elements and objects of his own obsessions.

The shells are consistent with Dali’s lifelong fascination with the hard and soft; in this case, the hard outer shells of shell fish protective of the soft inner form.

Perhaps most significant about Solitude is the title itself; that is, the sense of solitude the canvas exudes. There is nothing on the land except for a distant rock, behind which a ghostly human figure appears to tentatively present itself. The land itself is painted in a color that makes it look almost more like sea than land. And the sky has absolutely nothing in it.

Solitude was in fact a state of being with which the young Dali was decidedly familiar, as he spent many hours alone, thinking, reading, painting, dreaming and, alas, self-pleasuring. He’s quoted as saying he was worried that his relationship with Gala would “annihilate my solitude.”

One detail I personally find interesting is the kind of delicate gold art nouveau-like ornamentation on the rock, just above the man’s left shoulder. It seems to pick up the morphology of the shells imbedded in the figure’s shoulder, yet it creates a separate curiosity all its own.

[Images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]

Feeling of Ascension sets Dali’s Depictions of Christ Apart

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

One of the hallmarks of Salvador Dali’s art was his counter-culture vision: when, in art school, his drawing instructor had the class copy a particular statue, Dali drew a pair of scales! That’s what he saw, he insisted.

How an artist “sees” is what makes him or her unique. It’s what sets one artist apart from another, and from us. It allows us to share the artist’s vision and get a peek into his soul.

When it came to depicting Jesus Christ – a most appropriate subject this time of year, to be sure – Dali’s penchant for seeing in a very special way didn’t disappoint.

In the four major religious paintings by Salvador Dali – all depicting the image of Christ – his subject is either shown ascending toward heaven, or there’s a related detail expressing the feeling of ascension. Unlike most other famous paintings of Jesus through art history, Dali showed absolutely no hint of pain, anguish, or despondency.

Perhaps the best-known painting of Christ expressing the horror of crucifixion was that of Mathias Grunewald, in his gruesome The Crucifixion of Christ. El Greco showed the torturous crown of thorns, while Dali’s favorite painter – Velasquez – portrayed a beautiful Christ form with the nails in his bloodied hands and feet, as well as His lanced right side.

But Salvador Dali’s vision was deliberately different. No nails. No thorns. Bo blood. No sense of pain or anguish. Instead, he chose to emphasize a feeling of triumph, of the victory of good or evil, and the ultimate beauty of Christ’s life and infinite meaning.

What’s more, Dali was especially interested in portraying the central significance of Christ’s time on earth – his Resurrection – thus showing a feeling of ascension in his major oils.

We see it in Christ of St. John of the Cross (1951), where the crucified savior rises high above the clouds, as we welcome his heavenly journey from the vantage point of God the Father.

A sense of ascension is likewise felt in Corpus Hypercubus (1954), as we witness the towering figure of Jesus rise from a hypercube.

And the very title of Dali’s 1958 picture, Ascension of Christ (a.k.a., Ascension), speaks of the rising Christ figure heading toward the heavens.

Finally, in The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955), the figure of Jesus Christ gestures upwards, while the torso in the central background of the large painting may be interpreted as a representation of Christ’s ascension.

These various images of Jesus Christ by Salvador Dali wield enormous favor among art lovers everywhere – expressly because they’re unconventional. Different. Unexpected. And pretty magnificent.

[All images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only.]

Dali’s Portrait of Poet Remains his Highest Auction Price

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

In the Dali world, we’re still waiting for “the big one.” No, not a California earthquake (God willing, that will never happen), but a blockbuster auction sale of a Dali painting. A sale that eclipses even heavy-hitters like Picasso and Warhol and Van Gogh.

The kind that catapults the name Salvador Dali into international headlines for all the right reasons. The kind that will have people everywhere talking about it the next morning around the office water cooler.

We can speculate about why Salvador Dali’s prices at auction haven’t risen (yet) to the level of some of his contemporaries, such as Warhol, Miro, and Magritte. And, perhaps in general, surrealist art is still somewhat arcane – and less desirable – because its appeal is, well, different.

Surrealism wasn’t exactly a sweet and tidy little place. It wasn’t a simple screen print of Elizabeth Taylor. Or a starry night landscape. Or a soup can label. It was, instead, about the relatively bizarre, and sometimes downright disturbing. So it’s not for everyone. And, in fact, it’s for a smaller segment of the marketplace than, say, a traditional landscape or a colorful abstract-expressionist picture.

But Surrealism has, in fact, gained in popularity in recent years, and auction prices of works by Surrealism’s big names – Magritte, Miro and, of course, Salvador Dali – bear that out.

While Dali hasn’t yet hit the ultra-high price levels of some others, his works have nonetheless fared very respectably at the major auction houses – and the news keeps getting better.

The all-time highest auction price to date for a Dali work (and we’re of course talking oils versus drawings, watercolors, prints, or sculpture) was the impressive $22.4 million fetched in February of 2011 for Portrait of Paul Eluard (1929, private collection). Not bad for an oil on cardboard – not canvas – measuring only some 10 x 13 inches!

The work is super significant in Dali’s oeuvre, for two key reasons. One is that it depicts the French poet Paul Eluard, who was Gala Dali’s first husband. She would of course leave him for her legendary love affair and eventual marriage to Salvador. So the subject of this portrait painting is obviously crucial.

The other thing to appreciate about the portrait is that it brings together in one tightly executed painting so many of the quintessential surrealist elements of Dali’s unique brand of art: a lion’s head, the dreaded grasshopper, the Great Masturbator head, the double image of the grasshopper’s eye also serving as that of a fish’s eye, and assorted other details that capture the personal and obsessive nature of Dali’s surrealism.

Not to mention that it was painted exquisitely by the then-25-year-old Dali.

Meanwhile, other great Dali paintings and their auction prices include Springtime Necrophilia ($16.3 million), Enigmatic Elements in a Landscape ($11 million), Study for Honey is Sweeter than Blood ($6.8 million), Night Specter on the Beach ($5.68 million), and My Wife Nude Contemplating Her own Flesh Becoming Stairs, Three Vertebra of a Column, Sky and Architecture… ($4.76 million).

It all adds up to nearly $67,000,000.00 Not bad, Mr. Dali, not bad.

[All images gratefully used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]

Dali’s Technique: ‘Not a Single Mislaid Stroke’

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

We know quite a bit about what Dali painted, but not so much about how he painted. So I was pleased to recently come across information provided by the Tate Museum in London about its 1936 painting, Forgotten Horizon, and how master Dali painted it.

The work is small, just a little larger than an 8” x 10” photograph, and was one of a series of paintings Salvador Dali did on wood panels, depicting the beach at Rosas on the Costa Brava in Spain.

Forgotten Horizon portrays that beach featuring “alluringly posed dancers meant to stimulate the imagination and subconscious,” as a Tate statement describes it. The museum did a technical analysis, revealing that, while Dali’s technique was based on tradition, he also melded methods and materials in a manner all his own.

According to the Tate analysis, Dali first painted the setting of the sky, the water and the sand over white priming, then added the dancers, which, as the Tate puts it, “seem to float in the landscape.”

Tate specialists conducted a detailed analysis of the head of the far left figure in the group, employing raking light – a bright light directed from the side to show up details of painting technique. Said the Tate: “…the texture and energy in the paint application that’s apparent in this detail belies the flat, calm appearance of the work as seen from a normal viewing distance.”

The source of the dancers is reportedly a now-lost postcard. Using infrared light analysis, Tate specialists determined that Dali was able to transfer the postcard image to the panel of wood, outlining the figures and facial details.

High-technology helped uncover Dali’s sketching: the Tate’s infrared camera “provides a series of small images which are pieced together into a mosaic,” a document notes. “Infrared light penetrates the upper layers of paint and is either absorbed by the black media used for the under drawing, such as pencil, ink, or diluted black paint, or reflected by the white priming layer. This contrasting absorption or reflection is translated into a visible black and white image, which reveals Dali’s preparatory outlines.”

As a result of ultra-violet light analysis, Tate conservators were able to conclude that “Dali either used natural resin on its own or mixed with linseed oil paint to create a more liquid media which could be laid down easily and fluidly with a very small brush.”

The central figure is said to be Dali’s cousin, Carolinetta, whom Dali featured earlier in his 1934 painting, Apparition of My Cousin Carolinetta on the Beach at Rosas.

The Tate’s microscopic analysis and magnified details illustrated its fluid quality. “Dali,” the museum notes, “had a sure hand as he laid the paint on the surface. There is not a single mislaid stroke or error in his application.”

Interestingly enough, the same trio of dancers showed up in 1935 in Dali’s Puzzle of Autumn (collection Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida). However, in this earlier version, the order of the dancers is reversed; the one on the extreme left in Forgotten Horizon is on the extreme right in Puzzle of Autumn. And their outline, as a group, is the same shape as the “puzzle pieces” in the Puzzle of Autumn work (were you aware of that before now?).

Puzzle of Autumn

All this reminds me how I’d love to know so much more about how Dali went about creating his paintings, not to mention his drawings, prints, and works in other media. Not only the technical aspects of their rendering, but the thought process that went into his works – most especially the highly complex, walls-size masterworks.

[All images used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only]

Salvador Dali: ‘A Genius with a Lot of Energy!’

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

Sometimes it seems as if the world couldn’t quite turn on its axis without the influence of Salvador Dali shining its bright light….somewhere.

Recently, that light made for a most illuminating talk at the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Its collection – donated by the late Reynolds and Eleanor Morse, originally of Cleveland, Ohio – is surely the best in the world. Included among the hundreds of Dali prints, drawings, watercolors, sculptures, holograms and more are nearly 100 oil paintings – including the very first one the Morse’s purchased in the early 1940s: Daddy Longlegs of the Evening…Hope!

And that’s where today’s story begins. Because it was the one painting selected by St. Petersburg artist Steven Kenny to try his hand at copying. And I mean copying precisely, exactly, maybe even neurotically! Right down to a particular tube of blue oil paint manufactured years ago in Barcelona, Spain.

Kenny did a quite wonderful portrait of Dali in 1993, revealing his typical painstaking technique.

Dali by Kenny

He considers himself a neo-surrealist, but, like Dali, has not shied away from commercial work, such as his ongoing commission to design eye-catching packaging for Celestial brand tea. He also did four album covers for the rock band, Journey, among other popular musicians.

Just a few days ago Kenny was the featured speaker at the Dali Museum in St. Pete, explaining through a slide presentation called Duplicating Dali how he went about copying Daddy Longlegs of the Evening…Hope! It was a fascinating adventure that Kenny originally expected would take maybe three months; in actuality, the ambitious project spanned 19 months.

I think the presentation at the museum was so interesting that, with some revisions, it could make a great PBS television special!

Kenny pointed out how Daddy Longlegs, done in 1940, was Dali’s first work painted in the United States, and that the Catalan master clearly made sure it was near-perfect. Kenny was in awe, he said, of how Dali achieved some of the effects in his work, surmising that Dali wanted this to be a truly magnificent first impression among his new American audience.

For example, in this picture, Kenny uses red lines he describes as “fan-shaped armature that helps move the viewer’s eye across the painting and gives structure to the various elements.” Translation: Dali was a perfectionist who wanted to achieve perfection.

Visual harmony, even if the violoncello is a bit limp.

Not only did the St. Pete artist do a meticulous job in copying the picture itself, but he also constructed a frame to match as precisely as possible the style of wood frame on the original, now nearly 80-year-old Dali canvas.

The original Dali stayed on the wall.

All of this is examined quite wonderfully in the video, seen below.

“He (Dali) had his issues,” Kenny commented, “but above all, he was probably just a genius with a lot of energy, because he really wore me down trying to copy this.”

What I find so noteworthy is how Salvador Dali continues to have such a wide-reaching impact on today’s artists and present-day culture. Whether it’s an outrageous outfit worn by Lady Gaga, or outstanding tattoos that are making body art so compelling today, the influence of Salvador Dali – the continuing light of his genius – cannot be denied, and shows no signs of dimming in the slightest.

Enjoy . . .

Dali and the Missing Movies

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

When it comes to Salvador Dali and film, three things leap to mind: the films Dali made; the scenes he created for films; and the films he appeared in. We think pretty immediately of creative efforts such as Un Chien Andalou and L’Age D’ Or, which he made with Luis Bunuel, and which he appeared in; Spellbound, the Hitchcock thriller for which he created the iconic dream sequence; and Destino, the animated Oscar-nominated film short in collaboration with Walt Disney Studios.

It’s not much of a leap, moreover, to consider footage that was shot of Dali, from essentially routine broadcast news stories to TV appearances on American TV game and talk shows.

But three pieces of film remain something of a mystery. In fact, I can’t say for certain if one of them even exists! I’m talking, for starters, about the 1952 multi-city tour Dali made in America, accompanied by his leading patrons, A. Reynolds and Eleanor R. Morse and, of course, the artist’s wife, Gala.

Dali, a genius at self-promotion, launched a tour through Iowa, Missouri, Texas and Florida under the banner, “Selling Nuclear-Mysticism.” It was a fairly clean break from the Surrealism that made him famous and that up to then had categorized him in the minds of critics and the art-appreciating public as the master of Surrealism. Now he was promoting his art influenced not by Freud, but by Heisenberg.

While I’ve seen a few photos of Dali on stage with Reynolds Morse, lecturing about his Nuclear-Mysticism, I’ve never seen any film footage of these tour stops. Surely there must have been cameras rolling somewhere, by someone. What a pleasure it would be to see and hear Dali on this middle-America tour. (If any reader knows where such footage can be obtained, please let us know at The Salvador Dali Society, Inc.©.)

Now to another bit of slippery celluloid. I’ve written about the CBS News film footage (or what is ABC?) I saw only once, years ago, of Dali conducting a bizarre press conference in which he “drew” on a chalkboard – using not a typical implement of draftsmanship, but instead a can of Foamy Shave Cream! (See photo).

A “lunatic” Dali paints with shaving cream and makes a mess of a famous journalist’s suit!

Well-known newsman Harry Reasoner was seated in the front row. He remained outwardly stoic, but surely stunned, when – in a flurry of effusiveness – Dali managed to “accidentally” (?) splatter a considerable quantity of shaving cream upon the doubtlessly expensive suit Mr. Reasoner was wearing.

It was one of those delightful Dalinian moments, and this blogger would like to know how that unique Dali moment could be viewed again.

Finally, there was about a 15-minute film shot by the then-vice president of Reynolds Morse’s IMS Company of Beachwood, Ohio (his name is Edward). It was taken of Dali when the artist came to Beachwood (Cleveland) on March 7, 1971, for the inauguration of his museum. I had the privilege of privately screening the 16-mm film in Edward’s home, showing Dali strutting about the one-room museum, drawing a cross on a woman’s forehead, and other details that frankly have faded from my memory over some 35 years now.

Dali and Reynolds Morse in the original Dali Museum, Beachwood, Ohio.

It all reminds me how much there’s yet to discover about Salvador Dali. Including paintings that may have never been reproduced in books or catalogs, but which will surely come to auction at some future date. We’ll be watching, and reporting.

(Images used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only)

[Special thanks to Cookie Weaver of Dali Authorities for locating the photo of the “shaving cream” press conference]

Dali & Gala were many things….but ‘co-creators?’ We think not.

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

There are probably as many myths and mysteries surrounding the life and work of Salvador Dali as there are ants, flies, and crutches that invaded his surrealist paintings, prints, drawings and other works over his long and remarkable surrealist career.

Just what is completely, verifiably true and what is not is often up for debate. I recall once receiving a photo of an alleged clean-shaven Dali; his iconic mustache was nowhere to be seen. And this was well into the years when his mustache was at its sartorial best.

Turns out the photo was altered by a clever retouch artist (this was before the days of Photoshop), giving a rather convincing appearance that Dali’s upper lip was as smooth as a Port Lligat rock softened and smoothed by the Mediterranean sea and the ferocious Tramontana winds of the Costa Brava.

Now a more credible and highly visible bit of confusion seems to be rearing its head. It’s the following comment made in a promotional brochure put out by the Museu Nacional D’Art De Catalunya on behalf of the Gala Salvador Dali exhibition: “She was also the co-artist and co-creator of Dali’s creative oeuvre. The artist himself acknowledged this fact in his writing and in the double signature he used over the years: Gala Salvador Dali.”

I know of no reference by Dali to his wife being viewed – by him or anyone else – as his “co-artist” or “co-creator.” And the fact that many of his works were signed Gala Salvador Dali was simply one of his ways of expressing and immortalizing his extraordinary love and the exceedingly high regard in which he held his leading model and muse.

It’s my solid understanding that Gala maintained a tight grip on her husband’s image, his deals with collectors, galleries, art dealers and others, and the couple’s finances. And she spent a great deal of time enjoying the company of hot younger men (most of whom probably cared more about eventually getting closer to Dali through her, though that is more my speculation than documented fact).

But what I’m far more confident is factual is that Gala did not “co-create” the works attributed to Salvador Dali. I know of no evidence that she painted, etched, sculpted, drew, or did anything else artistic beyond posing countless times for portraits Dali painted of her. And, of course, she was an inspiration for his work and a motivator behind her husband. If she didn’t like something, she’d let it be known — and Dali would listen.

The aforementioned brochure states that Gala was “the creator of many surrealist objects.” Really? I’ve been studying the life and work of this Surrealist titan for decades and never once encountered anything written or pictured that indicates Gala created surrealist objects – let alone “many” of them.

I consulted one of Dali’s leading protégé/collaborators about the notion of Gala being a co-creator of Dali’s works. His terse response: “Completely absurd.”

If I’m wrong about this, my brethren in the Dali world – other writers, authors, scholars, professors, collectors – will no doubt be quick to insist I stand corrected. And I will.

Dali Created ‘Fossilized Automobile’ from ‘Scratch’

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

I’ve had countless discussions with fellow “Dalinists” about works brought to our attention that are alleged to be by Dali, but feature characteristics that raise doubts. Sometimes we’re surprised to learn that many are indeed genuine, even when certain peculiarities raise some red flags.

A widely reproduced oil on panel from 1936 is, in my view, one of those Dali works that – had we not known better – could be placed under suspicion, mainly due to technique.

I’m talking about The Fossilized Automobile of Cape Creus. Dali always decried mechanical things (pocket watches come to mind), and that goes for automobiles (he never drove one).

So he shows a car essentially entombed within the background cliffs of Cape Creus, which were a career-long inspiration for him.

Meanwhile, fishermen lift a boat while several others seem oblivious to everything as they nap, their heads propped up by their hands.

But it’s the technique that, for the most part, is pretty atypical of and inconsistent with the tight, polished painting style we normally associate with Salvador Dali. In fact, not only is most of the work done in a rough and somewhat crude style, but it appears Dali cut into the paint with the back end of his brush, achieving a kind of skeletal, dried, almost atrophied, or, rather, fossilized look – hence the title of the picture.

But by now we know that Salvador Dali was always full of surprises, and he returned to a sharper, more meticulous handling of his brushwork in the figure seen through the hole in the rocks, and where we see luminescent color beyond the earth tones of the vast majority of the canvas.

The Fossilized Automobile of Cape Creus may not exactly leap to mind when we think of Salvador Dali, but it becomes more and more interesting as we give it greater attention.

And this relegation of an automobile to an inferior or improbable position – bogged down by a passenger side door fashioned from a brick wall; depicted as “debris” giving birth to a blind horse; made immobile as it melds with the terrain – can be seen in a number of other Dali paintings, such as these:

(All images used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only)

Dali and Enigma were Lifelong Companions

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

“Enigma” might as well have been Salvador Dali’s middle name. So much of his mind-bending surrealism was wrapped in a cloak of enigma, with the unraveling left up to us. That’s always been the ultimate fun of it all: trying to understand what Dali might have been telling us in his diverse and often confounding images, be they paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, or some other mixed-media expression of “Dalinian” creativity.

Even the titles alone of some of Dali’s paintings added to the enigmatic nature of them – if, that is, we can even be certain of just what the titles are!

In today’s post, there seems to be some discrepancy in the title of the work I want to briefly put under the microscope. Some sources call it Continuum of Four Buttocks. Others – such as the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation in Figueres, Spain – list it this way: Goddess Leaning on Her Elbow; Virgin Formed by Five Rhinoceros Horns.

What we know without equivocation is that the 1960 oil on canvas (approx. 30 in. x 60 in.) hangs in the Museu Nacional D’Art De Catalunya in Spain. And that Dali seemed fascinated by the human buttocks. Countless portraits of women by him show them from the rear, including several of his first model, his sister Anna Maria. Later, of course, Gala posed for a large number of works in which she was seen from behind.

In “Goddess Leaning on Her Elbow,” the elongated forms converging on a nail are clearly meant to be phallic in nature. The upper right one features trompe l’oeil tears, one of which is loosely sown.

These forms were also intended to be rhinoceros horns, with which Dali was obsessed at the time. He was taken by the fact that a rhino horn is a naturally occurring logarithmic curve, which underpinned the mathematical structure of classically painted works.

Rhino horns, in addition to being phallic, have also been held to be an aphrodisiac, a fact surely not lost on Dali when he was painting this picture. And in legend, it’s said that a unicorn can be tamed only by virgins, allowing, then, an obvious association of rhino horns with chastity.

Indeed, chastity is part of the title of a highly suggestive painting Salvador Dali executed in 1954: Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by Her Own Chastity. The similarity between the converging rhino horns in Goddess Leaning on Her Elbow and Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized is exquisitely clear.

At least one observer has suggested that Dali might have been inspired here by a 1928 Rene Magritte painting called The Voice of the Winds (seen here), though I find any such association weak at best.

Magritte’s Voice of the Winds

Meanwhile, the nails in the present work might imply Christ’s Crucifixion, but could also carry over a then-current technique of Dali’s of firing nails at a canvas, using a rifle, to form random images he would ingeniously use as a jumping off point in creating riveting – and enigmatic – works of art.

(Images used under Fair Use provisions for journalistic purposes only)