tonal portrait painting of Salvador Dali (1904 - 89 ) surrealist and one of my all time favorite artists
Salvador Dalí’s experience of religion was divided from early on. His mother’s family were devout Catholics, but his father was a staunch atheist who sent him to the local state school to spare his son a Catholic education. The young Dalí shared his father’s aversion. In 1929-1930 his films Un Chien andalou and L’Age d’or, made with Luis Bunuel, included scandalous portrayals of the priesthood as corrupt, ignorant and hypocritical. In 1929 Dalí also drew a blasphemous image of Christ and the sacred heart, which he entitled Sometimes I spit with pleasure on the Portrait of my Mother (The Sacred Heart) to the anger and distress of his family.
Although he once blamed Catholicism for his profound sense of guilt about sex, Dalí’s attitude began shifting in America in the 1940s. He came to believe in the possibility of a fusion between modern science, the mystery of religion and the traditions of classicism and began painting his wife Gala as a Renaissance Madonna. In 1949 Dalí attended a private audience with Pope Pius XII. He announced himself a Catholic the next year, or (as he put it) a ‘Catholic without faith’. Dalí spent many of his later years reconciling Catholic dogma with science in ever-larger paintings. Afraid of death, Dalí hoped to avoid it altogether. Failing this he died with last rites in 1989.
Essay
Surrealism: Joan Miro and Salvador Dali
Between the world wars I and II surrealist art and literature flourished as artists attempted to portray, express or interpret the workings of the subconsious mind. Two artists in particular , Salvador Dali and Joan Miro , developed two approaches to surrealism . Miro was considered to be the purist approach by the surrealists .
In 1924 Andre Breton officially founded the surrealism movement when he wrote Le Manifeste du Surrealisme(The Surrealist Manifesto) and established the Bureau of Surrealist Research. In it, he defined Surrealism as:
"Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express - verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner - the actual functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation."
The surrealist group aimed to revolutionize human experience, in its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. Sigmund Freud's work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness and set out to offend bourgeois society.
Breton initially doubted that visual arts could even be useful in the Surrealist movement . In 1924 Joan Miro (April 20, 1893 – December 25, 1983) was among the first to develop automatic drawing as a way to undo established techniques. In painting , Miro and Andre Masson, represented the beginning of Surrealism as an art movement.
Through the mid-1920s Miro developed the pictorial sign language which would be central throughout the rest of his career. Paintings where abstracted pictorial signs, rather than realistic representations with the use of flat shapes and lines to suggest the subject . The Tilled Field , Miro's first surrealist masterpiece , showed this transition to a more individual style with nationalistic qualities.
The Tilled Field , oil on canvas , 66 x 92.7 cm , 1923 Joan Miro
In 1924 the symbolic and poetic nature of Miro’s work lost the cluttered chaotic lack of focus as seen in The birth of the world . He experimented with collage and the process of painting within his work so as to reject the framing that traditional painting provided.
The birth of the world , Oil on canvas,250.8 x 200 cm , 1925 Joan Miro
The two main elements to Miro's work were biomorphism and automatism.
Biomorphism: the forms suggest a relationship to biological or organic forms found in nature but they do not look like a realistic or naturalistic imitation of anything we might see in the real world
Automatism: techniques which suggest that the artwork has bypassed conscious or rational thought; that the forms and images were generated by the subconscious without the artist's control.
Between 1940 and 1941, Miro created works revealing a shifting focus to the subjects of women, birds, and the moon, which would dominate his iconography for much of the rest of his career. One work that reflects this shift revolving around celestial symbolism is The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers. It was apart of the Constellations series which earned the artist praise from Andre Breton.
The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers , Gouache, oil wash, and charcoal on paper , 45.7 x 38.1 cm , 1941 Joan Miro
Salvador Dali's approach to surrealism from the 1930's onward was vastly different to Miro's. Dalí devoured influences from many styles of art, a trend that would continue throughout his life , ranging from the most academically classic, to the most cutting-edge avant garde. His use of Naturalistic Surrealism stylistically preferred the unsettling effects from juxtaposing unexpected, dissociated but identifiable elements.
Dali used symbolism extensively in his work that can be seen in Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. The elephant is a recurring image in Dalí's works along with the egg and soft clocks. He connects the egg to the prenatal and intrauterine, thus using it to symbolize hope and love.
The general interpretation of the work is that the soft watches are a rejection of the assumption that time is rigid or deterministic. This suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and not fixed.. This idea is supported by other images in the work, such as the wide expanding landscape, and other limp watches shown being devoured by ants.
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening , Oil on canvas , 51 cm × 40.5 cm , 1944 Salvador Dali
Various other animals appear throughout his work as well. Ants point to death, decay, and immense sexual desire, the snail is connected to the human head and locusts are a symbol of waste and fear.
The Surrealist Manifesto of 1924 had developed out of the Dada activities during world war I , believing that excessive rational thought and bourgeois values had brought the conflict of the war upon the world.
Miro's interest in the assassination of painting is derived from a distain of bourgeois art, which he believed was used as a way to promote propaganda and cultural identity among the wealthy. He is quoted as saying "I will break their guitar," referring to Picasso's paintings, with the intent to attack the popularity and appropriation of Picasso's art by politics.
Thoughout the 1930s , surrealism reached a golden age and became more visible to the public at large. Dali's earlier style had been more firmly rooted in automatism and the use of non-traditional materials, but his style changed by the to the naturalistic , striking and bizarre images he is best known for . It is in this period that Salvador Dalí and Rene Magritte have created the most widely recognized images of the movement.
The persistence of memory , Oil on canvas , 24 cm × 33 cm , 1931 Salvador Dali
Liquid shapes became the trademark of Dalí, particularly in one of his most recognizable works The Persistence of Memory, which features the image of watches that sag as if they were melting.
Dali's eccentric grandiose manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of his fellow surrealists.
When Dalí met Sigmund Freud in 1939 , Andre Breton coined the derogatory nickname "Avida Dollars", an anagram for "Salvador Dalí", which has been translated as "eager for dollars". This was a derisive reference to the increasing commercialization of Dalí's work, and the perception that Dalí sought self-aggrandizement through fame and fortune. Some surrealists henceforth spoke of Dalí in the past tense, as if he were dead.
During the 1930s, the Surrealist idea spread as both an artistic idea and as an ideology of political change. Politically, Surrealism was Trotskyist, communist, or anarchist. The split from Dada has been characterised as a split between anarchists and communists, with the Surrealists as left communist. Breton's followers, along with the Communist Party, were working for the "liberation of man."
Miro's surrealist origins evolved out of "repression" much like all Spanish surrealist and magic realist work, especially because of his Catalan ethnicity, which was subject to special persecution by the Franco regime. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War(1936-39) many artists took sides or went into exile. Miro had returned to Spain in the summers until this point but once the war began, he was unable to return home. Miro had previously preferred to stay away from explicitly political commentary in his work, but his commission to paint The Reaper for the Spanish Republican Pavilion took on a politically charged meaning.
In 1939 Miro relocated to Varengeville (Normandy) with the German invasion of France looming. A year later as the Germans invaded Paris Miro fled to Spain for the duration of the Vichy Regime’s rule.
Dalí supported capitalism and the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco but cannot be said to represent a trend in Surrealism in this respect. Dalí's insisted that surrealism could exist in an apolitical context and refused to explicitly denounce fascism, this ambiguous position on the relationship between politics and art . Andre Breton's accusations in regards to this and other factors ( likely Dali's self-aggrandising stunts and commercialism ) led to Dalí being subjected to a "trial", in which he was formally expelled from the Surrealist group in 1934. To this, Dalí retorted, "I myself am surrealism"
From 1949 onwards, Dalí spent his remaining years back in Spain. His acceptance and embracing of Franco's dictatorship were strongly disapproved of by other Spanish artists and intellectuals who stayed in exile.
The organized Breton Surrealist movement in Europe dissolved as World War II tore through Europe. Breton, Dalí, Ernst, Masson, and others, left Europe for New York. It is here that Surrealism found renewal and continued to effect developments in art . Salvador Dalí has been cited as major inspiration from many modern artists, such as Damien Hirst, Noel Fielding, Jeff Koons and most other modern surrealists. Miro has been a significant influence on late 20th-century art, in particular the American abstract expressionist artists such as Motherwell, Calder, Gorky, Pollock, Matta and Rothko, while his lyrical abstractions and color field paintings were precursors of that style by artists such as Frankenthaler, Olitski and Louis and others. His work has influenced recent painters such as Julian Hatton.
Students to this day , such as Tristan Griffin , cite Dali and to lessor extent Miro as a major influence in their artistic development. It is the later works and writings of these two artists that are of interest to Griffin. Dali sought to synthesize Christian iconography, natural science and mathematics by using an expansive artistic repertoire including film, sculpture and painting. Where as Miro , who actively sought to experiment with other artistic styles , wrote his most radical and least known ideas, exploring the possibilities of gas sculpture , four-dimensional painting and precursors to Total art and experimentalism.
A surrealist could be all things , as long as they conformed to Breton's control. Salvador Dali was unable to do this due to his self-grandising behavior, political beliefs, naturalistic style and embracing of bourgeois society.
Joan Miro's approach to surrealism can be considered purist. Miro's automatic and biomorphic work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike. His distain of bourgeois art and his attacks on the popularity and appropriation of art are in keeping with the surrealists ideals. And most importantly , in a movement founded and controlled by Breton , he described Joan Miro as "the most Surrealist of us all."
Internet
Surrealism, surrealist.com , viewed 2013, http://www.surrealist.com
Surrealism: A World of Unbridled Passions? , randord.edu , viewed 2013 , http://www.radford.edu/rbarris/art428/surrealism.html
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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History : Surrealism , Metmuseum.org, viewed 2013,
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/surr/hd_surr.htm
Surrealism – Art Histy 101 basics , Arthistory.About.com, viewed 2013,
http://arthistory.about.com/od/modernarthistory/a/Surrealism-Art-History-101-Basics.htm
Your Guide to Modern Art - Surrealism , Theartsotry.org, viewed 2013,
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm
The Tilled Field , wikipaintings.org , viewed 2013 , http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/joan-miro/the-tilled-field-1924
The Tilled Field http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/2934
Birth of Liquid Desires , guggenheim.org, viewed 2013 http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/935
The Birth of the World , moma.org , viewed 2013 , http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79321
The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers (from the Constellation series) , moma.org , viewed 2013 http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=33050
THE COLLECTION , moma.org , viewed 2013, http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=33050
Surrealism , thefreedictionary.com , viewed 2013 , http://www.thefreedictionary.com/surrealism
Surrealism , Wikipedia.org, viewed 2013,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism#Surrealist_Manifesto
Salvador Dali , Wikipedia.org, viewed 2013,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dalí
Joan Miro , Wikipedia.org, viewed 2013,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Miró
Andre Breton , Wikipedia.org, viewed 2013,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_Breton
The Persistence of Memory , Wikipedia.org, viewed 2013,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Persistence_of_Memory
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening , Wikipedia.org , viewed 2013 , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Caused_by_the_Flight_of_a_Bee_Around_a_Pomegranate_a_Second_Before_Awakening
Books and articles
McDonald,J , 2011 , Dark illusion , australia
Krausse , A , 1995 , 'The story of painting :the renaissance to the present' , h.f.ulliman , Germany
Kemp, M , 2000 , ' The Oxford history of western art' ,Oxford university press inc, United States
Readers Digest , 1965 , 'Great painters and great paintings' The readers digest association inc , United states
Descharnes, R , 2000 , 'Salador Dali. The paintigns', Taschen , Germany
DVD and TV
'The Challenge : A tribute to Modern art' , 1977 , DVD , Quantum Leap , United States
'The Threshold of Liberty' ,1980 , DVD , BBC , England
