Tristan and Isolde by Salvador Dali, 1944

 

Tristan and Isolde by Salvador Dali, 1944

The figures of Tristan and Isolde depicted on this canvas were painted by Dalí in 1944 as a backdrop for the ballet Bacchanale, performed to Wagner's music and presented for the first time in 1944 on the stage of the International Theater in New York.

The tale of this ballet, for which Dalí wrote the libretto, began before the war. At that time that title was Mad Tristan. It was to be performed in Paris with the choreography by Leonide Massine, the scenery by Prince Charvachidze, and costumes on which Coco Chanel wished to use real ermine and genuine precious stones. The war prevented the production in Paris, and later the Marquis Georges de Cuevas decided to stage the spectacle in New York. "As with everything else," Dalí writes in The Secret Life, "my Mad Tristan, which was to have been my most successful theatrical venture, could not be given; so it became Venusberg and finally Bacchanale, which is the definitive version."

The two latest collaborations by Dalí in ballets date from 1961, when he participated with Maurice Bejart in the staging of The Spanish Lady and the Roman Cavalier by Scarlatti and a Ballet de Gala for which he wrote the libretto, designed the scenery and costumes, and demanded a curtain formed by motorcycles backfiring, hanging one from the other, and a real boeuf-ecorche-de-Rembrandt which was to have been replaced at each performance so as to exert over the spectators the paralyzing effect of its freshness.


More from Dali

Read full post »

Sun Table by Salvador Dali

Sun Table by Salvador Dali, 1936 


Salvador Dalí's greatest intellectual and artistic honesty is probably never to have practiced any sophisticated, gymnastic aesthetics, in order to place the most disparate and most bizarre objects in his pictures. Sun Table is a good example of this. When he painted this composition, Dalí did not know why he put a camel in with all the other elements which belonged to Cadaqués. Today he explains the premonitional character of this image by pointing out the package of Camel cigarettes placed at the feet of the silhouette of the young boy, probably himself, and he told me in 1970 that he had read an article by Martin Gardner which appeared in the magazine Scientific American under the heading "scientific games," in which the author explained that "the image on the cover of a package of cigarettes was full of extraordinary objective hazards - for example, the English word 'choice' written vertically in capital letters on the side of the package, when looked at in a mirror, remains unchanged and perfectly legible."

In order to stress the out-of-context and obsessive character of a camel with all the magical aspects associated with the animal, Dalí wrote later in his book Dix recettes d'immortalite that "seen through an electronic microscope it is possible to demonstrate that a camel is much less precise than a cloud."

More from Dali

Read full post »

Night and Day Clothes by Salvador Dali

 

Night and Day Clothes by Salvador Dali, 1936

Here is undoubtedly one of the most astonishing of the innumerable illustrations, pen or pencil drawings, gouaches, or watercolors produced by Dalí before World War II for the most glamorous fashion magazines. This one was done during the winter of 1936 while Dalí and Gala were spending a few days at Cortina d'Ampezzo. Dalí thinks he remembers that it was probably destined for Harper's Bazaar or Vogue. For him, the interesting part of this creation stems from the idea that he imagined during winter sports, with snow plainly visible, an outfit that suggests sun baths, since one can easily discover four openings by rolling up a sort of shade in order to expose the body.

Most of the costumes created by Dalí possess an obvious erotic power. Here, we don't know at exactly what moment the outfit becomes skin, covering, coat - indeed even a closet, cupboard, or a window - since this tunic-dress has a front zipper and can at the same time be opened wide by turning the cremone bolt which is pictured on it.    

"The constant tragedy of human life is fashion, and that is why I have always liked to collaborate with Mlle Chanel and Mme Schiaparelli, just to prove that the idea of dressing oneself, the idea of disguising oneself, was only the consequence of the traumatic experience of birth, which is the strongest of all the traumas that a human being can experience, since it is the first. Fashion is also the tragic constant of history; through it you always see war coming while watching its fashion reviews and its parades of mannequins who themselves are veritable exterminating angels."


More from Dali

Read full post »

Autumn Cannibalism by Salvador Dali

Autumn Cannibalism by Salvador Dali, 1936

As with many artists, Dalí was to depict war and conflict in several of his major works. Autumn Cannibalism was painted in 1936, the year the civil war began in Spain. The painting is an evocative interpretation of the horror and destruction of war, and also comments on the devoring nature of sexual relationships.   

On a chest of drawers placed on a Catalonian beach sit the top halves of two people. They are so entangled that the viewer has to look carefully to see which arm belongs to which figure. One figure holds a fork pointed to the other one's head, while it dips a spoon into the malleable flesh. A languid hand holds a gleaming knife that has sliced into the soft flesh of the other. Their featureless heads merge into each other, their individuality becoming indistinguishable.   

Pieces of meat are draped about the painting, symbolizing death. The meat also alludes to the temporary nature of life and to the bestial nature of human beings. On one head is an apple, which to Dalí represented a struggle between father and son, (the son being the apple, the father William Tell), and beneath the figures is a peeled apple, symbolizing the destruction of the son.

More from Dali

Read full post »

Figure at a Window by Salvador Dali

Figure at a Window by Salvador Dali, 1925 

As a youth, Dalí did numerous portraits of his sister, Ana-Maria, often painted on copper and very small in size. This one, larger and on canvas, is considered one of the most beautiful. It was shown on Dalí's first one-man exhibition, in Barcelona at the Dalmau Gallery in November 1925. In her book "Salvador Dalí, visto por su hermana", Ana-Maria wrote: "The portraits that my brother painted of me during this period are innumerable. Many were simple studies of hair and a bare shoulder." She remembers the long hours of posing during which, serving as his model, she never tired of "looking at the landscape which from then on and forever was a part of me. Indeed Salvador always painted me near a window!" Such a portrait is 'Seated Girl, Seen from the Back'. In 'Figure at a Window', Ana-Maria poses in the room on the first floor of the paternal home in Cadaqués which Salvador used as a studio.

Both Figure at a Window and Seated Girl Seen from the Rear were painted in 1925, using oil on canvas. The model was Ana Maria, Dalí's younger sister and only sibling. For a long time Dalí and Ana Maria were extremely close, especially after their mother's death, when Ana Maria took on the role of mother to the demanding Dalí. Ana Maria was the only female model Dalí used until Gala replaced her in 1929.   

As with Seated Girl Seen from the Rear, we can not see the face of the girl and so our focus is drawn to the view that she is looking at from her window. The view is the bay of Cadaqués, a Spanish seaside town where the Dalís spent their summers. The predominant colors of light blues and lavenders give the painting a peaceful feel that is unusual in much of Dalí's work.

More from Salvador Dali

Read full post »

Portrait of Grandmother Ana Sewing by Salvador Dali

Portrait of Grandmother Ana Sewing by Salvador Dali, 1921

As a youth Dali frequently did portraits. This one shows his maternal grandmother, Mariana Ferrer Sadurni, sewing in front of the window in Cadaqués.

In commenting on this picture, Dali remarked: "Shortly after my departure for Madrid she had become almost blind and only partially conscious, not even recognizing the people who came to say hello to her. She would say, 'Is it Mathilda? Is it my father?' At this time I was at the School of Fine Arts and she did not see me any more. However, before dying and in front of all those assembled around her, she said, 'I have a cousin, in fact ... I don't know what my relationship is with him, but he is studying in Madrid and he is going to become the most famous of all Catalonian painters.' And shortly thereafter she died! This painting is prophetic, because when I did it my grandmother's sight was already very poor and she was wearing glasses, and I myself, whose eyesight is of the keenest, later for fear of self-punishment often pictured blind people in my paintings." Examples are Sentimental Colloquy, Resurrection of the Flesh, and The Apotheosis of Homer. 

This portrait was done c. 1921, at the same time that he was working on a self-portrait, a period when he styled himself as "the Mediterranean Carriére." He had come to share his father's admiration for this artist because of his Maternity, which was hanging on a wall in the family dining room. Dali's portrait of his grandmother is dominated by his quest for depicting the atmosphere. All brushstrokes have been eliminated in order to give preference to color and light. This canvas was painted during the summer: we can feel the heat penetrating the room, and the chiaroscuro is completely southern. To be logical the wall whose window opens on the wide bay should have been treated in a more somber tone. But when one knows the place and the intensity of the light from the sky reflected in the sea, it is easy to understand the perpetual state of dazzlement in which the painter was working, going from the landscape seen through the window to the grandmother seated in the semi-darkness blinded, he overexposed the zones of shadow.

More from Salvador Dali

Read full post »

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali

The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali

The imagery of the soft melting pocket watches epitomizes Dali's conception of 'softness' and 'hardness'. 'The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of out notions of a fixed cosmic order.'

Memories in the head can be so persistent such that time melts in the face of them. When I was visiting Spain, all I can think of was those artists whom I have studied in school. I long for their free spirits and unbounded imagination.

Read full post »