Artisit To The Menil Museum: Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was an artist who was almost more notorious for his colorful personality as for his artistic talents. He took an apolitical outlook on world politics, but often dabbled in anti-establishment movements. This essay explores the life of Salvador Dali, the historical and political time he lived in, and how these influenced his work.

Dali employs a “concrete irrationality” surrealist style giving us the illusion of realism. Design is precise, using symmetrical perspective employing a geometrical figure’s composition. The painting is well balanced. Presence of the light coming from the northeast gives a sense of a natural landscape. The light and shadow relationship “pops the elements out” and creates contrast. The pain of war is expressed by the grotesque mutating human body ripping itself apart with the anguishing facial expression.

Surrealism is a movement that built off of the burgeoning look into art, psychology, and the workings of the mind. Popularly associated with the works of Salvador Dali, Surrealist art takes imagery and ideology and creates correlation where there is none, creating new forms of art. In this essay I will look to explore the inception of the surrealist movement, including the Surrealist Manifesto, to stress the importance of these artists and their work in the 20th century and beyond. I also will look to films from our European Cinema course to express how films incorporate the influence of surrealism both intentionally and unintentionally.

The museum I chose to visit was the Dali Museum mainly because I have been wanting to check it out since I first moved down here to Florida three years ago. My sister has always been a huge Salvador Dali fan and even has a tattoo of his painting titled “The Elephants” on her side. I am looking forward to experiencing more of his paintings other than his most popular works of art. I am also hoping this experience will give me a greater appreciation for him as an artist by seeing the diversity of his works. What I am least looking forward to is trying to find one work of art that really stands out to me enough to write this paper about. I am sure I am going to find multiple pieces of art that I will love.

André Breton ran the Surrealist Movement with impressive discipline and rigidity, making an interesting contrast between what the Surrealists preached and the management style of its leader. An interesting story, for example, tells how Salvador Dalí, one of the most prominent members of the Surrealist movement, attended a New York costume party dressed up as Charles Lindbergh’s son, who had been recently kidnapped and murdered. New York’s society did not take the statement well and eventually made Dalí apologize for his behavior. Breton, however, almost dismissed him from Movement because he claimed that “no one should excuse himself for a Surrealist act[6].” This anecdote demonstrates the seriousness of Breton and his Movement towards its final objective: revolution and the slashing of society’s conventions in the interest of a subconscious reality.

was different from all other paintings I viewed in the museum. To me it was different

Jan van Eyck was active since 1422 and died in 1441. He was the most celebrated painter of the fifteen-century in Europe. One of his famous works is “The Last Judgment”. At first sight this work immediately attracted my attention. The painting’s stunning colors and the fact that it reminded me of a previous similar work I have seen, triggered in my mind. The material that is used is oil on canvas, transferred from wood. The size of this work is 22 1/4 *7 2/3 in. (56.5 * 19.7cm).

I don’t think one artist on this planet could ever copy or imatate his work because its so complicated. Some would say his work was imature but I think the talent level was beyond regular. Most of the faces on this painting are more created images then distinct lines on a paper. If Dali was alive today he would be more then a multi-millonare. The paints go from dark to light to show form. For some reason the gowns of one of the female statues is being held on by a botton. The breasts on the females go from a lighter shade to a darker shade. Which gives the statues a fading qaulity. I think this painting was done with some sort of oil paints. He did showing the ripples of light on the lake. This lake is some what invisible. The head of a statue goes from larger to smaller and smaller. This particular painting doesn’t depict religion , which is why I find it caught in space. His mother is painted on the side of a cliff and light shows a man inside the face of his mother. This painting shows qualitys of figure, contour and light. There are many minitures and copys of figures in this painting. The toreador its self looks like coluseum in heaven. Ther are

The two artworks I have chosen to discuss in this paper are 3-D sculptures of two renowned artists. These surrealists of two amazing sculptures are Rene Magritte and Victor Brauner. Both of their artworks are located at The Menil Collection, Houston TX. These in the round sculptures are entitled Megalomania (La folie des grandeurs) and Sign (Signe). First, Rene Magritte’s medium on his Megalomania masterpiece is bronze. It was sculpted in 1967, and the size of this artwork is 61 x 48 x 32 3/8 inches (Menil). Similarly, Victor Brauner’s medium on his Sign artwork is gilded bronze. The artwork was beautifully crafted as well in 1945 and casted in 1961. The size of this artwork is 12 1/2 x 5 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches (Menil). As I go on, I will

During the surrealist period, many of the art works produced were quite visual pieces. Many of the artist painted what seemed to be senseless scenes so precise that they look like a photograph. Belgian artist, Rene Magritte, created paintings that transformed everyday objects, such as the apples in “Le Prêtre Marie”, into mysteriously strange characters. Magritte was reputable for his ability to use everyday objects to create mind twisting images. Completed in 1968, “Le Prêtre Marie” portrays the image of two vibrant green apples wearing masks, sitting on a deserted beach. Magritte uses many techniques to draw viewers in to his paintings. One of the most apparent techniques being used is the use of bright colors in the painting;

The Museum of Modern Art in New York City is the world’s leading modern art. Its exhibits have been a major influence in creating and stimulating popular awareness of modern art and its accompanying diversity of its styles and movements. The museum’s outstanding collections of modern painting, sculpture, drawings, and prints range from Impressionisms to current movements. Moreover, there are exhibits of modern architecture, industrial design, sculpture, photography, prints and electronic media. The museum presently has a modern art library of 300,000 books and impressive collections of films that are shown regularly. The Museum is said to be the complementary of the Metropolitan Museum

What a blessing I had today to experience in my own eyes wonderful sights and scenes. Many of you already know that I 'm famous for the mystical experiences I’ve had with Jesus and God in the past. Perhaps you’ve read my book? The Book of Margery Kempe? Yes, I Margery Kemp, got the opportunity to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. There 's over thousands of beautiful artwork, one visit won 't suffice. I was captivated by everything I saw, but I was especially drawn into the magnificent gallery number 305.

Salvador Dali was born into a middle class family on May 11th 1904 in Figures, Spain. During his lifetime, he was an eccentric painter, writer, sculptor and experimental film maker. In Dali’s early years of painting he experimented at first with landscapes, most of which were of his home in Figueres, Spain. Dali also made paintings of the surrounding area of his family’s summer home, in the seaside town of Cadaques. Dali’s transitional period was between 1927 and 1929, these were years of experimentation. In this period gravel, rocks, cork, and other materials can be noted on his canvases. This was more abstract period then others, at this time in Dali’s life he had just been kicked out of the art school he had been attending .

Anti-realistic movement in arts “surrealism” is a visual representation of conscious and unconscious through the paintings (Leplin). One of the revolutionists of this modern movement in the history of arts was Salvador Dali. Dali’s abstract works brought a mass attention due to its avant-garde representation of his ideas and dreams which included emotions, myth and personal things in the arts. A representation of dreams in many of the paintings is closely tight with his life based on the Oedipus complex by Sigmund Freud. A psychoanalyst Freud was the one who influenced Dali’s art. The essay focuses on the reveal of this impact on Dali’s art through analysis of his several paintings. Sigmund Freud’s theory about dreams and the Oedipus complex shape an interpretation of Dali’s works.

Most of us connect surrealism with art and images from Dali and his generation. However, the artists of the surrealist movement regard their work as an expression of the original philosophical movement with the works being an artefact that philosophy. André Breton was clearly in his view that surrealism was above all, a revolutionary and radical philosophical movement, explaining that is not a matter of aesthetics, but rather a way of thinking, a point of view (Waldberg 1997; Pass 2011:29-30).