Similarities and differences between Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte - Research Paper Example

Similarities and Differences between Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte Introduction Both Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali are from the Surrealist movement of the 20th Century. Rene Magritte is from Belgian and turned out to be the sole gun painter after breaking up with the other French Surrealists (McNeese, Tim, and Salvador 78). On the other hand, Salvador Dali is a Spanish Surrealist who was among the front-runners of the Surrealist movement (Carpi and Brebbia 53). This essay outlines the differences and similarities between Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte. Similarities The evolvement of Dada’s earlier art movement evolved in the year 1918, which marked the end of World War I. Dada’s earlier art movement kicked off against founded movements of that time, which explored meaningless of art, politics, and mainly the deaths and property destructions caused during the war (Gardner and Fred 42). All these happenings influenced the works of artists Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali. Eventually, the ideas of Dada movement were being highly expected by many artists, thus, this resulted in a new Surrealist movement in the year 1924. In France, mostly Paris, Breton turned out to be their leader. Contrasting, Dada’s movement that focused on the meaninglessness or meaning of chaos around the world and art, surrealism was a step ahead, focusing on the unconscious mind (Carpi and Brebbia 56). Surrealism explored the imagery and symbolism of dreams, and Breton had a strong influence from psychoanalysts and Freud. The art of the futurists and cubists inspired both Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali. Both Futurists and Cubist focused on exploring the painting ‘fun’. However, both Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali absorbed fussy influences from the Metaphysical painting style of De Chirico (Hillier 132). French Surrealists’ leader Breton pointed out De Chirico and told both Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali to abandon his visual work and observe his metaphysical ideas of his earlier work. A good example of De Chirico’s piecework was “Love Song” of the year 1914. This sample shows everyday objects and traditional scriptures. His work was highly different from other artists; and that is why both Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali took much influence from his visual work (Carpi and Brebbia 75). De Chirico’s work, which comprised of dreamy landscapes, has strong similarities that are portrayed in the works of surrealist Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali. Differences However, Rene Magritte differed from Salvador Dali since he had something to add on top of what he had learnt and seen from his mentor De Chirico. Rene Magritte’s paintings mainly focus on how the mind of human beings preserves the earth and in general playing with both written word and visual. Similar to De Chirico, Rene Magritte in his painting enjoyed making use of juxtapositions of daily objects (Hillier 139). A good example of this Rene Magritte’s work is “Time Transfixed”. Here, Rene Magritte is trying to do something similar to that, De Chirico did in his “Love Song”. Rene Magritte was very clever in painting this “Time Transfixed” although in accordance with the type of metaphorical imagery he used this portrays a Surrealist method of doing this (Gardner and Fred 49). How Rene Magritte made his imagery seems like a dream and unreal hence relying on the way he applied with the paint. Rene Magritte’s use of painting in his artwork is rather “deadpan” or else there is little texture of brush strokes. Rene Magritte’s work is photographic. Doing their work in photographic style is something that both Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali employ in their painting works to express their views to avoid being cluttered with making of marks. Both artists make use of this “Deadpan” format of painting and brought straightforwardness to their work (McNeese, Tim, and Salvador 88). By making their work look photographic, and as well, giving the paintings a highly political and polished look they portrayed their ideas with a disturbingly clear and straightforward “line of attack”. This is something the two artists did in all their paintings all the time. In the year 1969, Rene Magritte in his exhibition pointed out that painting of him is a mere way to an end since it allows him describe his views that are produced solely by what people have to offer. The two artists were experimental. Although Rene Magritte’s piece in “Time Transfixed” and “The Human Condition I” was the main way, which he used to paint all his creative life one cannot claim that he was non-experimental. In 1930s, Rene Magritte had a short duration of more mark painting approach (Gardner and Fred 62). During this period, Magritte concentrated on the brush and colour marks, which made his work more impressing. Another similarity between Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali involved in the Futurist and Cubist movement is that the two involved in a kind of break down arty boundaries. The Cubist movement broke down the visual boundaries while Surrealist such as Rene Magritte broke down conceptual boundaries (McNeese, Tim, and Salvador 109). They did this using the photographic method whereby they applied paint to come up with pure clarity to their work. The work of the Cubists and the Futurists inspired both Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali. Both Futurists and Cubist focused on exploring the painting ‘fun’ (Hillier 149). However, both Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali absorbed fussy influences from the Metaphysical painting style of De Chirico. However, what Rene Magritte liked mostly was to give illustrations of interesting problems that exists in both painting and daily world that is, the relationship between painting and real objects, as well as the viewers’ relationship. In addition, another famous example of Rene Magritte’s work that incorporates daily items in a potentially and unfamiliar impossible way is Rene’s “Human Condition I” (Gardner and Fred 67). What Rene Magritte tries to do with this work is to demonstrate an extremely complex paradox with these properties: First is the painting of the painting, second is landscape painting, third, the landscape in the painting is viewed through a window, and finally the landscape follows a confided outlook of the window. Rene Magritte’s painting work has a lot to talk about sense of reality, the real things, and those that are not real. Rene Magritte used painting just as a tool or symbol to illustrate, at least his views about everyday world, and how his painting relates to the world. However, making use of the window as a symbolic image, this demonstrates a strong symbolic visual awareness of the outside world, such as staring from a house to have a look of the entire world. Rene Magritte shows the painting of the landscape as a minor replacement to portions of the window (Gardner and Fred 102). However, the painting of the landscape extends the original view of the window, resulting to a wider view of the window. This composition makes his painting a unique piece. The use of symbolism in his painting is the self-made idea or a sense of the outside world. Therefore, the simple landscape painting that symbolizes that landscape turn into a highly complex observation of his inner work of the mind, and the relationship that exists between reality and imagery. Rene Magritte insists that, the inner working of our minds is similar to the real outside happenings (Hillier 152). This ring to be true comparing to the way both neuroscientists and psychologists have to conclude about the form in which our mind works. On the other hand, Salvador Dali never dealt with the types of ideas Rene Magritte relied on. Large piece of Salvador’s work tends to link with his struggle with the sexual power and symbols. Comparing the two artists, Salvador Dali highly concerted with symbolism and imagery of what his dreams comprised and fantasies. An example of Rene Magritte’s work is the “Soft-Construction”. This is a piece of his work portraying Spanish War, of the year 1929 (Weiten 142). This piece of work is open to many Freudian interpretations. An illustration is the “Oedipus Complex” whereby, a son wanted to own his mother and destroy the father. This portrays two masses fighting one another, with sexual symbolism incorporated in it, as well. Rene Magritte was different from Salvador Dali; he went beyond what Salvador did. Instead of reproducing unconsciousness after pressing it through the conscious, Rene Magritte reused everyday life object surrounding him to illustrate the conscious ideas (Gardner and Fred 142). This remains to be the major difference between these two artists. Conclusion In conclusion, although these two were surrealists, they have several differences and similarities. The two are referred to as the representational surrealism’s masters. Everyone made use of his own way to make his work more impressing to the viewer. Rene Magritte’s painting work has a lot to talk about sense of reality, the real things, and those that are not real. Rene Magritte used painting just as a tool or symbol to illustrate at least his views about everyday world, and how painting relates to the world. On the other hand, Salvador Dali never dealt with the types of ideas relied on by Rene Magritte (Weiten 162). Large piece of Salvador’s work tends to link with his struggle with the sexual power and symbols. Work cited Carpi, A, and C A. Brebbia. Design & Nature V: Comparing Design in Nature with Science and Engineering. Southampton: WIT, 2010. Print. Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardners Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. Hillier, Jean. Stretching Beyond the Horizon: A Multiplanar Theory of Spatial Planning and Governance. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007. Print. Brodskai︠a︡, N V. Surrealism: McNeese, Tim, and Salvador Dalí. Salvador Dali. New York, NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 2006. Internet resource. Weiten, Wayne. Psychology: Themes & Variations. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. Read More