The Influence of Salvador Dali to Modern Art - Research Paper Example

Supervisor The Influence of Famous Artist Salvador Dali on Modern Art Salvador Dali was a Spanish painter. Though his work finds realization in various forms like cubism, futurism, and metaphysical painting, the most stunning part of his works is surrealism. By adopting the surrealist theory of automatism, he developed the technique called ‘critical paranoia’; Dali claimed that one is supposed to develop genuine delusion as in clinical paranoia at the same time being fully aware about the way one’s mind works (Carbonell-Coll 61). Salvador Dali is one of the most resourceful and productive artists of the twentieth century. As Klein notes in his book, Salvador was a multitalented man who managed various activities like fashion, advertising, writing, sculpture, and even filmmaking (5). It seems that Dali was highly influenced by the psychoanalytical theories of that time, and his themes range from eroticism and death to decay. One can say unambiguously that his work was influenced by the Freudian theory of human mind. It is an accepted fact that Freud’s teachings of human mind and the unconscious seriously impacted on the thinking of artists in the first quarter of the twentieth century (Rojas 153). In the words of Freud (qtd. in Storr 92), the sublimation of the artist’s unsatisfied libido is responsible for producing all forms of art and literature, whether it be painting, sculpting, or writing. Thus, his new ideology made artists and writers look into their own dreams and thoughts with a new insight. Soon, these thoughts (once considered absurd and illogical) found a new place in art. Admittedly, it was the Freudian analysis of the role of dreams which attracted people like Dali. Dali was highly impressed by Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and Die Traumdeutung. From Dali’s own words, “[i]t was one of the greatest discoveries of my life. I was obsessed by the vice of self-interpretation-not just of my dreams but of everything that happened to me, however accidental it might at first seem” (Martinez-Herrera, Alcantara, and Lorena 855). At first, one can look into the interpretation by Stuart Walton. It is pointed out by him that Dali’s work called Autumn Cannibalism is the first stage of psychosexual development. According to the Freudian concept, this stage is marked by the psychological theme of total dependency. In fact, a baby at this stage is very dependent, as it can do little for its own protection. The Autumn Cannibalism was painted in the year 1936. It was in this year that the civil war broke out in Spain. Thus, as Walton points out, the work mainly depicts horror and destruction of war along with the demolishing nature of sexual relationship (69). In the painting, a chest of drawers is placed on a beach, and the upper halves of two people sit on it. The two bodies are highly entangled, and one figure dips a spoon into the body of the other. The latter figure dips a knife into the flesh of the former. The heads of the figures merge into each other. One can see pieces of meat thrown here and there. Thus, scholars reach the conclusion that the work shows the human impulses going back to the oral phase of psychosexual development. In addition, there are works like The Enigma of Desire: My Mother which reflects the Oedipus complex. The picture shows the porous rocks of the Catalan coast of Spain as the central image. On the rock, one can see the words ‘ma mere’ written again and again. Then, there is the self-portrait of the painter, lying on the ground with eyes closed. One has to assume that the character is either asleep or half dead. Ants are coming out of the ear of the figure, indicating that decomposition and decay have started there. However, the point of consideration here is the little lion’s head above. The picture shows that the head has its face twisted into a grimace. Thus, the best assumption would be that it represents Dali’s father. The lion head is at the highest point of the mountainous body, and he is apparently pressing the face of his son to the ground. The painting was made in the year 1929, and Dali’s mother had died in the year 1921, when Dali was just 16. Admittedly, the picture was a tribute to his mother. The rocks are full of hollows, and insects are crawling on them. Also, it is a desert wasteland, and one can see clear blue sky ahead. According to Klingsohr-Leroy, this shows the apparent insecurity and fear felt by Dali in the absence of his mother (36). However, the point that deserves attention here is the lion head above the enormous body. According to Stuart Walton, the lion head represents the Oedipus complex of the artist or the sexual desires of the artist, as observed by Freud on the stages of psychosexual development. Following this, there is the painting called Le Grand Masturbateur and another work called Spectre of Sex-Appeal, which are considered to be the representations of the Dali’s fantasies and fears like animals, sex, and his father. In the former, one can see that the painter indirectly expresses his own sexual desires. In fact, he made this painting when he was still a virgin. Again, one can see the use of lion head symbol in this picture too. It presumably represents the sexual desires of the painter. Also, there is a flower-vessel near the chest of the woman. This represents the desire to be filled. Also, there is a flower-vessel near the chest of the woman - the desire to be filled. In the latter, Dali depicts himself as a child watching a brutalized body of a woman. The woman is not even able to support herself with the aid of the sticks. The head of the woman just blends with the rocky background. To support of this view comes Dali’s own claim that his responsibility as an artist is to bring the world of dreams, visions, and hypnagogic imagery to tangible, concrete reality. Following this, Lathbury and Philips argue in their work that Dali’s stress on feelings like sexuality, especially things like incest and perverse sex, had their origin in the Interpretation of dreams by Freud (54). In the book, the writers argue that dreams are indirectly and symbolically connected with the conflicts disturbing the dreamer. According to Freud, males and females possess various sexual desires towards their parents, friends, and family members. However, these conflicts are solved through death, though in a paradoxical way. This point gains support from the work of Ruben Gallo who argues that Freud had a profound impact on the artists, novelists, and philosophers of the 20th century; he also admits that Dali was a deep reader of the works by Freud, and so were people like Samuel Ramos, Octavio Paz, and Frida Kahlo (4). As ‘Lives and Legacies’ points out, Dali’s dreamlike paintings represented in a realistic style were highly influenced and fully motivated by the works of S. Freud (qtd. in Bossy et al 49). In total, it becomes evident that Dali was a man who brought a new era in surrealism. Though surrealism involved various forms of expression, the work of Salvador Dali remained exceptional for its symbolic representation of human mind and thoughts. The topics of his main works are dealing with fear, sex, and decay. Dali encouraged and believed in expressing the unconscious and subconscious minds, and as he expressed them in his works, it seems that the paintings resemble closely what is claimed by Sigmund Freud in his studies of human mind. Therefore, Freudian psychoanalytical approach seems to be the best basis for Salvador Dali works’ analysis. Works Cited Bossy, Michael-Andre., Brothers, Thomas and McEnroe, John C (Eds.). Artists, writers, and musicians: an encyclopedia of people who changed the world. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. Print. Carbonell-Coll, Gisela M. A Spaniard in New York: Salvador Dali and the Ruins of Modernity 1940-1948. Diss. University of Illinois, 2009. Print. Gallo, Ruben. Freud’s Mexico: Into the wilds of psychoanalysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010. Print. Klein, Adam G. Salvador Dali. US: ABDO, 2006. Print. Klingsohr-Leroy, Cathrin. Surrealism. Cologne: Taschen, 2004. Print. Martinez-Herrera, Ma Jose.,  Alcantara, Antonio G. and Gracia-Fernandez, Lorena. “Dali (1904-1989): Psychoanalysis and pictorial surrealism”. The American Jounrnal of Psychiatry, 2003(160): 855-856. Print.  Philips, Jerry and Lathbury. American Modernism (1910-1945, Volume 4. US: Infobase Publishing, 2006. Print. Rojas, Carlos. Salvador Dali, or the art of spiting on your mother’s portrait. US: Penn State Press, 1993. Print. Storr, Anthony. Freud: A Very Short Introduction. NY: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print. Walton, Stuart. A Natural History of Human Emotions. US: Grove Press, 2006. Print. Read More