Memories & Dreams The Studiowith with Salvador Dalí ART HIST RY KIDS
WEEK 2 Quote to ponder
“Every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí, and I ask myself, wonderstruck, what prodigious thing will he do today, this Salvador Dalí?”
–Salvador Dalí
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LET’S MEET THE ARTIST Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domenech May 11, 1904 — January 23, 1989
Salvador Dali was born in Figueres– a town in the Catalonia region of Spain. He grew up with a strict father and lenient mother (who encouraged his artistic endeavors and supported his creative personality). She even let him have a pet bat!
Dali studied art in Spain and later in Paris where he met legendary painters (like Picasso) who influenced his work. He soon became involved with the Surrealist art movement. In addition to his art, Dali was also known for his funny personality and unusual public behavior. He had outrageous pets, including an ocelot named Babou who never left his side. He took Babou into restaurants and even on plane trips! Sometimes he’d tell people that Babou was just a normal cat that he had painted. He walked around Paris with his pet anteater on a leash. He grew a unique mus- tache and shaped it with pomade. (In 2010 Dali’s mustache was voted the most famous mustache of all time.)
Terry Fincher/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Dali transformed his daily life into a surreal piece of art. He realized that he could draw attention to his art and sell it by drawing attention to himself. He made comments that caused a sensation, claiming to receive messages from outer space through his mustache and declaring that “All emotion comes to me through the elbow.” He purchased a castle for his wife! (He was only allowed to visit if he had her written permission.) His public life was a spectacle and people all over the world enjoyed his antics.
Dali loved extravagance and he expanded his income by creating beyond painting. He designed jewelry, clothes and furniture. He created sets for ballets and stage plays. He wrote fiction and scenes for screen plays. Dali even appeared on television game shows. Salvador Dali created his life and his art in a way that invited people to stop and pay attention, and to contemplate the idea of logic and reality.
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LET’S MEET THE ARTIST Dalí did what?!?! He filled his friend’s Rolls Royce with cauliflower – up to the roof! – and drove it from Spain to Paris. On another occasion he was seen riding in a limo full of cauliflower. (Dali thought that cauliflower and a rhino horn were examples of perfect shapes. He said surrounding himself with cauliflower was a philosophical endeavor.)
In 1936, at the London Surrealist Exhibition, Dali arrived wearing a head to toe deep diving suit. He brought two wolfhounds along with him, too! During his speech, the audience wasn’t able to hear him through his helmet, and when he tried to remove it, he realized it was stuck. He began to struggle for air and it took the crowd a few minutes to realize he needed help... they thought it was all part of the act. Luckily, the helmet was removed in time – he caught his breath and continued his speech.
He said: “Since I don't smoke, I decided to grow a mustache—it is better for the health. How- ever, I always carried a jewel-studded cigarette case in which, instead of tobacco, were careful- ly placed several mustaches. I offered them politely to my friends: ‘Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?’ Nobody dared to touch them. This was my test regarding the sacred aspect of mustaches.”
Salvador liked to work in small confined spaces – they made him feel protected and ‘coddled.’ While staying at a hotel in Los Angeles, he set up a workspace in the bathtub!
In addition to painting, Dali also ventured into fashion and furniture design, architecture, sculp- ture, drawing, photography, and film! He even collaborated on a short film with Walt Disney. The project began in 1945 but it was put on hold when WWII made the company re-evaluate their finances and pause some of their projects. In 1999, Roy E. Disney brought the project back and Destino (a short animated film) debuted in 2003. (You can find it on Disney+!) It’s rated PG but be sure to preview it first to make sure it’s suitable for your kids before you watch it together.
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ART MOVEMENTS
Surrealism 1924-1966 During his life-long adventure in art, Dali explored several different art movements: a classical style inspired by the Italian Renaissance, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Dada, and Expressionism can all be seen as influencing his work. The movement he’s most closely associated with is Surrealism.
Surrealism was an art movement that was all about imagination and the artists subconscious. Artists worked to get into a kind of dream state before they created, and they worked intuitively. Dali was known to go to extremes to capture his dream state ideas for his art. He would sometimes go to sleep sitting in a chair and holding a spoon in his hand with a plate positioned below so that he would drop the spoon just as he was falling asleep and it would wake him up. He’d then quickly sketch or write down what he had been dreaming. Surrealist art doesn’t always make sense, and it’s not supposed to. The purpose is to express the inner thoughts of the artist and allow the viewer to explore all of the possible meanings. More Surrealist Painters...
(1893-1983) (1917-2011) (1898-1967)
Joan Miró Leonora Carrington René Magritte
Harlequin’s Carnival, 1924-1925 Self-Portrait (Inn of the Dawn Horse), 1937-38 The Son of Man, 1964
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ELEMENTS OF ART Color Let’s take a moment to look again at this month’s featured art and look specifically at the colors Dali used. What do you notice. Look for cool colors (blue, green, purple) and warm colors (red, yellow, orange). Does Dali use color realistically, or does he use them for emo- tional impact (or both)? You can take notes here on this page!
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ELEMENTS OF ART Shape Dali uses shapes in a really interesting way. Look at this month’s art again, and look just at the shapes you see. What do you notice? Is there anything he does consistently that you notice? What might Dali have been thinking about shape as he created these works of art? Take a close look and record your observations and ideas here!
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LOOKING CLOSER AT THE ART Art Insights What is Dali telling us in this art?
Surrealist paintings don’t need to make sense, but the artist often has an idea they are sharing. Dali shared his thoughts on this painting, saying it was "...nothing more than the soft, extravagant, solitary, paranoiac-critical Camembert cheese of space and time... Hard or soft, what difference does it make! As long as they tell time accurately..."
The ‘paranoiac-critical’ part of that statement refers to his technique of inducing hallucinations by staring at something until visions came to his mind. The Persistence of Memory, 1931 The landscape plays a very important part of this art. This is thought to be the Catalonia region in Spain - a place he loved dearly and where he felt most inspired.
Look at the way Dali combines man made objects with natural forms. The combination is illogical at times- how is that tree growing from the platform?
Over 20 years later Dali revisited this painting with a follow up that visualizes what the disintegration of this scene might look like. In this painting we see lots of repetition and the addition of a series of rhino horns- a shape that Dali used often in his art and though to be a perfect form. Where else to you see symbolism here?
The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, 1952 - 1954
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LOOKING CLOSER AT THE ART Art Insights
Lobster Telephone, 1938 Dali loved to make art that created a strong reaction.
We can see his intelligent humor in these two pieces. Lobster Telephone is a combination of a real phone and a faux plaster lobster claw that’s been painted.
This piece was made specifically for a man named Edward James, and later other versions of Lobster Telephone were made.
Dali once noted that he could not understand why when ordering a grilled lobster in a restaurant he was never served a boiled phone in its stead.
Some people wondered if he was making a statement by contrasting a prehistoric creature with a piece of modern technology.
In the painting of Mae West’s Face, Dali plays with reality and creates an interesting optical illusion. Is it the face of a movie star or is it carefully arranged furniture in an apartment. (The lips sofa is a piece of furniture that was actually made!)
Dali often spoke about the idea of irrational knowledge, and we can see the influence of this idea in these two pieces of art. Mae West..., 1934–1935
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LOOKING CLOSER AT THE ART Art Insights
Portrait of My Sister, 1923 (The original version) Picasso’s Portrait of Gertrude Stein
This is a portrait of Dali’s sister, Anna Maria. When he first painted it there was only one of her!
People loved this painting and some compared it to Picasso’s Portrait of Gertrude Stein.
Years after starting this painting, he covered over a table and a stack of books that used to be in the lower corner and he painted a second image of his sister.
Notice how different the two styles are! Dali never shared his reasons for changing the painting... what do you think caused him to add the second upside-down Anna Maria?
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NOW IT’S YOUR TURN... Week 2
Create a double image
Did you think the lobster telephone was an interesting and unusual combination? What about the painting of Mae West’s face re-imagined as a Surrealist apart- ment? Or the double image of Anna Maria in her portrait?
This week, think about a clever way you can bring two images or ideas together to create something unexpected.
It could be a found object sculp- Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages), 1940 ture, or it could be a painting. It’s totally up to you and your idea for the art. Consider this: If you think of something really big Things to consider as you make your art... or elaborate that you can’t make, you could even sketch your con- Salvador Dali was a master of optical illusions and creating cept instead. interesting images that could be interpreted in multiple ways. Click theBeatrix image Potter above used to take her abrother’s closer look microscope at this painting to look at Have fun and remember to share where Dalithing combines really closely. objects, In this people study, , andshe landscapeszoomed in on to the your art if you’d like it included in create threecolor surrealpattern faces. and texture she saw in these wings! our next Studio Hour!
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