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Home , Alexandre Deulofeu, Francesc Pujols, Josep Pla

Dibuix negre V (Black Drawing V), Antoni Tàpies (2005) paint and pencil on paper 23,8 x 16,5 cm II

Enric Pujol

Controversial Dalí The politico-ideological controversy with the Catalan intelligentsia

Sex, Madness and Politics As is self-evident, the statement that Salvador Dalí was one of the most controversial figures (in and the world) of the 20th century does not need too much explanation. However, the great public controversy has focused, basically, upon two points: one about whether Dalí was mad or not (a debate especially acute during the artist’s lifetime) and the other about his “atypical” sex life (a controversy especially intense after his death). Neither of these aspects will be dealt analyse the question in detail and that with here, as there are a host of books have been supplemented by declarations on both subjects. As a mere indication, by people close to Dalí, like for example we ought to mention, with regard to the his ex-secretary Enric Sabater2. Above all supposed madness, the book by Àngel we must point out two books: the one by Carmona Dalí no és cap boig (Dalí is no Clifford Thurlow Sex, Surrealism, Dalí and Madman), published in the 1960s, which, Me (which includes the confessions of just by its very title, resolves the polemic the gallery owner Carlos Lozano) and the in a quite categorical and well-reasoned biography by Ian Gibson The Shameful way1. As to the artist’s sex life, lately there Life of Salvador Dalí (in which, in a have appeared different publications that psycho-analytical way, great importance

2 In an interview in Avui (31-5-1998, pp. 51-52), E. ■ 1 The original version in Castilian was published by Sabater denied all trace of homosexuality in Dalí: “He Plaza & Janés (: 1963) and now a Catalan wasn’t. What Dalí had were other things. He practiced version is being prepared by Llibres del Segle. masturbation from a distance”. 124/125 II Controversial Dalí Enric Pujol

is given to a supposed —and very an unequivocal universal dimension, a arguable— repressed homosexuality culture especially strong, according to as the key to interpreting the life and Dalí, in the philosophical and artistic work of Dalí)3. spheres (two of his favourite fields). I wish here to deal with an aspect less Therefore one of the “mature” Dalí’s basic studied but no less crucial when it comes trios of great intellectual reference points to explaining the controversy that the was that made up by the philosopher figure and work of Dalí stirred up in , the architect Antoni the society of his day: I am referring Gaudí and the painter Marià Fortuny to ideological and political reasons. (names “of reference” to which one could even add others, from quite different Although these were widely known periods, like the painter Modest Urgell, about during the process of Francoist the draughtsman Joan Junceda, the liquidation, they have gradually become inventor Narcís Monturiol, the writer and more and more neglected and may quite painter Santiago Rusiñol or the mediaeval soon be reduced merely to the field philosopher ). Dalí, therefore, of specialists if the centenary of the was never a rootless man who abjured his artist’s birth ends up as a mere apology own culture (as were, at a given moment, and does not serve to make a critical Eugeni d’Ors or Ferran Valls-Taberner). assessment (and naturally balanced and To review, even briefly, the total of the unbiased) of the man4. The different love and hatred that Dalí aroused in politico-ideological standpoints that Dalí the bosom of the Catalan intelligentsia championed throughout his life won him would go far beyond the limits of an passionate support and criticism from article such as this (and ten more, for outstanding intellectual figures of the sure); for this reason four significant time, both Catalan and from elsewhere5. stages in Dalí’s career have been chosen Especially controversial was his figure in order to see the game of adherences and work in the bosom of the Catalan and rejections that his politico-ideological intelligentsia of his day, as it was the (and aesthetic) standpoint aroused among “closest” and where Dalí had lain what the Catalan intellectuals of the day. we might call his basic ideological foundations. It is worth saying, as a prior question, Yellow is the colour of the avant-garde that Dalí, despite the many politico- A first stage, corresponding to the period ideological twists and turns that he of his youth, is the appearance of the made, never renounced being Catalan ‘Yellow Manifesto’ (1928), signed by Dalí, (even though he made it compatible Lluís Montanyà and Sebastià Gasch. It with being a “Spanish” and cosmopolitan is a very significant moment because it man par excellence): he always explicitly puts Dalí in the most daring groups of the defended the existence of a Catalan Catalan avant-garde attitudes of the day. culture with its own personality and What sort of avant-garde was it? Daring,

■ 3 Published, respectively, by Planeta, 2000, and Empúries, 1998. 5 A first approach to Dalí’s relations with important 4 The need to carry out this critical exercise has already figures of his time is the catalogue Salvador Dalí. Àlbum been noted by N. Selles: “Al voltant de Dalí. D’usos, de família, by Montse Aguer and Fèlix Fanés, Fundació lectures i valoracions”, Diari de (21-9-2003). Gala-Salvador Dalí/Fundació “La Caixa”, Barcelona: 1998. II

provocative, breaking with tradition, painters like Picasso or Miró and with critical of the situation of the moment. young poets like García Lorca7. We have enough examples of it in the The radical nature of the young Dalí’s large number of denunciations made of plastic and aesthetic proposals went hand it. Thus, among other things denounced in hand with radical ideas in the political are “the sentimental influence of the arena. We have precise knowledge of his racial common ground of Guimerà”, the youthful ideas thanks to some diaries that “mawkish sentimentality served up by he wrote at the beginning of the 1920s (A the ‘Orfeó català’”, “the complete lack of Diary: 1919-1920. My Private Impressions youth of our young people”, “the young and Memories), but which was not people trying to repeat the old painting published until 19948. In these writings and the old literature”, “the absolute lack he shows himself to be unequivocally of background knowledge of the critics on the side of the Russian revolution with respect to the art of today and the and the struggle of the Catalan anarcho- art of yesterday”, “the painters of crooked syndicalist trade unions against the trees”, “current Catalan poetry made of owners and against all bourgeois order. It the most tired Maragallian clichés”, the should be said that this attitude coincided “psychology of the boys and girls that fully with that held by certain radical sing Rosó, Rosó”… At the end of the text, sectors of Catalanist republicanism in on the positive side of things, there is a L’Empordà, then all-powerful in list made of the “great artists of today”, and the county. This mixture of political among whom are mentioned Picasso, radicalism and aesthetic daring made De Chirico, Brancusi, Breton, Aragon, contact with the Parisian surrealists Cocteau, Garcia Lorca… and Joan Miró6. easy, through the affinity he had with The appearance of the manifesto made the programmatic foundations of the the young Dalí’s name, at the age of movement. However, the key figure that 24, as one of the principal points of made the incorporation of Dalí into the reference of the plastic and aesthetic surrealist movement possible was Joan avant-garde of the day. Naturally, this Miró, who advised him very well and was possible because, then already, Dalí made the right introductions for him to was a solid “young hopeful” who had be able to make his very own “conquest” achieved putting on his first individual of Paris9. exhibition, in 1925, at the Dalmau Gallery Therefore, then, in this early period of in Barcelona (a great success with the his professional career, Dalí had the intellectuals of the Ateneu Barcelonès), support of very important names in the who had already published texts in such avant-garde intelligentsia. As well as an emblematic avant-garde magazine as Miró, he was backed by the entire team L’Amic de les Arts and who had already of the magazine L’Amic de les Arts: Josep made personal contact with famous Carbonell i Gener (the chief driving force

■ 6 Reproduced in the catalogue d. giralt-miracle (ed.): sister Anna Maria. See Noves imatges de Salvador Dalí, Avantguardes a Catalunya, 1906-1939, Fundació Caixa Columna, Barcelona: 1988. de Catalunya, Barcelona: 1992, p.309. 8 Ed. 62, Barcelona: 1994 7 One of the pioneering voices when it came to 9 See the letter by Miró reproduced in the catalogue pointing out the high level of appreciation that certain Dalí: els anys joves (1918-1930), Generalitat de intellectual circles showed the young Dalí was his Catalunya, Barcelona: 1995. 126/127 II Controversial Dalí Enric Pujol

behind the publication), the poet Josep endangering the republican regime itself. Vicenç Foix, and Gasch and Montanyà, In the autobiography, Dalí tells of his with whom he had signed the “Yellow flight from Barcelona to before the Manifesto”. The counterpoint to this military repression against the Catalan support was the opposition of Eugeni capital and explains that once he had d’Ors, who in 1929, in an article in La arrived in the French capital he made, Gazeta Literaria, criticised the fact that under the impact of that experience, the Dalí had hung, in an exhibition at the painting Premonition of Civil War. His Goemans Gallery in Paris, a painting distant attitude towards the Generalitat with a sacred heart where it said (with and the republican government during an eagerness to provoke that went down the civil war, his expatriation during really well with the surrealists) that “I this time and his relationship with some sometimes spit out of pleasure on the Francoist intellectuals (among them portrait of my mother”. D’Ors’ article D’Ors himself), contributed to the cooling revealed quite sufficiently the aesthetic off of relations with the surrealists chasm that separated him from Dalí, but (especially with the chief inspirer of the it had repercussions that went much movement, André Breton, with whom further than the sphere of aesthetic he broke off for good at the beginning philosophical discussion. Dalí’s father of 1939) and naturally to his distancing read the article and this led to the two of from numerous left-wing and democratic them breaking off relations. Catalan intellectuals. However, he was still looked upon with a great deal of Change of course and exile reticence by the Francoist intellectuals (like P. Laín Entralgo, who at the height A second key moment in Dalí’s career of the war severely criticised the artist)11 took place in the mid 1930s. The great upheavals of the period (the Events of and it cannot be said that then, despite October 1934 and then the Civil War of some declarations of a racist nature and 1936-1939) were the cause for a radical of a fascination for Hitler, Dalí was a change in his political outlook, which Nazi-sympathizer. The proof is that, after became more and more right wing and the Nazi occupation of , the Dalís conservative. He himself explains, in the moved to the United States, where they imagined autobiography The Secret Life lived a sort of “golden exile” until 1948, of Salvador Dalí10, this mutation due to when they decided to return to spend the panic that the “real” revolutionary long periods in Catalonia. movement produced in him, which During this exile The Secret Life of first manifested itself in a big way after Salvador Dalí was published, which the so-called Events of October 1934, made a great impact in the artistic when President Companys proclaimed and intellectual world of the time; an the independent Catalan state after an impact that was felt among the Catalan extreme right-wing government had intelligentsia, both those who had been set up in that seemed to be supported Francoism and those who had

■ 10 Recently reissued and included in the first volume 11 This is how f. miralles reports it: L’època de les of his Obra completa, Destino/Fundació Gala-Salvador avantguardes, 1917-1970, vol. VIII of Història de l’art Dalí, Barcelona: 2003. català, Ed. 62, Barcelona: 1989, 3rd ed., pp. 216-217. II

had to go into exile. Thus, (from Return and the ostentatious the ranks of those initially addicted to the acceptance of Francoism regime) spoke well of it; also speaking The moment of clearest rupture between enthusiastically of it were some of the Dalí and the main body of the Catalan most important intellectuals in exile, like anti-Francoist intelligentsia took place, Joan Sales or Lluís Ferran de Pol, who however, when the artist returned, with devoted enthusiastic articles to him in the Gala, to live in his native Empordà; Quaderns de l’exili, published in Mexico12. that is, from 1948. And this is the third Sales (under the pseudonym of Masades moment that I shall consider. After the de Segura) called Dalí the “prophet from end of the Second World War it was Portlligat” and Ferran de Pol ended his thought that the victorious allies would article calling for a definitive edition to be put and end to the Franco dictatorship, made, in Catalan, of all Dalí’s writings13. as they had done with other dictatorial The appearance of the book and the and Nazi-sympathizing regimes. But these success the artist had in the usa was expectations were not met due to the new even mentioned among the centres of political demands resulting from the Cold the internal cultural resistance opposing War, which broke out straight afterwards the dictatorship, as was the case with and which saw Franco considered a the promoters of the semi-clandestine “lesser evil” by the self-named Western journal Ariel14; of course, there was a Bloc, headed by the usa. In this context deep division of opinions. In issue 3-4 of the international consolidation of of Ariel, corresponding to the months Francoism, Dalí decided to return and of July and August 1946, there appeared make a determined approach to the four notes referring to Dalí, signed by regime, going as far as becoming one of Josep M. de Sucre, Alexandre Cirici i its “official” artists. Pellicer, Joan Perucho and Daedalus It should come as no surprise, therefore, (pseudonym), where you could see the that Dalí, in part due to his convictions different appraisal each one made of the and partly through the wish to be artist, although there was an overriding recognised as a great artist, should then tone of general reticence. The most direct his actions and his work towards enthusiastic was A. Cirici, who valued parameters that would make him more very positively that in the personal diary acceptable to the regime. 1951 was a that Dalí kept in , called Dalí decisive year in this sense. It was the year News, he should have included the coat of his lecture “Picasso and Me”, given at of arms of Catalonia on the masthead. the María Guerrero Theatre in Madrid In another issue of the magazine, from (where he said “Picasso is a communist, June 1947, Salvador Espriu was extremely neither am I”); and the year of the critical of Secret Life, a work he dismissed Mystic Manifesto and the work Christ of as a “llibre autocoprobiofàgic” (shit-eating Saint John of the Cross, which gave an autobiography) (and of course, this was unequivocally religious, Catholic, feel to no compliment). his work (no matter that it was a religious

■ 12 There is a facsimile edition of it produced by Estudis 1945) and 18 (January-March 1946). Nacionalistes, Barcelona: 1982. 14 There is also a facsimile edition of it, Proa, 13 Published, respectively, in issues 17 (December Barcelona: 1978. 128/129 II Controversial Dalí Enric Pujol

assumption very sui generis, eccentric and However, it must be underlined that the not too credible) and placed his artistic anti-Dalí opposition of the day did not output in forms closer to a figurativism come exclusively from the anti-Franco of classicist aspiration. Thus, anti- movement, as he was heavily criticised communism, religiousness and the new by Catholic sectors who did not look forms close to “Renaissance mannerism” kindly upon his religious “conversion” (as F. Miralles has called them)15 were and who found him irreverent (not to the three basic pillars that allowed him say blasphemous). This was the case, to be accepted by Francoism. Naturally, for example, of the journalist and writer the acceptance of Dalí by the regime (or Manuel Brunet, who, from the pages of vice versa) brought down upon him the Destino, considered Dalí a pornographic disavowal of the main body of the Anti- author and threw in his face his past as Franco intelligentsia. In this respect, the a communist-sympathizer, anti-religious adverse standpoint of three key figures in and anti-Spanish. Brunet’s standpoint the formulation of what we might call the brought him into long arguments with anti-Francoist aesthetic was decisive: Joan the poet Carles Fages de Climent, a Miró, Antoni Tàpies and Joan Brossa, who fervent Dalí supporter; both of them both in private and in public criticised lived in Castelló d’Empúries and saw his political stance and invalidated his each other very often17. Not for nothing, aesthetic option, which they considered Fages de Climent was one of the most out of date, old fashioned, due to the new outstanding members of the “hardcore” reality that had emerged in the post-war of Dalí’s stalwarts, made up basically years. by people from L’Empordà who knew During the dictatorship, the figure and the artist and his work well and who work of Dalí was anathematised, then, therefore, whatever their political by a very significant part of the anti- opinions, agreed to champion Dalí’s Francoist cultural front, although within option18. As well as Fages (who initially this bloc there were voices who knew had supported Francoism, but later perfectly well how to separate the value moved away), there were the historian of Dalí’s artistic contribution from the and pharmacist (who criticism of a certain political option as was the Republican mayor of Figueres is the case of Àngel Carmona or Manuel during the war, exiled and hostile to the Costa-Pau. Even some anti Francoist regime) and Jaume Miravitlles (head of figures received Dalí’s help, as was the the famous propaganda commissariat case with the president of the Generalitat during the war, an outstanding in exile, , whom the collaborator of the Republican painter presented with a work when the government in exile, a self-confessed anti- politician was in dire financial straits16. Francoist, but also very anti-communist

■ 15 f. miralles: L’època de les avantguardes…, op. cit., p. 18 I have already taken a first look at this group, in E. 218. Pujol: “Alexandre Deulofeu i Salvador Dalí, dos genis 16 As stated by Enric Sabater in the quoted interview. heterodoxos”, Revista de Girona, 221 (Nov-Dec 2003), 17 As explained by J. Pla: “Carles Fages de Climent. pp. 32-37. As for the relationship Fages-Dalí, see also L’epigramista, el poeta, l’home. Una vaga aproximació” the book-catalogue Carles Fages de Climent (1902-1968). in Escrits empordanesos, vol. 38, Obra completa, Poètica i mítica de l’Empordà, Ajuntament de Figueres, Destino, Barcelona: 1989, 2nd ed., p. 353. Figueres: 2002. II

and pro-Atlantic). In this same group of Narcís Selles in the book Art, política i Dalí stalwarts, we should include Claudi societat en la derogació del franquisme Díaz Pérez, from Figueres, an architect (Art, Politics and Society in the Abolition and “one of the most intelligent men I of Francoism) where it is made clear that have ever met in my life”, according to Dalí was seen by the politically engaged the historian Pierre Vilar. It turns out artists of the time as the official artist of that Díaz explained to Vilar the keys to the regime21. Dalí’s world and this opened up a whole And thus we come to a fourth key new world to the historian; a fact that moment in Dalí’s career, that of Vilar still remembered nostalgically and the transition from dictatorship to affectionately in his memoirs Pensar democracy, which began still under the històricament, written in the closing sign of the dispute. Three years after stages of his life19. the controversy caused by the tribute It is impossible to list the Dalí supporters to Carles Rahola, in summer 1979, a of the day without mentioning two more great controversy emerged again when names: Francesc Pujols and Josep Pla. the new democratic Figueres council In the case of Pujols, it was Dalí who decided to change the names of the city declared himself to be an admirer of his, streets (to restore the traditional names even though Pujols (who died in 1962) removed during the dictatorship) and it distanced himself from some of the main replaced the name of the square in front Dalí-esque formulations (especially those of the Teatre-Museu Dalí, dedicated to most deeply rooted in the avant-garde the artist and Gala, with that of Plaça del and provocation). Pla became, above Teatre (which was what it was commonly all after Dalí broke with the surrealists, known as). The event was reported one of the firmest champions of Dalí’s internationally and was perceived by aesthetic ideas especially insofar as it was many sectors as an unfair snub to Dalí. a return to “realist” figuration20. However, I think that the incident served to initiate a very profound rethink of the Civic discredit and official rehabilitation artist, especially among the sectors who At the closing stages of Francoism, after had fought for democracy and Catalan the dictator’s death, the figure of Dalí autonomy, which culminated, a few was once again at the centre of a huge years later, in an “official rehabilitation” controversy, due to his exclusion, in of Dalí’s contribution, promoted by the 1976, from a tribute exhibition to Carles re-established Generalitat, which decided Rahola (a Girona intellectual from the to award him, in 1982, the Generalitat’s Empordà shot by Franco) organised in gold medal. Since then, there has been Cadaqués by the Democratic Assembly of a growing interest in and recognition of Artists of Girona and which later moved Dalí’s contribution by Catalan society as to the Fundació Miró in Barcelona. This a whole, whatever people’s ideological or episode has been studied in detail by political standpoint.

■ 19 Tres i Quatre, Valencia: 1995. 20 This is the central thesis of the biography that Pla edition of it by Dasa Edicions, Figueres: 1981. wrote of Dalí in Obres de Museu. There is a popular 21 Llibres del Segle, Gaüses: 1999. 130/131 II Controversial Dalí Enric Pujol

Still, however, there were some Thus, towards the end of his life, controversial flare-ups, like an article by the figure of Dalí began to shed the Antoni Tàpies on July 10th 1983 in which controversial side that it had dragged he made appreciating Dalí’s work and behind it until then. His death, however, being left-wing incompatible22. However, saw it flare up again. The controversial in the long run, there was imposed a will he left unleashed veritable rivers of very generalised appreciation of Dalí’s ink and provoked a behind-the-scenes work, which did not in any way exclude institutional confrontation between criticism but did not deny his work Figueres-Barcelona and Madrid which all validity. An example of this more was only resolved (very unfavourably for equable critical position was the lecture Catalan interests and especially those of by Carles Muñoz Espinalt, “Pujols, an Figueres) thanks to a high-level political Archetype of Dalí”, given in 1982 in the agreement. This, however, would need Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres, in which another article entirely. Controversy, then, he distinguished perfectly between the was a constant feature throughout the appreciation of Dalí “the artist” and the life and artistic career of Dalí that did not (heavy) criticism of “the citizen”, with abandon him even after his death. It was many interesting forays into the complex most certainly something he wished for personality of the genius from Figueres23. to begin with, but in the end it took on Even an intellectual “of reference” in the feel of an authentic condemnation II left-wing circles like Manuel Vázquez Montalbán did not hesitate to write the libretto for Dalí’s opera-poem Être Dieu, published in 1985.

■ 22 “El reencuentro oficial con Dalí”, El País (10-7-1983), p. 11 23 Included in Obra escrita, El Llamp, Barcelona: 1987. I believe that the psychological analysis that Muñoz Espinalt Enric Pujol is a historian makes of Dalí is very correct and opens up many avenues that and journalist. He now works have not been exploited by specialist scholars of Dalí’s work. at the .