Salvador Dali is versatile and became an artist with producing many pieces of work which not only included a painter, but he was a writer, illustrator, jewellery designer and many more. Dali was a visual artist, who was particular talented in artistic drawing and painting. Dali is one of the well known and inspiring artists for many years and has created many memorable pieces which are still recognized today. In the book (Dali’s mustache’, page 65-66) a photographic interviewer interviewed Dali himself and asked “what is surrealism?’ Dali replies and answers ‘surrealism is myseIf.”
Dali was influenced by two men who made a significant and creative impressions to his life were poets called Federico Garcia and a film maker called Luis Bunuel. And also artists such as Picasso, Miro and others inspired him massively. He was and still now is best known for his amazing surrealist and abstract work, with the success from his art, it has today been displayed in well known museums, including an exhibition close by to the London eye called ‘The Dali Universe’. In his name a building has been built in his home land, Spain, called ‘Dali’s museum’. With inspirational artwork, Salvador Dali has become an icon of artists of the modern society. In the Phaidon book (page 5) it quotes “The popularity of the work of Salvador Dali is immense; his image are recognized and provoke a response across the world. They continue to appeal to the new generations”.
Dali was very imaginative, which helped him create delusional art. This is smart and beautiful. With memorable pieces till today’s society he has made some amazing paintings such as ‘Swans reflecting Elephants’ and ‘dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before awakening’, but one in particular artwork that I really love is ‘Slave market with the disappearing Bust of Voltaire’ created in 1940, “With oil on canvas; 46.5 x 65.5 cm, 18 38 x 25 34 in”. This painting represents a slave market, whilst there’s a naked women sitting on a cubical who watches them. In this image you can see many things is going on, the form of bodies form a figured face on ‘Voltaire’ , Dali described the painting as followed "to make the abnormal look normal and the normal look abnormal."
In this painting it shows a still image that flips back and forth between two differing.
On the left a women is leaning on top of a red velvet cover, watching the crowd that is front of her. With the illusion, figures of the young girls wearing black and white clothing which appear to look like nuns become the face of Voltaire, this technique here that Dali used, reminds me of pop art, it appears to look like a logo within the painting of Voltaire’s face, to show Voltaire is in the painting but not with a bait form that is shown. The use of the wall that appears to be ruined into a rounded shape, this form a patch which turns into the head or possibly the hair of Voltaire.
To the right of the painting there is an emptiness bowl of fruit, I like the smart way of the pear sitting flatly which becomes the shape of the hills in the far background. This shows that Dali uses objects’ to form a second image.
One direct quote from The Guardian quotes about this Salvador Dali painting is “When looking at the painting, our perception switches from one interpretation to the other. In a study published in 2002, Lizann Bonnar, then at the University of Glasgow, and her colleagues, investigated the stimuli which drive perception of the visual scene depicted in Dali's painting. Participants were presented with a cropped greyscale version of the painting, consisting solely of the area containing the nuns. A "bubble" filter was used to enhance or obscure certain features of that part of the painting. They found that the participants reported seeing the bust of Voltaire when the finer details of the painting were obscured, and reported seeing the nuns when large scale features were obscured.” This quote tells us that there’s two parts of our mind which shows two different images. So this technique of objects becoming two different still images that Salvador Dali uses is very smart.
Salvador Dali has also made many more paintings which have illusions in them, the painting of the Swans reflecting Elephants “51 cm × 77 cm (20.08 in × 30.31 in” created in 1937.
I really love this artwork, I love the way Dali uses opposites in this piece of work this can be connoted by delicate swan contrasted with the wild animals. I love the use of expression of figures from the beautiful, graceful swans and trees can form the figure and details of the heavy elephants. The swan’s neck forms the trunk of the elephant and the trees form the figure of the legs of the elephant in the reflection in the still water. This works really well in my eyes because you wouldn’t expect it. If the still water wasn’t there I wouldn’t imagine that the swans could turn into something else. In this painting there is a figure of a man, it almost feels like Dali wanted to put himself in the painting as if he is there and it’s his imagination. In the background, I love the use of fierly fall colours it contrasts between complementary. I also love the use of brushwork creating swirls in the cliffs, to contrast with the cool stillness of the water.
I also love this piece that Salvador Dali created which is called ‘Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach’ “114.8 cm × 143.8 cm (45.2 in × 56.6 in”, created in 1938. This painting shows a glass of wine; on top of it, it appears to be a fruit bowl in a dessert sort of form. With ghost like shadows on the glass appears to form a face, and with the texture of the sand gives texture and dept of a face. There is an appearance of a dog behind which are formed by several non-related objects. I very much so like this piece that Dali has created. I love the use of imagination and creativity. I like how he used a shell and what seems to look as a figure to form eyes over the darker shades which creates shadows. Also to form a face shape the texture of the send just underneath the shell on the left of the wine glass the ghost like shadows form a cheek of the face. Above their glass is the fruit with colours which are soft that representing hair, this is smart because the use of soft colours and calm shades forms curls in the hair. From left to the right of the painting you can see a figure of a dog from a distance. On the right the use of the bridge becomes the dogs’ collar. The style of the darker brown to the light beige becomes the head of the dog, and within the darker brown shades, there is an open hole which becomes the dogs’ eye, but in the far distance view, there is a light blue sky and sand that becomes the dogs’ eyes features. To the left of the painting is the end part to the dog, which becomes the back and the tail, which is clearly shown by the use of direction Dali used with his brushes and the different tones of browns.
There are many modern artists who are inspired by Salvador Dali with the aspect of surrealism. Modern artists such as George Grie, Laurie Lipton work in such surreal ways that used different technique to approach this. Technology such as Photoshop, screen printing are now introduced to artists in today’s century, unlike Salvador Dali, where he mainly focused on hand painting. In modern society surrealism is like a common feature that certain artists have, each single artist wants to be known as diverse, so they create unique artwork, but with influences from artists like Salvador Dali gives them a base line of inspiration.
Because of artists like Salvador Dali it helps inspired people today to keep the early styles of art in history, without the history of people like Dali himself; we wouldn’t have specific art today. And knowing history is really important because you learn about the techniques the artists use, their culture and they way they preserve art.
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Dali’s mustache “what is surrealism?’ Dali replies and answers ‘surrealism is myseIf.” page 65-66 [accessed 26/11/12]
Phaidon “The popularity of the work of Salvador Dali is immense; his image are recognized and provoke a response across the world. They continue to appeal to the new generations” Page 5 [accessed 26/11/12]
Wikipedia [Online] “With oil on canvas; 46.5 x 65.5 cm, 18 38 x 25 34 in” "to make the abnormal look normal and the normal look abnormal."
Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Market_with_the_Disappearing_Bust_of_Voltaire [27/11/12]
The Guardian [Online] “When looking at the painting, our perception switches from one interpretation to the other. In a study published in 2002, Lizann Bonnar, then at the University of Glasgow, and her colleagues, investigated the stimuli which drive perception of the visual scene depicted in Dali's painting. Participants were presented with a cropped greyscale version of the painting, consisting solely of the area containing the nuns. A "bubble" filter was used to enhance or obscure certain features of that part of the painting. They found that the participants reported seeing the bust of Voltaire when the finer details of the painting were obscured, and reported seeing the nuns when large scale features were obscured.”
Available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/neurophilosophy/2011/sep/19/ghostly-gaze-illusion
[27/11/12]
Wikipedia [Online] “51 cm × 77 cm (20.08 in × 30.31 in”
Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swans_Reflecting_Elephants
[28/11/12]
Wikipedia [online] “114.8 cm × 143.8 cm (45.2 in × 56.6 in”
Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparition_of_Face_and_Fruit_Dish_on_a_Beach
[1/12/12]
