Dippy, Trippy Dali

When you think of Surrealism, or see a Dali painting, what words come to mind for you?  Me, I think "trippy," "illogical," "morbidly interesting, " but mostly "dreamlike".  I do not like Surrealism, at least in a visual arts setting; the entire dream-scape that they portray is disconcerting and very unsettling for me, but I know that it appeals to many people. 

I went on a cruse a couple of years ago and that was the first time that I was introduced to Salvador Dali.  The art director set up several lectures and one of them was over the surrealist master, Dali.  We saw a video that Dali and Walt Disney worked together on a very long time ago, but had been locked in the Disney vault ever since the two mega-minds of art put it together.  Destino is a crazy, jolting trip through baseball and visual poetry and star-crossed lovers, all managing to be conveyed with nothing but music and fantastical images.

  Destino, by Dali and Disney

I researched Dali for a class once and read that one method Dali had when painting was to eat a very large meal then go sit outside in the sunshine, with the intentions of falling asleep.  He would put a metal bowl on his lap and hold a spoon in his hand and hold it slightly upright.  As he drifted off, his muscles relaxed and his arm would drop, causing the spoon to clang against the bowl.  Because he did this, Dali was able to paint what he saw in his dreams and create the twisting and illogical scenes that we find in his paintings.  I think that this technique is possibly the coolest idea ever for exploring the dream world, I just don’t like Dali’s dream world!

But Dali is by no means the only Surrealist out there.  We move on to Frida Kahlo, a Mexican woman who suffered, among other things, an obsession with artist Diego Rivera.  She often created self-portraits with exaggerated honesty about her looks and a variety of odd headdresses or other truly unexpected accessories, like nails, only serve to reinforce my dislike for this style of art.

Even though I do not like the surrealist movement, I can accept that it has played a part in moving the art world into the modern art styles we find now….even though, to me, it will never be as good as A Rock On A Stick!