Wednesday, 16th, March

Hi All,
I'll be in the Library from about 9.00 to go over our presentation one more time. I reckon, if we do 2.5 minutes each, it will give us time for 'any questions' and the handouts. Is this ok with you?
Bev

ps. You'd better be there tomorrow!!

Handouts!

Bev and Kirsty,

Cos I'm a sad sod............ and the Cherry Pie I've just made is really bad............... I've compiled some handouts, printed them off, and made up some Presentation Files!!!!

Hope you like them........ they are better than the Cherry Pie!!

ANTS
ART
CANVAS
ECCENTRIC
ESSAY
GALA
HISTORY
INNOVATION
MELTED
MEMORY
MOUSTACHE
OILS
PERSISTENCE
POWERPOINT
PRESENTATION
SALVADOR DALI
SURREALISM
WATCH

A D E T J S V B N M Q W E R T
S A V N A C R T Y U I O P A S
L D T F S G H J K L Z X C V B
I N N O A V T I O N A S D H F
O G I H L J R K L O Z X C I V
B N O M V N A B E I P E R S V
S A P W A T C H C T Z M X T C
D F R F D G E H C A T S U O M
W H E F O T K J E T H I M R E
S D W E R R A T N N S L E Y M
D P O I D L Y T T E Y A L Y O
A S P Y A V F D R S T E T Y R
E R T G L T Y H I E R R E A Y
G P G I I H S L C R E R D S U
T Y U P O Y T D M P R U H S H
H J K L E C N E T S I S R E P
X C Z B N R A R R G U H B N M

This is the worksearch I did for our 'Class Handouts'.......... honest........... it looks better in real life!!!!!

Dates of events

1929 - was the year of the world economic crisis.
1930 - Sigmund Froyd wrote his book Civilization and Discontents.
1932 - Communist unrest and millitary coups take place in Spain.
1933 - Nazis publicly burn books by authors they disagree with and Hitler was appointed as chancellor, passingthe 'Enabling Act, marking the beginning of dictatorship in Germany. The first concentration camp was built in Dachau.
1933 - The Spanish Civil War begins.
1939 - World War 11 begins.
1939 - The end of the Spanish Civil War.
1940 - The Dali's leave France and emigrate to the USA (returning to Europe in 1948)

soft watches

From: Lambert R., (1991), The Cambridge Introduction to Art - The Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press.

Dali's soft watches have their origin in a pun. In this case a pun about putting out your tongue, la montre moll, which also means a soft watch. So watches are painted like soft tongues.

Title of Painting

By the way......the original Title for The Persistence of Memory was 'Soft Watches'.. yeah, I know... really exciting stuff to be blogging :)

Is this an improvement on your pic Bev???!!!

Extra

The following is taken from:
Descharnes, R. and Neret, G. DALI. 2006. China: Taschen.

The great catastrophe that was impending in Dali's own life happened on 10 June 1982, when Gala (his wife) died, leaving him alone. Dali tried to commit suicide by dehydrating. How serious was the attempt? He was convinced that dehydration and return to a pupal state would assure him of immortality. He had once read that the inventor of the microscope had seen minute, seemilngly dead creatures through the lens of his invention - creatures that were in a state of extreme dehydration and which could be restored to life with a drop of water.

Dali concluded (or at least liked the idea) that it was possible to live on beyond the point of dehydration. What he had not forseen, though, was that, having consumed nothing for so long, it became impossible for him to swallow anything at all. From then till his dying day he was fed liquid nutrients through a tube up his nose.

Extra

In World War I, Spain maintained a position of neutrality. In 1923, Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera became dictator. In 1930, King Alfonso XIII revoked the dictatorship, but a strong antimonarchist and republican movement led to his leaving Spain in 1931. The new constitution declared Spain a workers' republic, broke up the large estates, separated church and state, and secularized the schools. The elections held in 1936 returned a strong Popular Front majority, with Manuel Azaña as president.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107987.html

Extra

Spain between 1931 and 1936



Under the unpopular Berenguer administration, democratic institutions such as freedom of the press were restored. A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT was formed by republicans, socialists and Catalans (PACT OF SAN SEBASTIAN, Aug. 17th 1930)- ignoring the present Berenguer administration; the provisional government members quickly were imprisoned; however, they knew that they enjoyed the support of significant groups in society. A Dec. 1930 coup attempt by Captain FERMIN GALAN failed; he was executed. Berenguer resigned; his successor held negotiations with the provisional government. On April 12th 1931 local elections were held; the monarchists won the countryside, republicans and socialists in most cities, and in both Madrid and Barcelona the REPUBLIC was proclaimed, King Alfonso went into exile. ALCALA ZAMORA formed a new cabinet, consising mainly of politicians who until recently had been prison inmates.
A new constitution was passed, with a unicameral parliament, the CORTES, UNIVERSAL ADULT SUFFRAGE (i.e. women's suffrage introduced), and with presidential system. In the new Cortes, the socialists (PSOE) formed the largest faction. The CNT was legalized again. CATALONIAN AUTONOMY was restored (1932). Church and state were separated, religious education in schools discontinued.

For the first time in her history, Spain was an orderly democratic republic. This had been achieved at an ill-opportune moment, in the midst of the GREAT DEPRESSION. Spanish unemployment figures rose, trade fell and then stagnated. Those who were lucky to hold on to their jobs experienced a cut in their wages. Government attempts to alleviate the situation of the worst affected were resented by the better-off. Other reform policies deprived church and army of their privileges. A land reform was introduced (1932), disappointing the landless, going too far for the landowners.
Due to the severe economic crisis, Spain politically was polarized. Late in 1931 the government declared MARTIAL LAW to maintain law and order (the soldiers now having sworn lotalty to the republic). Another coup attempt in 1932 by General SANJURJO was suppressed.
Both the Catholics and the conservatives felt deprived of their traditional dominating role. In 1933, JOSE ANTONIO PRIMO DE RIVERA, son of the late prime minister, founded the FALANGE PARTY which was to play an important role in Spain's future. The extreme right placated the reforms of the republican government as a step toward Bolzhevism. Also in 1933, the CEDA, a ultraconservatice Catholic party, was founded. A new electoral law favoured the strongest party; while the leftist parties contested the elections one by one, the parties of the right formed electoral alliances and thus made extraordinary gains in the elections of Nov. 1933.
A new coalition, consisting of the Catholic CEDA and of Lerroux' Radicals, was formed. The reform policy was abandoned, numerous earlier reform measures were taken back. Massive strikes followed, centering in Asturias and Catalonia. The CEDA under Gil Robles withdrew their support from the government; pm Ricardo Samper stepped down and a new right government was formed under ALEJANDRO LERROUX, a maverick republican who for personal ambition and animosity cooperated with the rightist parties. The announcement of the formation of the new cabinet caused an immediate violent reaction, the REVOLUTION OF OCT. 4th. It failed; many of the leaders of the left were arrested. In Barcelona, a CATALAN STATE was proclaimed within the framework of the Spanish Republic, but suppressed the next day by armed forces. In the Lerroux cabinet, CEDA leader GIL ROBLES became more and more influential; in 1935 he was appointed minister of war. Late in 1935 he caused Lerroux to step down by withdrawing CEDA support.
In 1936, prime minister AZANA's liberal republicans, together with the socialists and communists formed the POPULAR FRONT. The 1936 elections returned a majority of the Popular Front parties.


http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/spain/spain19311936.html

Extra

Historical Events and Society @1931...

- Thomas Edison submits his last patent application
- Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight(from Australia to
New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast
- French govt of Steeg falls
- Hungary-Austria sign peace treaty
- Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" premieres at Los Angeles Theater
- New Delhi becomes capital of India
- Spanish Govt of General Damasco Berenguer falls
- Spanish voters reject the monarchy
- Spain becomes republic with overthrow of King Alfonso XIII
- Piccard & Knipfer make 1st flight into stratosphere, by balloon
- 1st showing of a Donald Duck cartoon

http://www.historyorb.com/events/date/1931

Rene Magritte 1937

Although this is not an actual surrealist painting, i thought i would put it on here for you to look at because it does have the same dream like qualities, even though it is in a sculptural form.

Rene Magritte

The Future of Statues/L'Avenir statues

1937

Painted plaster

330 x 165 x 203 mm

relief

This work is made from a commercial plaster reproduction of the death mask of the French Emperor Napoleon. Magritte painted at least five of these casts, each with sky and clouds. Discussing the works, the artist’s friend the Surrealist poet Paul Nougé suggested an association between death, dreams and the depth of the sky. He commented: ‘a patch of sky traversed by clouds and dreams [can] transfigure the very face of death in a totally unexpected way’.

Lobster Telephone (also known as Aphrodisiac Telephone) was created by Salvador Dalí and Edwrad James in 1936 . The piece is a composite of an ordinary working telephone and a lobster (made of plaster). It is approximately 15 × 30 × 17 cm (6 × 12 × 6.6 inches) in size.

Four copies of the full colour object were made. One now appears at the Dalí Universe in London; the second can be found at the Museum of Telecommunication in Frankfurt; the third is at the National Gallery of Australia and the final one is at West Dean. Six all-white versions were also produced.

The following year they collaborated on the Mae West Lips Sofa (1937). Modelled on the lips of actress Mae West, whom Dalí apparently found fascinating. It measures 86.5 x 183 x 81.5 cm.

www.westdean.org.uk

www.life.com

i found this interesting

Edward James was a life-long patron of the arts and supported young painters, composers, and writers. He joined the committee called La Serenade formed to promote new musical works and was concerned to aid those young composers who had not yet met with recognition or needed financial backing in order to reach a larger public. In 1933 Edward James financed the presentation of a season of ballet in Paris with Georges Balanchine as choreographer. The ballet was rapturously received, first in Paris, then at the London Savoy.

Perhaps one of the things for which Edward James is best remembered, is for his patronage of painters, and throughout Edward’s life, he supported many young artists such as Salvador Dalí, Rene Magritte, and Pavel Tchelitchew, buying their work, which was then, unfashionable. In this way, he unintentionally amassed what has come to be accepted as one of the finest collections of surrealist art in Europe. A few of these paintings still remain at West Dean, although the majority of his surrealist collection has been dispersed.

Edward James allowed Rene Magritte to stay at his home at paint there rent free during the years he was not so famous, he also sponsored Dali for the whole of 1938

http://www.westdean.org.uk/CollegeChannel/College/History/TheEdwardJamesFoundation.aspx

and sesame street

even the simpsons have been inspired by dali!

other artists to look at

some other artists worth looking up (but check what they did 1930-1940) are:
Yves Tanguy, Rene Magritte and Roland Penrose.

bbc4's modern masters- salvador dali

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtEdmPGLZnM&feature=related

Copy and paste this into the web address to watch it, its quite interesting :)

background information on how surrealism developed

Surrealism was developed by the 20th-century literary and artistic movement. The surrealist movement of visual art and literature, flourished in Europe between World Wars I and II. Surrealism grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which before World War I produced works of anti-art that deliberately defied reason; but Surrealism emphasis was not on negation but on positive expression. The movement represented a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the "rationalism" that had guided European culture and politics in the past and had culminated in the horrors of World War I. According to the major spokesman of the movement, the poet and critic André Breton, who published "The Surrealist Manifesto" in 1924, Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality." Drawing heavily on theories adapted from Sigmund Freud, Breton saw the unconscious as the wellspring of the imagination. He defined genius in terms of accessibility to this normally untapped realm, which, he believed, could be attained by poets and painters alike. This movement continues to flourish at all ends of the earth. Continued thought processes and investigations into the mind produce today some of the best art ever seen.

http://www.surrealist.com/

Wednesday

Hi Dali's kabs,
shall we meet in the library on Wednesday morning to discuss plans for the presentation? if possible, try and bring something on a pendrive and we'll see what we've got - see you there?

Swans Reflecting Elephant-image

Dali also develops new techniques such as double images and drawers (Goff 69). The double images that he uses in his art stress his ideas of moving the eyes. He'd take two different images in symbolic clusters that come in and out of focus depending on how you look at the image. His other favourite technique drawers are used frequently through his painting. Drawers are often used in human figures transforming them into furniture. One good example of this would be in his painting The Burning Giraffe (Goff 70). (http://reviews.mibba.com, viewed 26/2/11)

Swans Reflecting Elephant-image

swans reflecting elephant

Any great artist know how to move the human eye throughtout their artwork when one is observing their art. dali knows just how to do that with not just colours, but his repetition and morphing of figures throughout his art. Dali is infamous for cutting blocks out of figures and placing the missing pieces in totally different places in his art. Dali's art art is similar to looking through a Pictionary game, discovering all the hidden secrets in his paintings. Look for the repetition of his figures, but notice how he has changed them around to look like a new figure has been born. One good example of this is his painting Swans Refecting Elephant. (http://reviews.mibba.com, accessed 26/2/11)

a bit more on The Father of Surrealistic Art..

Surrealism is the stressing of subconscious or irrational significance of imagery (Dictionary.com), or in more simplistic terms, the use of dreamlike imagery. Dali's absurd imagination has him painting pictures of figures no man would even dream of creating. One may believe him to be a lunatic, judging his usage of dreamlike figures throughout his art, but many may consider it genius. http://reviews.mibba.com (accessed 26/2/11).

The Father of Surrealistic Art

Dali's art is the definition of surrealism. Throughout his art he clearly elaborates on juxtaposition (putting similar images near each other), the disposition (changing the shape of an object), and morphing of objects (ranging from melted objects dripping, to crutches holding distorted figures, to women with a head of a bouquet of flowers) (Goff 5). http;//reviews.mibba.com (accessed 26/2/11).

No more today... I'm off to do some knitting!!!

In his famous painting, The Persistence of Memory, Dali portrays the landscape of his native land, Figueras, Spain, in a realistic fashion. The objects in the foreground have the technical precision of real watches, yet they are limp and lifeless, suggesting a lack of energy, of ability to function as a watch should. Or perhaps this is a conceptual effort to stop time. The scale of all the forms is greatly distored -- the watches are huge compared to the branches. The unnatural color of the watch faces adds to the feeling of unreality.

Some suggest the amorphous figure that looks like a rock is a self-portrait. Notice the shape of the nose and the long lashes. The object seems unconscious under the weight of the limp watch on top of it. Another watch is crawling with ants, still another is harassed by a solitary fly. Could these objects suggest Dali's fear of his own mortality?

What does the title of this piece suggest? Even though technical function of these watches is no longer apparent, do they continue to keep time? Perhaps Dali is telling us that time relentlessly continues despite the mechanical failure of an object or being.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Salvador+Dali%3a+images+of+the+surreal.-a012157557

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory
1954
by Salvador Dalí



Original Dimensions: 10 x 13 inch

In the Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory from 1954, Dalí disintegrated the scene from his popular 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, located in New York's Museum of Modern Art. This disintegration is an acknowledgment of the developments of modern science.

The disquieting landscape of his earlier work has here been shattered by the effects of the atomic bomb. All of the elements in the painting are separating from each other.

The rectangular blocks in the foreground and the rhinoceros horns floating through space metaphorically suggest that the world is formed of atomic particles that are constantly in motion.

Forms disintegrating as a result of the bomb populate the barren landscape. The soft skin of the face to the right is fluid, and the soft watch from the 1931 canvas is not just draped over a branch in the dead olive tree, it is ripping apart.

By locating this work in the barren region of the Bay of Cullero, Dalí revealed that the atomic bomb has disturbed even the serenity of the artist's isolated Port Lligat.

Yet in spite of this painting's bleak implications, Dalí presents the atomic disintegration in a harmonious pattern, indicating the persistence of an underlying order in nature. Buy Salvador Dalí Prints

http://www.artinthepicture.com/paintings/Salvador_Dali/The-Disintegration-of-the-Persistence-of-Memory/

Thought this was interesting

Technically exquisite, The Persistence of Memory is one of what Dalí called his “handpainted
dream photographs” and can simultaneously be read as a landscape, a still-life,
and a self-portrait. The effect of such a tour de force was not lost on Dalí, and from the
1930’s forward, melting watches appear regularly in his artwork—most significantly,
perhaps, in a “revision” of the original painting completed in 1954 and titled The
Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. Using many of the same elements as the
original, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory represents the significant
changes that Dalí’s life and art underwent after World War II. Considering the succcess
of the 1931 painting, it’s not surprising that Dalí should express his “new self” in terms
of the old. This is the first time that MOMA has agreed to loan The Persistence of
Memory; side by side for the first time in history, the two paintings link not only the two
halves of Dalí’s career, but the two halves of a century as well.

http://thedali.org/education/documents/clocking_in.pdf

And...

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?object_id=79018

Dalí: Painting and Film
June 29–September 15, 2008
Time is the theme here, from the melting watches to the decay implied by the swarming ants. The monstrous fleshy creature draped across the paintings center is an approximation of Dalís own face in profile. Mastering what he called "the usual paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling," Dalí painted this work with "the most imperialist fury of precision," but only, he said, "to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality." There is, however, a nod to the real: The distant golden cliffs are those on the coast of Catalonia, Dalís home.

2006
Dalí rendered his fantastic visions with meticulous verisimilitude, giving the representations of dreams a tangible and credible appearance. In what he called "hand painted dream photographs," hard objects become inexplicably limp, time bends, and metal attracts ants like rotting flesh. The monstrous creature draped across the painting's center resembles the artist's own face in profile; its long eyelashes seem insectlike or even sexual, as does what may or may not be a tongue oozing from its nose like a fat snail.

Interpretation

Direct transcript from: www suite101.com

In the work, clocks appears to melt over branches and rigid surfaces, and ants devour a pocket watch while a vague face hovers in the background. The background itself show the rocky landscape of Port Lligat in Dali's native Catalonia, Spain.

... The face beyond if said to be Dali himself, the ants may represent destruction or decay, the rocks can be veiwed as eternity or reality, and the melting clocks perhaps show that regimented time is an artificial concept that cannot withstand the true power of the universe beyond.

the moustache

Dali shaped his moustache to look like butterfly anteni because he believed they were receptors to creative energy. (Travel Channel TV sky 252, Globe Trekker, 8.00 Sunday, 2/2/11. I have saved a photo, will try to get it onto the blog!

Dali describing Persistence of Memory

Dali is quoted by Descharnes and Neret as saying

...Just as I am astonished that a bank clerk never eats a cheque, so too an I astonished that no particular painter before me ever thought of painting a soft watch.

Descharnes, R. and Neret, G. (2006) DALI. Los Angeles: Taschen

Bits and pieces

"His (Dali) most prolonged and inspired period of creativity was in the 1920's and 1930's when, under the influence of Surrealism, he painted many of his best-known and most original works. Later in his career he seemed more concerned with living the life of a celebrity and cultivating his reputation for outrageousness than with furthering his art"

Hodge, J. (1994) Salvador Dali. London: Grange Books (p6)

facts about persistence of memory

The Persistence of Memory: Facts & Interpretation

• It was completed in 1931 and is considered one of Dali's most famous works.
• The painting is only 9 1/2 by 13" inch (24.1 x 33cm).
• It possibly derives its meaning from Sigmund Freud's work on psychoanalysis because Dali painted it during his psychoanalytical era of painting.
• Interpretation 1: The persistence of memory meaning theme: the drooping pocketwatches possibly suggest the irrelevance of time during sleep. In other words, when we are asleep, or not conscious, the time does not persist, but memories do.
• Interpretation 2: Yet another interpretation of this painting may, through the use of symbolism, suggest Einstein's theory that time is relative and is not fixed.
• Dali called his paintings hand-painted dream photographs

this was found at http://www.authenticsociety.com/about/ThePersistenceOfMemory_Dali

info on Dali

This info was taken from a book titled 'DALI', 2004, published by Grange Books, no author's name.
Salvador Dali, born in Spain on May 11th, 1904. Died in 1989.
His student days were in Madrid. The early years of his fame were in Paris, up to his leaving to go to the USA in 1940, when Dali was 37.
Dali received his first lessons in painting and drawing at a private catholic school of the French 'La Salle' order when he was eight years old. (page 10).
Dali's oldest existing works date from 1914. They are small-format watercolours, landscape studies of the area around Figueras. (page 10).
Oil paintings by the eleven-year-ol Dali also exist. Mostly as copies of masterpieces which he found in his father's well-stocked collection of art books. (page 14).

We all recognise that Dali was eccentric, I wonder if the following insight into his childhood might explain a few things? These are quotes from Dali's autobiography taken from above book.

'Dali's life is overshadowed by the death of his brother. On August 1st, 1903, the first born child of the family, scarcely two years old, died from gasrtoenteritis.' (page 5).

'Throughout the whole of my childhood and youth I lived with the perception that I was a part of my dead brother. That is, in my body and my soul, I carried the clinging carcass of this dead brother because my parents were constantly speaking about the other Salvador' (page 10).

As a child Dali liked to dress up, as a king, and in other costumes too.
"I started to test myself and to observe; as I performed hilarious eye-winking antics accompanied by a subliminal spiteful smile, at the edge of my mind, I knew, vague as it was, that I was in the process of playing the role of a genius. Ah Salvador Dali! You know it now; if you play the role of a genius, you will also become one!" (page 14).
- Later Dali analysed his behaviour:
"In order to wrest myself from my dead brother, I had to play the genius so as to ensure that at every moment I was not in fact him, that I was not dead; as such, I was forced to put on all sorts of eccentric poses". (page 14).

decade and painting.

1930 - 1940

salvador dali

persistence of memory

hey did this as a simple one

we discussed dalikabs so i choose that but it can be changed.