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Roger Macdivitt .

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RE: The Surrealist Phenomenon - SALVADOR DALI
12/15/2012 11:52:55 AM
Quote:

Mike and Roger,

I just found the below painting by Caspar David Friedrich, another of our great artists featured. It shows a couple of crutches on the snow and if I remember well, this fact alone arouse quite a bit of interest among us at the time.

Mike, all your observations about Dali seem to me perfectly valid. I appreciate the fact that you not only are visiting here but also offering suggestive feedback. What is more, theose observations of yours are particularly interesting. By the way, I have thought too that he may have left some of his paintings unfinished on purpose.

As to you Roger, thank you so much for all the effort you put into these posts. I don't know what it would be of this forum without you, especially now that I can only come for a short while most of the days when I can show up at all.

About the below painting, it wouldn't surprise me that Dali had taken inspiration from its author as well to create some of his own works. He seems to have drawn inspiration from so many great artists, both famous and not so famous, and their works. In particular, he seems to have felt a deep and huge admiration for Diego Velazquez, the great Spanish painter of the eighteen century. I know how you admire Velazquez and his works too, Roger, and have been thinking of posting a special section later on in this thread with just a few of the works by him that inspired Dali's own works. I am sure it will be of great interest to you, too.

Big hugs and blessings,

Miguel

Caspar David Friedrich - Winter Landcape with Church (oil on canvas, 1812)

Miguel,

I cannot say how much I love this painting. I am going to put it on my list to see before I die.

The Dali connection is clear but how many have missed this.

I could add my opinions again as to the crutches here in this painting but I'll resist it. Let others decide, but, I will say that for me this painting is special and it's effect upon me is more spiritual than the average (sorry, nothing average about Dali) Dali painting. Why? Because to me I understand spirituality but, I don't understand the sometimes disturbing elements in Dali paintings. All this, despite my DESIRE TO PAINT LIKE DALI. He has my highest rating in inspiration.

I have paintings that individually I love more, but, Dali has the skill, imagination, mystery and outright showmanship that I am in awe of.

Note to visitors: My opinion is important. So is yours. I'm not special but here I can help to make you think. That is special.

I'm just sharing this with Dali and so can you.

Roger

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Roger Macdivitt .

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RE: The Surrealist Phenomenon - SALVADOR DALI
12/15/2012 12:01:01 PM

Burning Giraffe SD02 – Salvador Dali Burning Giraffe

Salvador Dali

Man is full of drawers waiting to be opened by psychoanalysis

More crutches and those drawers again

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Myrna Ferguson

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RE: The Surrealist Phenomenon - SALVADOR DALI
12/15/2012 4:33:14 PM



This one is funny, because sometimes you wish you had crutches in some cases. lol
Then there is the little figure with a big stone, looks like a pill to me. The birds circling around. I think I try to figure out what was going on in his head while he was painting this, or had he seen it, like you have said,Miguel, in his dreams. Well, Roger it is getting my brain into action.

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Roger Macdivitt .

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RE: The Surrealist Phenomenon - SALVADOR DALI
12/15/2012 9:38:40 PM

Myrna,

Seems like a good use of crutches to me.

Roger

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: The Surrealist Phenomenon - SALVADOR DALI
12/16/2012 1:08:13 AM
Dear friends,

I am so glad to see you are enjoying this thread. To be sure, only Dali can get such amount of attention and excitation at his works. At any rate, I thank you all for the great feedback you are bringing in.

The fact is, I too am most of the time at a loss when trying to understand Dali's works. I think I have previously told you that I usually try to start these threads unencumbered by any excess of knowledge or opinions about the featured artist as, in my opinion, it might prove too heavy a burden and spoil spontaneity. In most cases, I will bid on spontaneity.

So one of the things I am observing now in many of Dali's works is the importance given to vertical objects. I am thinking of the lances, the crosses and, now, the crutches - which not only can be used to carry heavy loads but, perhaps more importantly, as essentially apt to get things to a vertical position.

Also, when we featured Caspar David Friedrich, I remember a point was made of the steeples in his churches signaling to his obvious aspiration, almost to the point of obsession, to one day attaining at the spiritual realm.

So my point is: Could this apparent obsession, now in Dali's case, explain his approaching the famous Velazquez's
Surrender of Breda with its main motive - the multitude of lances vertically set on the ground - to use it in his own The Discovery of America?

Note that this work, according to Wikipedia,
contains numerous references to the works of Diego Velázquez, specifically The Surrender of Breda, a Spanish painter who had died 300 years earlier, and who influenced both Dalí's painting and his moustache. Dali borrows the spears from that painting and places them on the right hand side of his work. Within these spears, Dali has painted the image of a crucified Christ, which was based on a drawing by the Spanish mystic, St. John.

I have already mentioned this
predilection of Dali - almost a fixation - for Diego Velazquez and his work. At one point, he even took to virtually imitating several of Velazquez's best known master works (yet evidencing in them his own style). (I hope to show a few of these soon in this thread.)

Diego Velazquez - The Surrender of Breda (aka The Lances)
(oil on canvas, 1634-35)

Salvador Dali - The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus
(oil on canvas, 1958-59)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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