Daddy
Longlegs of the Evening-Hope! (1940) Daddy Longlegs of the Evening-Hope! was
the first painting the Morses purchased for their collection in 1942. It was
a Dalínian prophecy of the role air power would play in World War II: in the
top center, Victory is born of a broken wing. The image of a limp plane oozing
from a cannon is reminiscent of George de Chirico's The Philosopher's Conquest
(1914) in The Art Institute of Chicago. An anguished soft face, known as "The
Great Masturbator" in Dalí's paintings, occupies the center of this work. The
head, infused with sunset colors, metamorphoses into an elastic female figure
whose breasts are mimicked by two inkwells which suggest the signing of peace
treaties. A grieving Cupid appears in the lower left; anguished no doubt because
the world was violently changing. Yet Dalí told the Morses that according to
an old French peasant legend, a daddy longlegs, like the one in the center of
this painting, seen at evening is a symbol of good luck. So, Dalí offers hope
in spite of the painting's bleak atmosphere.
Disintegration
of the Persistence of Memory (1952 - 54) 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.
The
Hallucinogenic Toreador (1969-70) Dalí conceived this painting, The Hallucinogenic
Toreador, while in an art supply store in 1968. In the body of Venus, on a box
of Venus pencils, he saw the face of the toreador. This double image painting
repeats the image of the "Venus de Milo" several times in such a way that the
shadows form facial features. Start with the green skirt, and make it into a
man's necktie. The white skirt becomes his shirt. Travel up the figure. Her
abdomen becomes his chin, her waist is his mouth, and her left breast is the
nose. The pink arch forms the top of the head with the arena at the top as his
hat. The red skirt on the right Venus is his red cape. The tear in his eye,
at the nape of Venus' neck, is shed for the bull. The toreador appears again
in a different, standing pose in the shadows on the Venus. This figure of the
toreador is also shown separated from the Venus glowing yellow with arms raised
in dedication of the bull to Gala. She appears in the upper left hand corner
also surrounded by yellow. Dalí painted Gala with a frown because she disliked
bullfights. The image of the dying bull emerges from the rocky terrain of Cape
Creus that appears to the left of the toreador's neck tie. A large gadfly replaces
the bull's eye, referring to the myth of St. Narciso in which gadflies drove
away French invaders of Catalonia. What might at first appear to be a pool of
blood beneath the dying bull is really a translucent bay. On this bay a woman
floats on a yellow raft. This seeming incongruity symbolizes the "modern tourist
invasions of Cape Creus which even the flies of St. Narcisco have been unable
to halt!" [Dalí once remarked that he was not too worried about the profanation
of his beloved Cape Creus because its rocks would "eventually vanquish the...
tourist, and time would destroy the litter they leave everywhere."] To complete
the story of Dalí's Spain, the small boy in the corner holding a hoop and fossil
bone is Dalí himself in his familiar sailor outfit. This painting is a grand
celebration of Dalí's career referring to his homeland, to his interest in optical
illusions and nature of representation, and to his love of Spanish culture.
As Dalí said, this is "all of Dalí in one painting."
Geopoliticus
Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943) Painted during his stay in the
United States from 1940 - 1948, Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the
New Man initiates Dalí's classic period. The ideas for Dalí's classic works
were derived from a variety of sources, including contemporary events, his Spanish
heritage, and Catholic symbolism, replacing much of the personal symbolism of
his surrealist period. While working on this painting in 1943, the artist jotted
down some notes. They read: "Parachute, paranaissance (sic), protection, cupola,
placenta, Catholicism, egg, earthly distortion, biological ellipse. Geography
changes its skin in historic germination." Unlike the meanings of his surrealist
paintings of the 1930s, this work's meaning is accessible because the surrealistic
contradictions are absent. The Geopoliticus Child reflects the newfound importance
America held for the expatriate Catalan artist. The man emerging from the egg
is rising out of the "new" nation, America, which was in the process of becoming
a new world power. Africa and South America are both enlarged, representing
the growing importance of the Third World, while Europe is being crushed by
the man's hand, indicating its diminishing importance as an international power.
The draped cloth below [above?] the egg represents the placenta of the new nation.
An androgynous figure points to the emerging man, acknowledging the importance
of this new world power. The cowering child at her feet represents the spirit
of this new age, and the child casts the longer shadow indicating that he will
replace the older age.
Old
Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages) (1940) Here, Dalí used double images
to create the allegorical faces of Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy. Glimpses of
Port Lligat are seen through the apertures where illusions of faces also appear.
These openings were suggested to Dalí by the worn arches of the ruins of Ampurias.
On the left, the bowed head of the woman from Millet's Angelus makes up the
eye of Old Age; the hole in the brick wall forms her head's outline, and the
rest of the figure forms the nose and mouth. The nose and mouth of Adolescence,
the figure in the center, is created from the head and scarf of Dalí's nurse
sitting on the ground with her back to us. The eyes emerge from the isolated
houses seen in the hills across the Bay of Cadaques. On the right, a fisherwoman
repairing a net composes the barely-formed face of Infancy.
Slave
Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940) This work is an example
of the instantaneous paranoiac-critical hallucinations Dalí received on the
edge of sleep. The slightest movement or time lapse would change the relationship
of the figures and the face would disappear. In 1971, the magazine Scientific
American used the Slave Market to illustrate this effect. Dalí visualized this
apparition within a bust of Voltaire by the French sculptor Houdon. Dalí has
the bust transformed through the chance arrangement of two 17th century Dutch
merchants in a marketplace. The bust's outline is formed by the opening in the
wall behind the merchants. Their faces form the bust's eyes, and their collars
make his nose and cheeks. The fruit dish on the table also creates a double
image, for the pear becomes a distant hill, and the apple forms the buttocks
of the man standing in the market. The slave-figure looking on could be Gala.
