The Deception of the Thrush

Thanks for the links. I love Breton.

I recently re-read Dali's "Hidden Faces" - unfortunately the political space of Surrealism is too often glossed over, don't you think?

Yeah...the politics of surrealism. That's digging way into the depths of my memory. When I was in Mexico we studied the three major muralists (Rivera/Siqueiros/Orozco) so all my surrealism education came from a Mexican perspective. I seem to remember that Siqueiros was the most serious surrealist of the three. I'm sure he was a passionate Communist sympathizer. I'm not sure how the politics and the art linked together there. I could make something up (all these forms and standards being dictated by the bourgeoisie...)
but I can't precisely recall what the principles of the art and the principles of the politics shared in common.

Dali seems to have enjoyed a resurgence in publicity these days. Just very recently. Is it an anniversary of his birth? His death?

His birthday is May 11, I think, and I know the traveling retrospective launched to celebrate his 100th last year (and I think came very recently to Philly) has been extended due to popular demand. That must be the reason for the recent resurgence.

I've heard a lot about the show in Philly, which surprises me, because much of Pittsburgh expresses a mild resentment towards Philadelphia, jealous of its affluent and respected cousin across the mountains.

Anyways, what do you know but the back issue of the New York Review of Books that I just checked out of the library has a big piece on that Philly exhibit, and on Dali in general. As you anticipated, not a lot of coverage of politics, but I'll quote the only paragraph that seems relevant:

"...Dali's Nietzschean determination to be cold and unfeeling toward others, added to his compulsion to perform and his desire to deal an Oedipal blow to the generation of artists immediately preceding his own, resulted in an increasingly sour, grotesque, and inverted aggresivity....Forsaking the fiercely held left-wing attitudes of his youth, he ultimately became a fawning admirer of Franco, the Vatican, and any member of any aristocracy he could locate. In the 1930s, his confessed "erotic" attraction to Hitler (specifically to Hitler's buttocks) was enough to put him, for Breton, beyond the pale."

So, no, not much description of those 'fiercely held left-wing attitudes', though plenty of lament of the decline that came afterwards. Such was the tragedy of the article that I almost felt that I couldn't be reading it before going to bed, as I was trying to do, or else I would superimpose my own face on such tragedy and dream about it in my sleep. Epistemological systems -- be it surrealism, or its arch enemy of rationalism -- either way you go, they give the illusion of such power and control over the world, but in the end, who are we to not become slightly less histrionic versions of Dali, forever submissive to and ultimately consumed by our single-minded (and likely misguided) pursuit of truth? We are all subservient to that which promises to reveal the most 'real' existence -- be it our Dreams, our God, our Science, our Literature-- all the while thinking that we've trumped a world that would like to keep us deceived. But in the end these systems can easily take away as much of your humanity as they add to it.

Well, there's my overly dramatic statement for the day. Time for more coffee.

Finally, I have time to post blog comments again! I was all prepared to comment on stupid things I had done and hurt myself, then you got all "surreal" on me.

You and John exchange comments on several "planes" above me, I fear.

I do know that "Mrs. Waddie" is a great fan of Dali's work--from when she was a young "radical" student--she says. When they were in Philly with their son (who, by the way is doing research on "post-traumatic syndrome of Vietnam vets" for an advanced degree in Psychology.

Does Philly have a special facility for some of these people?

Anyway, when Nick was off with his questionnaire, she and Larry went to see the Dali exhibit, just to find it closed on Mondays--which it was.

Now to your previous post . . . .

Oops, sentence fragment there--FOUL!

That quote sent appropriate levels of chill and giggle, Karin. Dali's adherence to his own ego as a singular lens took him beyond his contemporaries and disciples (from Breton to Ernst and even to Rothko) and was indeed "beyond the pale". That said, I tend to Dali more credit as an astute observer of his environment than most. He writes in "Hidden Faces" (1944):

"Six days previously, Hitler had blown up the single elevator by which his eagle's nest could communicate with the rest of the world. If they should try to destroy him, they would be forced to destroy with him the most sublime dreams and creations of civilization" (303)

Despite Dali's fantastical, erotic musings and love affair with the material opulence of Catholicism, aristocracy and, well, buttocks, he saw from his unusual perch the first foreboding clouds of war as an infernal machine with interchangeable parts. One tyrant removes another only to create a replacement, in what can only be described as an unquenchable lust for the perpetual movement of the war machine, a notion that plays out, sadly, even today.

Yeah..the Surreal life wasn't exactly what you might expect if you're into the art style. I just finished a surrealism website you might be interested in. It covers alot of the more famous surrealists. There's a new artist section too but there aren't too many people there yet. It's

sorry.. it's http://www.Surrealism-Artlinks.com