“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.”
– Salvador Dali
This week’s Monday Meme is a Surrealist Challenge.
Everyone knows Dali’s melting clocks (most famously used in The Persistence of Memory) and Magritte’s apple-faced The Son of Man (although I prefer his Time Transfixed), but the one thing that fascinated me about Dali was his common useage of the ‘cutout’ method, with all its connotations of seeing through or seeing into his subjects.
Whether it was his muse, Gala, painted looking at herself as an elegantly-pillared building, or an old man with a cupboard cut from his body, this technique was one for which I knew I had the exact item in my inventory.
I picked up this Soul Window from Kunstkammer (I believe it was a group gift, or similar freebie) back in 2009. Between that and the more recent headdress from Tableau Vivant (which fits the quote perfectly), this is far simpler than I would like, but I’m dog tired tonight. I may see if I can put together another surrealist look sometime soon. This, though, will suffice for now.
To close, a small anecdote. I visited the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow many years ago. At the top of a beautiful, massive wooden staircase that has been burnished to a deep shine by thousands of hands and feet over many decades of use, is a Dali painting. You walk up the stairs, and it confronts you as you’re looking up. It’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross. I’m not a particularly religious person, but seeing that rise above me as I walked up the stairs was something close to an experience. The painting is still at the gallery (although its position may have been moved; I went there sometime back in the mid-90s) and if you ever get the chance to see it, DO.
Skin: Red Sand – The Huntsman (metal) [ david.december ]
Hair: Wasabi Pills – Teeloh (night shadow) [ missallsunday.lemon ]
Headdress: Tableau Vivant – Breaking Apart [ m4r1lyn.magic ]
Eyes: Negaposi – Elfin Eyes (dark matter) [ durttrashdurt.zipper ]
Window: Kunstkammer – Soul Window [ nuala.shippe ] – no longer available
Love that quote!
Me too. I lean rather more toward Cocteau and Picasso these days when it comes to art preferences (I’m also intrigued by Duchamps) but Dali has long been a fascination for me, both as an artist and a man.