Essay/Term paper: Salvador dali

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Miscellaneous

From the real to the surreal, Salvador Dali embodied it all.

Once he was satisfied with his abilities to mimic what he

saw in the world, he began to play with objects and space.

He comprehended, perfected and finally transcended

realism and his work became much more than paint on

canvas.



In a forward that transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilber

did for Alex Grey"s book Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary

Art of Alex Grey, he stresses that "all of us possess the eye

of flesh, the eye of mind and the eye of spirit. We can

classify art in terms of which eye it mostly relies on. . . Each

of these eyes sees a different world – the world of material

objects, of mental ideas, of spiritual realities (respectively).

And each eye can paint what it sees. The higher the eye,

the deeper the art." Dali"s work seems to parallel this

theory.



He began as a child genius of art. At the youthful age of 14,

his charcoal drawings patterned techniques that Claude

Monet is so renown for using. Dali was capable of

portraying Monet"s stylistic texture in a texture-less

medium. By the time he reached his twenties, he perfected

this impressionistic style using oil paint on canvas. I believe

this is illustrated in The Three Pines, a painting which was

created when Dali was 15. Vague line definitions and

blending, vivid colors and values are just of few of the

comparisons that could be made between this and Monet"s

Water Lilies, Green Harmony.



As he perfected this style, he became more realistic. A

perfect example is his oil



painting, Basket of Bread in which a simple woven basket

sits on a white table cloth with four slices of bread inside. A

simple black backdrop provides an excellent subdued

contrast to keep



your eye focused on the subject. The entire painting, done

by Dali at age 22, is so realistic that at first glance it seems

like a photograph. You can feel the folds in the cloth as

well as the harsh texture of the basket. The lighting and

shadows are perfect for the object and not at all over

baring. His placement of the object in the lower half of the

painting gives the entire piece a good sense of depth.



From this point, Dali encompassed and transcended

realism into pre-surrealism and finally surrealism. He started

to incorporate ideas into his paintings and move beyond the



material world. This signifies the beginning of the use of the

second eye that Ken Wilber discusses and the continuation

into what I believe to be the third eye. To explain this, here

is another quote from Ken Wilber taken from his discussion

of achieving the highest or deepest degree of art: "The

purpose of truly transcendent art is to express something

you are not yet, but can become." (Ken Wilber; One

Taste, p. 6) In Dali"s painting, My Wife, Nude,

Contemplating her Own Flesh Becoming the Stairs, his

wife is seated with her back to us, staring at a surreal

depiction of her from our point of view. She is painted in

perfect realism with beautifully bright and natural colors.

Smooth lines and delicate shadows give us a taste of Dali"s

talent with a brush. The definition and detail of her hair

makes it seem as though we can reach out and touch it. It

appears that a light breeze could sway it from perfection.



By the title alone, we can say that she is sitting there

contemplating her image in the distance changing before her

eyes. The image is not only surreal but majestic in nature.

The



value of the color differs from that of the realistic human. In

the human, they are dark and defined, where in the

contemplated object they are pastel and soft. The

contemplation barely resembles it"s originator anymore but

holds just enough shape that you can place it. She watches

her image turn into a mechanical looking architectural

structure with a hollow center. The object is vulnerable to

destruction because of what little material is actually holding

it up. Stairs from the ground lead straight into the middle of

the object and beautiful Romanesque pillars augment the

hair. A statue stands atop a column inside the structure

where the heart would usually sit.



All of this can be taken literally as I am describing or you

can look deeper into it. A brief glance at my thoughts on it:

It"s a husbands view of his wife in which she sees herself as

she really is and contemplates from afar. She sees her body

open and unprotected with stairs leading you straight inside.

She welcomes her lover; her husband. This beautiful

architectural shrine is dedicated to him and that is his statue

beside her heart. The statue stands tall and victorious the

same way she sees her husband. This is all just the tip of

the iceberg.



When I first read Ken Wilbers discussion of art, I could not

agree more with him. Anyone can paint with the eye of the

flesh, it just takes practice. To take the step to the eye of

the mind, you must be willing to open yourself up and see

what comes out. You have to have a certain amount of

talent to be capable of expressing ideas on the canvas. Not

only that but conveying them in such a manner that they

make people stop and contemplate. To paint with the eye

of the spirit you must encompass all of these and transcend

yourself to a higher level of thought. Salvador Dali is my

absolute favorite painter because he can achieve these

things. In his work, I see a natural progression from basic

painting from sight to something that includes so much

more. Each step he took, he did not leave behind the

knowledge that he learned before, but he incorporated it

into something so much more incredible.