The Plays of Salvador Dali’s Mind

April 28, 2008 | By Doug In Dali |

Customer Review: Introducing youngsters to the creative insanity of Dali
It is hard to do justice to the imaginative insanity of Salvador Dali, but Angela Wenzel does a pretty good job for this volume in the Adventures in Art series. “The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Salvador Dali” introduces young readers to the Surrealist artist who knew how to put himself in the limelight in ways other than his paintings. One of things that Wenzel does is that she provides some of Dali’s own comments about his art, such as the 1937 painting “Sleep,” where a heavy face that looks like the film director Luis Bunuel is propped by my crutches and explaining the link between the writings of Sigmund Freud on dreams and Dali’s painting “The Burning Giraffe” (1936-37), where drawers are coming out of a tall woman’s body. Also included are the famous melting clocks of “The Persistence of Memory” (1931), the fried eggs of “The Sublime Moment” (1938), and the multiple pictures within “The Metamorphosis of Narcissus” (1937). What I especially like about this volume is how it looks at the origins of some of these paintings. For “The Endless Enigma” (1938) we have the original sketches of the six different paintings that Dali hid in the finished painting, while a postcrd showing an African village became a face turned on its side in “Paranoid Faces” (1931). Then there was the “Portrait of Mrs. Isabel Styler-Tas” (1945), which Dali based on Piero della Francesca’s “Battista Sforza and Federico de Montefeltro” (circa 1465) by way of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s “Winter,” a marvelous example of how the old becomes new in the hands of a talented artist. Young readers will also be exposed to some prime examples of Dali’s imagination with regards to other types of art beyond paintings, such as his infamous “Lobster Telephone” (1936) and the “Mae West Lips Sofa” (1937), although I miss seeing the harp covered with silverware that he made for his friend Harpo Marx. There are also some choice photographs of “Dali the superstar” engaging in the art of self-promotion. Just showing young readers examples of Dali’s artwork is enough to get them interested in the artist, but Wenzel takes pain to explain how Dali created his masterpieces and what he was trying to do with some of these pieces. This is one of the more truly educational books I have seem about a great artist written for young readers.
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Customer Review: A rather bland look at selected works of the artist
First off, let me say that I know next to nothing about art. I would like to cultivate an appreciation for great artwork, but it certainly does not come naturally - especially when it comes to modern art. Dali, however, is a master I at least have some affinity with. Who doesn’t know of the melting clocks? I have also seen the dream sequence he created for Hitchcock’s film Spellbound in 1945. Plus, the guy was just plain weird, and that is something I know a little bit about myself. This Artists of the 20th Century DVD looks solely at Dali’s artwork. All you see throughout the 50 minutes of video is one piece after another. There is no biographical look at the man, no mention of his contributions to the world beyond his paintings, and certainly no commentary on his eccentric personality (or mustache). There is not even an adequate identification of Gala, his inspiration and muse, despite numerous references to her in his paintings. Thus, this DVD will not introduce you to Dali the man or Dali the artist - it only looks at selected pieces of the art work of the maestro. Dali’s artwork is obviously impressive, and I was surprised by the variety of his work and styles. The narrator offers insight into some paintings - others, you just look and advance. I don’t understand a lot of Dali’s work, nor can I see some of the things the narrator tells me are in his more abstract pieces. The melting clocks and other surrealist images appeal to me. Dark works such as Visage of War speak volumes to the human observer, and the disappearing bust of Voltaire paintings are also striking. I was most impressed by the small sample of classical pieces Dali painted, however - largely because I did not know he ever produced such works. My idea of a painting equates with something like Design for the Interior Decoration of a Stable-Library, which is a strikingly beautiful work. Is this DVD worth watching? I will have to say No. If you’re a know-nothing novice like me, there is not enough basic information provided to really illuminate the artwork you will be shown. If you’re knowledgeable about Dali, you’ll be disappointed by the limited nature of the production and by the exquisite Dali works excluded from the show. After watching this, I decided to peruse some Dali galleries online, and I must say that the Internet makes this DVD of little value. Not only are the analyses and critical comments you will find online far superior to the information provided in this video, the quality of the paintings themselves are far better online than they are on the DVD.
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