Salvador Dali and his vision of Surrealism. Dali embraced the visionary world of Surrealism. He exclaimed: “Le surrealism, Crest moi!” (Surrealism, It is me!).
During Dali’s early formative years, his friends would caution him not to go “too far!” He always responded: “But that’s just where I’ve always wanted to go!”
To many gallery/museum visitors, Dali’s work was so unique and imaginative that they felt they were not properly prepared to see this Spaniards work. To these concerns of the viewing public, Dail would say: “Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic!”
What are your thoughts on Surrealism in general and in particular the visionary work of Salvador Dali? Do you need to take him like a drug or a hallucinogenic elixir? Dali famously stated: “There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad!” What are your thoughts on his vision of the world seen through his unique and highly personalized lens of Surrealism?
Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1951
Art 473 Modern Art I 
Personally, I’m a big fan of surrealism. I very much like the general concept of warped realities being portrayed through art and I think it leaves a lot of room for creativity. Specifically on Salvador Dali’s work, I was amused in learning about the influences of Freud in his work. I’ve always though that Freud’s theories were interesting to say the least and to see that through some of Dali’s work is also just as fun. I don’t think I necessarily need to take him like a drug, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do so if that makes sense. I would love to his world through his unique lens. I personally think that everyone should take his hallucinogenic elixir at least once. And I think that seeing things through a Surrealist lens can heighten your world perspective. It can offer an enhanced version of the world or make you see things the way you never saw before. One of my favorite artists is Dorothea Tanning, who was influenced by Surrealism and was married to Max Ernst. I never really knew Surrealism had a name when I was younger and I think Tanning was first introduction to that when I was doing a research project on her. I just love how open Surrealist art is to interpretation, but how much of the unconscious/conscious mind that it taps into when looking at it or when an artist is creating it.
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Generally, I am a big fan of surrealism, and really respect Dali’s confidence in his work. He was self aware of what the public’s reaction to his work was, yet he was unapologetic and did not dilute his vision for anyone. It is interesting that he spoke about himself/his work in the context of a drug and hallucinogenic, because I think most would agree that his pieces give off that kind of feel due to its surrealist, twisted view of reality. His work is less about a drug induced view of the world, than it is about exploring the mind, exploring perception and perspective, exploring the possibilities and potential of the world around us. As Catherine noted above, Dali was heavily influenced by Freud and his studies, which is definitely evident in his work, and shows that his interest in understanding and interpreting his surroundings.
A couple semesters ago, I watched a film by Dali called “Un Chien Andalou,” a surrealist film with heavy Freud influences as well. It was really interesting to see how his visual style translated into film, as its timeline was disjointed and read as a dreamlike sequence. The plot and purpose of the film was obscure and difficult to decipher, yet captivates its audience, just as his paintings do for many as well. I would highly recommend this film! It is really fun to watch and brings even more dimension to Dali’s work.
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Surrealism is great. It pushed art in an exciting direction with the development on psychology neo-freudianism, junginism, and more. One can view that this movement dealt with how the psychology worked after World War 1 and later how this and previous movements helped push abstract expressionism. Surrealism dealt with dream theory and blended the senseless and senseful. Dali’s personality and fame also helped popularize it as well. I don’t think a person needs to take drugs to understand his work. I believe his greatest strength was making imagined things possible which gave the viewer a sense of awe. When people dream, there can be many things that can bend and warp, look like reality, or not dream at all. I feel like Dali’s surrealism acts a a filter to a lens and gives perspective of how dreams can be visualized which I think is impressive. Overall I love surrealism as it directed art towards the ‘self’ and engaged with human conscious. An analogy could be that in writing versus image-making that can compare poetry to art as essays to photographs.
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I like Surrealism, for it represents a new way of thinking about objects, people, ideas, and things. In a way most people cant even imagine, Dali is able to imagine these intricate, unlikely representations and put them down on paper to share with the world. His idiosyncrasies were shared through his artwork, and we are lucky that even if he was mad, he hid it well enough to be accepted through his artistic talent. I think his work, even to this day stands out and is unlike anything that came before it. You notice, his ‘friends’ work, we don’t see much of. By standing by his work, and how uncomfortable it may have made some people he is remembered because of it. His color choices and style are so distinct. Looking at his work you could imagine, there were possibilities Dali was on drugs to come up with some of these ideas. As a viewer, if you feel this drug, or hallucinogenic effects of looking at his work is the feeling you get, or need to fully cope with the spectrum of Dali’s work. I say to each their own! It could get dark! In order to create the kind of art Dali has given us, I think he was a little mad, but aren’t we all? Him more so than others, I don’t think the average population has such strong influence of eroticism and death. If we do, most people keep it to themselves these days, or don’t know how to express it the way Dali was able too. I think that if anyone was able to step into Dali’s shoes, and see the world through his mind, it might drive us mad. I think he was able to access a part of his brain or dreams that the average person cannot, and he was lucky enough to share parts of it with us.
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Although I would not be someone who hangs or has surrealism works in their home, and thinking of Dali’s work as a drug provides a better understanding or relating to the pieces. I can still find the concept and creation behind surrealism intriguing. Breton and his Surrealist follower’s belief that art and the power to change life were absolutely correct. Without art and a continuous push for new and creative ideas, life would not exist the way it does. No one or chemist just woke up one morning and decided to see what they could make out of hydrogen atoms; these kinds of scientific studies come from creative minds. Surrealisms fascination with investigating dreams was a new way to open a creative outlet for professional artists, patients, and the general public.
Looking through Dali’s work and his quotes, he himself states that he had some psychological disorders. Freud’s theory of dreaming and wish fulfillment has since been disproved, but I can easily spot it in Dali’s work. Personally, most of it makes me feel uncomfortable, which I suppose is what Dali was aiming for. Unlike futurism or cubism that created new ways to use the basic art skills, surrealism like dada art are expressions of substances like horror, fear, fetishes, anxieties, etc. without needing to constrain themselves to a narrative or classical composition.
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I personally feel like Surrealism is thought-provoking. It lets you take a look into the mind of the artist and to understand what was going on around them. It is indeed in its own right beautiful. I never really had the understanding of the difference until looking at these works of art. I wouldn’t call him mad however to understand this you would most definitely have to step into a mind of someone with passion and many words to express. Dali’s eyes was one to see through and he made sure his work was BOLD.
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Jonathan Quinones
Salvador Dali was influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance. Most of his artwork was based on fantasy and things that did not follow a plot. His artwork reminds me of a mirage in the middle of a desert. I look up his artwork, and I think about a hallucination. It is probably a different world that we are not used to seeing and experiencing, but it results from creativity. Just because something doesn’t exist in real life doesn’t mean that it is not valued within the art world. My favorite Dali’s artwork is the melted clocks; it references time and adds a distortion of how the world would look whenever life on Earth is up. This type of art doesn’t have a narrative or has been influenced by naturalism. Dali suffered from mental disorders. These mental illnesses helped him out to portrait his visions and dreams that he experienced through medications, just like Van gough did.
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Lizbeth Ramirez | Art 473
I really enjoy surrealism because it allows me to view things in a different way or perhaps different world. In particular with Salvador Dali’s work I can admire all the things he comes up with because I’m able to get a glimpse of a world that one might say is only experienced through drugs but without having to take it. It really pushes me to take a deeper look at his work and analyze what It is I’m really looking at. My mind also tries to piece things together or look deeper into the symbolism. It’s a dreamlike state of mind when I’m looking at surrealist pieces and something that I can enjoy.
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Surrealism is eye-catching and thematically more personal to the artist versus other art styles. With its symbolic nature and meaning, surrealist art is purely from the artist. A glimpse into the thoughts of the artist, shared with others in dreamscapes. The artist that really took surrealism to “mainstream” is Salvador Dali, many people flocked to see his paintings and the strange man himself. Salvador Dali’s work was very strange and sometimes even shocking, especially for the times. The distinct and iconic style is probably influenced by his eccentric nature or mental illnesses. Dali’s work is one of a kind and grips your attention as your brain tries to process what you’re looking at. A lot of people try to analyze his work and have a lot of fun trying to interpret deeper themes and messages from it even if some of the work may not have a deeper meaning at all.
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My thoughts on Salvador Dali and his vision of Surrealism is that his vision is something that can only be seen through the mind and imagination at first. Something that only he would be able to see. And so see something so otherworldly can catch many off guard. As freedom of the mind can sometimes set one free, being understood for what you are trying to communicate can also be gratifying. That is what I see in Salvador Dali and his visions of his paintings. Looking at the painting of Christ of Saint John of the Cross, I automatically thought to myself that this was St. Peter of the Apostle since the Cross seemed almost as if it were upside down in contrast to the dark background and the sky from below. St. Peter was crucified upside down which is why I initially thought that, but in this painting, the man on the cross is supposed to represent Jesus Christ. The painting was based in a triangle shape to represent the Trinity. As I looked at the painting, it forced me to think about what more there was to this and why it was laid out the way it was. It forced me to take it down piece by piece and to enjoy the way space was decorated as it was. One thing was for certain, I did not need to take any drugs to see what this man was seeing.
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For me personally, Surrealism was very hard for me to comprehend at first, but over the years, I’ve come to enjoy this movement a lot more for a variety of reasons. The artists that were involved in this movement, such as Salvador Dali, portray their art in such a way, that because of surrealism, we can understand the artist and their vision more in a way that no one else would be able to. Our minds are trained and focused to try and understand things in a logical manner, so when you see surrealism and the kind of artwork it conveys, it’s hard to determine what the meaning is, what the theme represents and it’s just an interesting process all together.
Surrealism, to me, is mythical, obscure, and has all these intriguing depictions of imagery and it’s fascinated me with the things that Salvador has said to describe his artwork. There’s a lot of symbolism that is always deciphered in his work and it’s the way he wanted his viewers to think and purposely I feel as if he wanted the audience to step out of their boundaries to truly understand his vision. Maybe Dali is the sane one and we are all not mad for truly understanding what his art was.
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After learning more about Salvador Dali I have a better understanding and appreciation for his artwork. I didn’t know much about his personality or meaning behind his artwork but was familiar with his art style. Dali had an interesting vision in his art and was unapologetic about who he was and I think that’s what makes him such a unique artist. I saw in an interview that he does not express the meaning of his paintings as much and kept his artwork open for interpretation. He mentioned that ten minutes before people fall asleep they see weird images that can’t be explained and I think his art has that kind of weirdness. I think his artwork explores a world that is beyond our reality but has some characteristics of reality. I think surrealism is an art style that doesn’t necessarily have to have meaning or reason but the objects within the painting have some familiarity to real life and I think that is what is so interesting. From the various works I saw in the powerpoint my favorite would have to be the “ In Voluptas Mors.” It is one of my favorites because it is a unique optical illusion that can be interpreted in so many ways. Who would have thought that human bodies could create an image of a skull. I think that photograph is a nice juxtaposition of life and death. I think what I appreciate most from Dali is his way of approaching art and his perspective. I don’t think we need to take him like an elixir but have an open mind to his reality and take away some parts that resonate to us.
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Surrealism has always given me inspiration and I personally respect its creativity; its uniqueness gives me joy and fun to look at. I don’t think Salvador Dali was mad but instead had his own way of expressing the world. In my opinion, most surrealist works were intentioned to express different dimensions in their intuitive way. Surrealists attempted to express things that cannot be demonstrated in a three-dimensional world to people around the world and they seem to be firmly convinced that these efforts will one day be a way to solve all the problems of our reality. Although there may be people who think that these thoughts are too much of a four-dimensional thought that ignores reality, but given the current situation where science is accelerating research beyond dimensions, I feel convinced that Surrealists were not thinking in the wrong direction.
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I personally really like Surrealism, since it is such a visually interesting and unusual era of art. I think Salvador Dali’s work is especially interesting to look at because everything he made had another meaning to it. For example, at first glance Lobster Telephone (1936) legitimately looks like a lobster placed atop a telephone. However, like discussed in the powerpoint, the sculpture actually has sexual connotations because of the placement of the lobster. I think in this sense you do have to take him like a drug or hallucinogenic since you do need to look at his pieces as though you have his mindset to properly understand what his intentions were. I also believe that Salvador Dali’s unique and personalized view of the world is great and definitely reminiscent of who he is as a person and artist. In fact, it’s almost refreshing to see such a different take on how the world is being interpreted and presented.
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Dali ! A man who’s art makes me feel weird and uncomfortable and I just love it. Dali was not afraid to be himself and I am envious of him for that. As an artist, I have been learning that in order for people to respond to my work, I need to put myself in that piece-be vulnerable. Dali was a skilled painter combined with the soul of someone that simply understood. His vision of the world through his highly personalized lens is wonderful and weird. I think that everyone sees the world through a weird lens to some extent… no two people see things exactly the same. Why is that? It’s almost like we are all living in our own dimension, trying to make each other understand. However, Dali was not trying to make anyone understand, he was just letting his passion flow out of him through his paintings. Do we need to take him like an elixir ? Definitely not, all you need to do is let go and allow the strange feelings to engulf you when you look at his work.
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Surrealism is a great way of showing the art world in a different way. Having an interesting personality and a different way of looking at things does not make you mad. Some people are able to think outside the box better than others. Surrealism can also be uncomfortable for some. People like complacency, and surrealism and abstract art forces you out of it, once you get accustomed to it it become natural. But Surrealism constantly keeps you uncomfortable, forcing you to see thing a different way. Two different people can see surrealism if two completely different ways as well. So that makes it unique to every person.
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My thoughts on surrealism in general is that it can be difficult to grasp and make sense of sometimes. Over the years though, I figured that instead of trying to make sense of what I’m looking at, sometimes I should just appreciate what’s in front of me instead. The message and creativity that are dormant within surrealist pieces can sometimes be missed by the fact that most of it seems random, but the fact that these artists drew things and expressed themselves in such a way while still having some sense of direction for the painting has me to believe that it wasn’t random at all. Dali’s work is truly unique because instead of grabbing your attention by attracting your eyes through beautiful brushstrokes, the confusion of the subjects in the paintings are usually what pulls the viewers’ eyes in.
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I love surrealism. It displays reality in a open minded way, outside the common rules and offers such interesting point of views. Dali and Magritte are my favorite, and although I find Magritte’s work easier to give an interpretation, Dali’s work seems more trippy and skillful. He did embraced the movement as his own, which is not surprising since he is one of the main figures of it. What I learned from his work is to break the parameters of what is considered real, and be on the edge of the line that separates the surreal from the absurd. Dali’s work offers us this point of view.
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Surrealism is so fascinating to me. I always watch movies or TV shows that deal with alternate realities and this art movement really reminds me of them. Dali is a very talented and unique artist who blended elements of reality with the impossible so to speak. I think that all of these paintings and artworks have specific meanings, but I do not fully understand it. That is what makes looking at these pieces so interesting. They are full of complex ideas. Trying to find out the meaning is like trying to solve a riddle.
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Surrealism pushes the viewers of this art style to see the world in a different way, to shift your perspective, warp it, misplace it, to challenge your brain and enlighten you. Much like the philosophies of cubism, the vision that you are all comfortable with and know is never much reliable. Surrealist art challenges that by mirroring the irrationality of your unconscious mind. For people who love dreaming, they sure will love this type of art form, and I do too. You can find the psychological tensions within a painting and while viewing the bizarre and uncanny.
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Surrealism is a very unique and interesting art style. Its a very free and imaginative type of style. Before this class the only thing I knew about surrealism was the famous painting “The persistence of memory.” I really enjoy this style because it is so fluid and flexible.
I love Dali work because its so unique to its time. I think he is like a hallucinate and a drug because his artwork is so mesmerizing and different. I love how he states that he is no mad man creating his artwork because as we know most artist who had a style similar to Dali such as Vincent were actually mad. This was simply just his creativeness and style.
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It’s really cool how his work pushes the viewer to react with their subconscious mind first like with a drug or hallucination. Surrealism is so linked to psychology that it is astounding. The jarring nature makes you react in the moment without thought and makes you present as a viewer.
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When I think of Surrealism as a style, specifically artists such as Dali and his comments regarding the style and his own work, to me its as if we’ve already taken this hallucinogen. Thinking about the style in the more literal sense, because the subjects and objects within the painting are distorted from what we know them to be in reality, it’s as if the painting itself is the drug. That the use of surrealism and the artists choice to paint this way is the hallucinogen. Like most of the styles that I am a fan of, I love that surrealism rally grabs you and pulls you into another reality. It almost makes you begin to question ideas of the universe and our existence, etc.
Furthermore, I feel as though styles such as surrealism are true depictions of our minds. Most people, regardless of what they may say, do not have linear thoughts. Our minds operate in so much more than a very black and white way, and surrealism shows this. It additionally gives incite into the often deemed messed up parts our thoughts and emotions.
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I personally don’t think that you need to take surrealism like a drug. It is a different type of view to the world and all we see with our eyes and minds. I believe the world that he sees and creates with his works is something that we all experience in flashes and moments but don’t truly tap into them, Salvador does and his art sticks with us cause it doe and it hits a cord with all of us.
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During his life, Dali made more than 1500 paintings and dozens of sculptures. He is an eccentric human being. The life of Salvador Dali, who was kindly ordered by his family to make up for the absence of a deceased brother, and named after his dead brother, was perhaps hidden in his birth story. Dali, about his childhood years,” As soon as I was born, I started to walk in the footsteps of a worshiped dead. In fact, they still loved him when he loved me. Maybe it’s more than me.” Dali had always wanted to express his difference throughout his life. Perhaps that’s why he became who he is. It’s tough to understand Dali. I look at the details in some of his paintings and say which human beings can do this. The famous painter who impressed me with the exciting information I learned. Dali enters the bed with a blank canvas at the head of his bed and brushes in his hand so that if he has any dreams, he can immediately get up and paint them. That shows that Dali’s works are a composition of dreams. The basis of him being an excellent surrealist painter or his formula without formulas can be said to be hidden in this behavior.
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What is too far? Who defines the boundaries of stuff? Surrealism challenges these ideas and push them to its very limit. It can be just anything: real, yet unreal. This style challenges the mind. I would say that it is the only art style that would let viewer’s mind act in a very passive way, the art messes with viewer’s subconscious, making them think about the boundaries between reality and dream. Salvador Dali is simply an engineer of the mind, by creating astonishing visuals that challenges both the eye and the mind.
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I enjoy viewing Dali’s work and its unapologetic indulgence in strange and fascinating imagery. I don’t believe that hallucinogens are all that necessary to understand his work. Dreams are invariably human and reflections of facets in our lives, and Dali is unabashedly sharing his own with the viewer. His art acts as an exploration of the human condition like eroticism and death, and though it is highly personal and stylized, Dali’s work gives us an insight as to how he approaches those topics.
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I have always found Salvador Dali and the surrealist art movement to be fascinating! Being able to take real-life scenes, objects, etc, and turn them into something that we almost don’t conceive as real is a magnificent feat. I think the bending of reality that Dali does in his work is brilliant and definitely was an artform no other artists had really experimented with. It is easy to understand why many galleries and artists were not ready to see his work. As far as answering the question of whether or not he or his work needs to be taken as a drug, I would say no. I think the beauty of understanding his work is being able to see not only the real form of the scene but what could be a skewed or alternate form of that reality. I think that is a drug in itself haha. Dali is an artist I look up to a lot. I have always enjoyed looking at his almost comical artworks and trying to interpret them in different ways. One of my favorites has always been the suited man with the apple on his head!
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Personally, I absolutely adore the works of Salvador Dalí. Surrealism is among the most fascinating movements of art that I’ve ever studied, and one of my favorite contemporary artists—Vladimir Kush—is a surrealist painter. Kush’s style often reminds me of the works of Dalí, and contrary to dissenting opinions of surrealism, I do not feel as though his works need be interpreted as a hallucinogen or drug of any kind. In my eyes, they’re more of a portal to another dimension—one in which dreams become reality. Certainly, the only limit to one’s creativity is their own imagination, and observing Dalí’s works provides a glimpse into the creative genius of his intellect.
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Surrealism is one of my favorite art movements ever. It is this psychedelic alternate reality that speaks to the psyche of the artist as well as the viewer. Art is what you make of it, and Dali creates these bizarre dreamscapes filled with metaphor that make the viewer think to interpret these compositions. Some of them are almost like Rorschach tests. I mean, In Voluptus Mors pretty much is a Rorschach test. Do you see the skull or naked women first? The quote about the difference between him and a madman is pretty genius. Dali is to self-aware to be a madman. He knows what he is doing and is continuing to push the boundaries to challenge his viewer. I understand the need to do so because I like to as well, probably coming from a place where I’m inspired by work such as his. The jarring nature of his artwork really forces an initial reaction to the piece before you get a chance to think about it. His work allows you to live and experience in the moment.
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Salvador Dali’s work withstand the passage of time, it continues to be relevant in today’s society context. To me, surrealist is one of my top favorites. It defies the boundary of imagination, and it challenged our ways of seeing. All the sudden, normal objects become interesting just by the way we arrange, combine, or subtract them. In addition, Dali’s art possesses dream like, unreal quality, we don’t need to take him like a drug, rather, we can start changing our ways of looking the world, and make it in to something interesting, and I think this is what makes surrealism so attractive,
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Arron Adams
Art 473-1001
I have actually taken a class, once long ago, where we learned about Salvador Dali, and I have always found his art – and Surrealism generally – to be rather intriguing. I like the fact that the longer one looks at one of his paintings the more different things one notices, and the multiple different ways one can interpret each individual element of each painting.
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I love surrealism because it really allows for our imagination to run wild. It defies everything we know and understand about the world we live in, and can create things beyond comprehension or at the brink of almost understanding. Surrealism acts as an escape from the real world, because it can let the viewer imagine themselves in a different reality than the one we live in. Dali’s mind was brilliant, and I love that even when others discouraged him, Dali had no fear and did not let anything limit him. Creating scenes that can not exist (as far as we know) is what makes Surrealism so fun and entertaining, and I respect Dali’s adventurous imagination to further push the limits of what can and cannot exist to us.
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Surrealism has been an interesting genre in art. I think it is one of the styles that pushes one as an artist to the maximum because you do not deal with the mundane. For the most part we accept surrealism as the impossible but visually interesting that instantly draws you in. We obviously see the melted clocks, or lobster phone by Dali and even though we recognize what they are, each of them have been taken out of their regular context or environment to create a more interesting use out of them.
You could be like Dali where you can be influenced or inspired by the real world and the life events that one has experienced. Dali was a great artist that was able think outside the box and expand the possibilities of how normal items can be depicted. I think there is a big difference between being creative and being crazy, he was creative and it worked out in his favor.
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The uniqueness and individualism of Surrealism are what makes it so engaging as an art form. The fact that it’s always unexpected and creative makes it extremely appealing. There’s a quote that says that ‘everything has been done before’, but Surrealist art definitely pushes that line by conjuring up new realities. And the way that Surrealism incorporates the artist’s dreams makes it even more compelling because dreams can be interpreted as unconscious self-expression or just complete randomness. I definitely think that to view works like Dali’s you have to keep an open mind and be willing to experience someone else’s reality, at least for a moment in time. Dali’s attitude towards art and his provocative nature had such distinctive energy that makes him extremely memorable as an artist.
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The way Dali portrays his art was to bring a new perspective to us. It is daring to warp our sense of reality into a dream like state. In the art world, Dali chooses to portray something that is almost real life, but he knows isn’t. It brings such a wonder and curiosity, making it such an entertaining and interactive art style. I think it is one of the most unique and recognizable styles that we have seen. Dali’s “style of madness” without being mad sends the message that it is okay to stand out and be different and how different everyone’s reality can be. Someone can simply see things differently from the rest of us.
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