Monday, March 27, 2006

Art? Art Who?


Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dali in 1937

Its a famous work by Salvador Dali -an artist of a time when Spain was gripped in the romatacism of fascism and revolution.

I know the faithful readers out there are stepping back and thinking Magnificent, spectacular-- it talks to me!!!!, I want it...

Others are thinking -what the hell is it? I agree -- I was intrigued. Is this really a classic.. or some opium haze induced mishmash of colours - the seinfeld painting of the thirties -- about nothing.

Au contraire mes amis... this is an art style called "Paranoiac-Critical Method" created by Dali in 1929. that clears it up...

"It was in 1929 that Salvador Dali brought his attention to bear on the internal mechanism of paranoiac phenomena and envisaged the possibility of an experimental method based on the sudden power of the systematic associations proper to paranoia; this method afterwards became the delirio-critical synthesis which bears the name "paranoiac-critical activity." Paranoia: delirium of interpretive association bearing a systematic structure. Paranoiac-critical activity: spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the interpretive critical association of delirious phenomena.
The primary function of the paranoiac-critical method is to produce images of a startling and authentically unknown nature. The paranoiac mind perceives alternate meanings of individual signs, and interpretations displace one another almost instantaneously. Whether these new relationships are created or merely noticed by the paranoiac is irrelevant. As Dali explained, "It is enough that the delirium of interpretation should have linked together the implications of the images of the different pictures covering a wall for the real existence of this link to be no longer deniable."


Basically the painting is a collection of signs that is designed to stimulate our psyche and and cause our minds to think...

But delirium is difficult for me to grasp. Maybe I am too unschooled or the picture is not detailed enough or I am too unclever to decode it but it looks like nothing to me.. a collage of colours... a C in art at best...

Salvador Dali...I will stick to hockey...

2 Comments:

At 10:47 PM, Blogger Miss Kim said...

Sustitute the word 'crazy' for 'delirium' and it all makes sense!
Dali is P's favourite artists btw, but not mine. I love art history so these posts are very interesting to me! Write more :)

 
At 1:25 PM, Blogger hockeyman said...

Now that we know Peter Likes Dali I can understand how he will "looove" that Bathroom in Nova Scotia...

I am not much of an art historian but it interests me... Now I have to find this picture that I saw in a French restaurant in Chicago this week...

 

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