The Influence of Salvador Dali to Modern Art Research Paper

The Influence of Salvador Dali to Modern Art - Research Paper Example The paper "The Influence of Salvador Dali to Modern Art" discovers the art of Salvador Dali, the famous Spanish painter and his influence of modern art. Salvador Dali is one of the most resourceful and productive artists of the twentieth century. As Klein notes in his book, Salvador was a multitalented man who managed various activities like fashion, advertising, writing, sculpture, and even filmmaking. It seems that Dali was highly influenced by the psychoanalytical theories of that time, and his themes range from eroticism and death to decay. One can say unambiguously that his work was influenced by the Freudian theory of human mind. It is an accepted fact that Freud’s teachings of human mind and the unconscious seriously impacted on the thinking of artists in the first quarter of the twentieth century. In the words of Freud, the sublimation of the artist’s unsatisfied libido is responsible for producing all forms of art and literature, whether it be painting, sculpti ng, or writing. Thus, his new ideology made artists and writers look into their own dreams and thoughts with a new insight. Soon, these thoughts (once considered absurd and illogical) found a new place in art. Admittedly, it was the Freudian analysis of the role of dreams which attracted people like Dali. Dali was highly impressed by Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams and Die Traumdeutung. From Dali’s own words, â€Å"it was one of the greatest discoveries of my life. I was obsessed by the vice of self-interpretation-not just of my dreams...". but of everything that happened to me, however accidental it might at first seem† (Martinez-Herrera, Alcantara, and Lorena 855). At first, one can look into the interpretation by Stuart Walton. It is pointed out by him that Dali’s work called Autumn Cannibalism is the first stage of psychosexual development. According to the Freudian concept, this stage is marked by the psychological theme of total dependency. In fact , a baby at this stage is very dependent, as it can do little for its own protection. The Autumn Cannibalism was painted in the year 1936. It was in this year that the civil war broke out in Spain. Thus, as Walton points out, the work mainly depicts horror and destruction of war along with the demolishing nature of sexual relationship (69). In the painting, a chest of drawers is placed on a beach, and the upper halves of two people sit on it. The two bodies are highly entangled, and one figure dips a spoon into the body of the other. The latter figure dips a knife into the flesh of the former. The heads of the figures merge into each other. One can see pieces of meat thrown here and there. Thus, scholars reach the conclusion that the work shows the human impulses going back to the oral phase of psychosexual development. In addition, there are works like The Enigma of Desire: My Mother which reflects the Oedipus complex. The picture shows the porous rocks of the Catalan coast of Spai n as the central image. On the rock, one can see the words ‘ma mere’ written again and again. Then, there is the self-portrait of the painter, lying on the ground with eyes closed. One has to assume that the character is either asleep or half dead. Ants are coming out of the ear of the figure, indicating that decomposition and decay have started there. However, the point of consideration here is the little lion’s head above. The picture shows that the head has its face twisted into a grimace. Thus, the best assumption would be that it represents Dali’s father. The lion head is at the highest point of the mountainous body, and he is apparently pressing the face of