Need to Bring:
Signs: Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Classicism
Mustache, bread (for head), cape
Powerpoint presentation
Bread & cheese
Attention Getter:
I want you to think of a dream you have had. Now put your pencil on your paper and without lifting it and within the next 2 minutes; write in words or draw everything you can remember about your dream. Don’t forget to not lift your pencil. Try to explain your dream in small pictures or single sentences.
This is called automatic writing or drawing: you have been introduced to a method that artists who are Surrealist use. It is playful, sometimes surprising and gives a great freedom of the imagination. Our artist and painting we are going to talk about is probably the most famous surrealist in the world.
First lets talk about the artist: Salvador Dali
He was born in Spain in 1907. He had his first drawing lesson at the age of 10. When Salvador Dalí was born in 1904 in Figueras, Spain, he was actually the third Salvador Dalí. His father was named Salvador, and he had an older brother, who had died 9 months before Dalí's own birth. Because of the incredibly coincidental dates between the death of the first child and the birth of the second, Salvador Dalí's parents chose to look at the second son as a reincarnation of the first, and as such, treated him accordingly. OUR Salvador Dalí was actually told that he was the reincarnation of his dead brother, and Dalí himself admits that the ghostly memory of this lost sibling was to haunt him for the rest of his life. He was taken to the grave of the older brother, and given free reign over the Dalí household. One of the young boy Dalí's favorite pastimes was parading about in a blue sailor suit or preferably, an emperor's costume. The royal treatment accorded to him by his parents was the result of their fears surrounding the death of their first son. The golden treatment and always present shadow of his elder brother caused in him a distinct shift in personality. It is this treatment as a young child that relates directly to Dalí's formation of a very unique and conspicuous personality.
He was interested in a style of art called Impressionism. For hundreds of years, paintings looked like their subject almost like a photograph. The Impressionists decided great art was not always hard and fast lines. It could be a picture with smaller parts that come together as a whole picture. Here is a picture of Impressionism. An artist impression of his subject rather than a photographic image.
While he was learning Impressionism, there was a brand new art form being learned called Cubism. Anyone want to guess what this was. While Impressionist wanted to blur the lines of an object or landscape, Cubists wanted to show many sides of it. Sometimes the result is confusing. Here is an example…
Then in the twentieth century their came Surrealism. The Surrealists were concerned with painting what we think; they mix reality with dreams and imagination to create more of a emotion and thinking picture; usually these paintings are strange and unusual. This began after World War I (in the 1920’s). His most famous paintings are typically dreamlike landscapes filled with bizarre, puzzling objects. He referred to these productions as 'hand-painted dream photographs'
The next type of painting that Dali did later in his life is called Classicism...what do you think this is? This is when he stopped experimenting and began painting in the tradition of the old masters: Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci. He painted famous people from history, stories from his Spanish Culture, etc.
Persistence of Memory:
Salvador Dali got the idea for this painting after an evening meal when he found himself staring intently at the remains of runny camembert cheese. He projected this image using drooping forms of clocks as well as the 'soft self-portrait' melting on rocks underneath it, and added them to the barren landscape.
The Persistence of Memory (Questions to ask)
First Glance
1. How many objects can you find in this picture?
2. What sounds might you hear if you were there?
3. How does this painting make you feel?
4. What adjectives would you use to describe this scene?
5. What would you title this picture?
Closer Look
1. What objects are in the background?
2. Is anything moving in this scene?
3. Is the scene inside or outside? How can you tell?
4. What is the biggest and boldest shape in this painting?
5. Is this a realistic painting. Why or why not?
6. What do you think soft clocks are a symbol of?
7. What is the background of this picture?
1. Why are there 3 clocks?
2. What are ants pouring out of the orange pocket watch in the bottom left hand corner?
3. Did someone hand their clock out to dry on the tree limb?
4. Is the tree living, dead, or artificial?
5. Have the clocks stopped melting, or are they still in the process of it?
6. What is the clock in the middle melting over?
7. Is that an evening or morning sky?
8. Is Death getting a suntan on the beach?
9. Why does the sunlight not reach past the beach?
10. Have the clocks stopped or can melted clocks still run?
1. Why is the tree growing out of the counter?
2. Why is the clock with ants not melting like the others?
3. Did the clocks melt because of the strangely-colored sky?
4. Was the brown hairy tent carrying the clock when it melted?
5. Why are the ants not bothering the other clocks?
6. Did Death leave his clocks to melt so he could get a suntan?
7. Why does one clock have a yellow and the others don’t?
8. Why do the two rightmost clocks look similar?
9. Why is the other counter so far away from the first?
10. Why are the three clock’s faces the same color?
This painting is one of the most famous examples of Surrealism. It also made Dali famous.
Dali was very imaginative: He had a mustache that was huge; he would turn up the edges like the horns of a bull from Spain.
He had an obsession with bread, he loved it and painted it often. One time for an exhibit in America; he showed up with a loaf of bread on his head. Dali had an obsession with bread. When he got off the plane for his first visit to America he had a loaf of bread on his head.
For a publicity stunt, Dalí once had a loaf of bread baked for him that was four meters long
Dalí once dressed a young woman in clothing, complete with a head full of flowers, to promote a showing of Dalí's works at the National Gallery. He had a wife named Dali; (show picture) she was beautiful and loved to be in the lime light also. She joined him wherever he went. He even showed up once in a car full of broccoli. Dali was very good at making himself as much of a spectacle as his art. There are accounts of him arriving in diving outfits at parties and speeches. He would pull stunts like filling his limousine with cauliflower and have them pouring out as he stepped out of the car. He marketing himself in such a way that would always keep the newspapers and art reviewer scrambling to figure out what they've just witnessed.
Dali also made films, including a dream scene in one of Alfred Hitchcock's movies (Spellbound); he also designed clothes, perfume bottles, ads for magazines.
Famous Quote:
"The only difference between myself and a madman, is that I am not mad!"
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Salvador Dali died January 23, 1989. He is the only artist in history to have two separate museums dedicated entirely to his works while still alive.
Play Exquisite Corpse (Another game used by Surrealists to get them thinking)
Treat: Bread and Cheese
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