Surrealism & Salvador Dal í

1. Surrealism & Salvador Dalí Dalí, The Elephants, 1948

2. Surrealism Have you ever woken upfrom a dream wondering what in the world it meant? Dalí, The Three Sphinxes of Bikini, 1947 Startingin the 1920s, a group of artists called Surrealists were making strange and unusual paintings influenced by dreams and their imaginations.

3. Magritte, Fair Captive, 1945 Like dreams, these paintings mixed pieces of the real world with bizarre, fantastic elements that could only come from a person’s mind.

4. Magritte, Human Condition, 1935

5. Ernst, Oedipus Rex, 1922 These artistic works often did not make logical sense and left viewers wondering what in the world they meant.

6. Salvador Dalí • Salvador Dalí was the most famous of the Surrealist artists. • Dalí was born May 11th, 1904, in Figueras, Catalonia, Spain. He died in 1989. • Best known for his paintings, Dalí was also a sculptor, book illustrator, movie and theater set designer. • He was an excellent self-promoter with his signature waxed mustache. • He loved to surprise and shock to make people think about more than what they could see with their eyes. “The only difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist.” – Salvador Dalí

7. Dali was influenced by many artists from different periods in art including classical painters like the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. Vermeer, View of Delft, circa 1660 - 1661 Dalí, Average Pagan Landscape, 1937 • Precise realism and the ominous, swirling light in many of Dalí’s paintingswere strongly influenced by the works of Vermeer. • How does Dalí’s sky make you feel?

8. What makes it Surreal? Dalí, Weaning of Furniture-Nutrition, 1934 PRECISE REALISM a launching point into fantasy. LAWS OF NATURE REVERSED objects are living & living things become objects. JUXTOPOSITION objects placed side by side for striking comparison or contrast. DISLOCATION objects are placed where they aren’t usually placed. SYMBOLISM reoccurring objects represent Dalí’s ideas, memories or dreams.

9. What makes it Surreal? Dalí, Weaning of Furniture-Nutrition, 1934 PRECISE REALISM almost photo-realistic painting of objects and landscape. LAWS OF NATURE REVERSEDthe woman is an object. A shadow of a bottle on a dresser is a hole. JUXTAPOSITIONwoman and objects are bigger than the boats. Tiny dresser next to the big dresser. DISLOCATION why is there furniture on the shoreline? SYMBOLISMthe crutch (be on the lookout for egg shapes, clocks, pianos, ants, crickets)

10. What makes it Surreal? Dalí, The Persistence of Memory, 1931 TRANSFORMATION objects become unusual / strange INFLUENCE OF DREAMS + DAYDREAMING images of the mind are captured on canvas One of Dalí’s most popular SYMBOLS was the melting watch. He was inspired one hot day when he noticed some runny Camembert cheese. To Dalí, the oozing cheese resembled a melting watch, so immediately he painted three melting watches on his canvas.

11. What makes it Surreal? Dalí, The Dream, 1931 Have you ever seen what looked sort of like objects or faces in clouds? Dalí saw faces and forms in the rocks and landscapes he lived near. Like the melting clocks, Dalí wanted to capture what his imagination saw. What other Surreal elements can you find in this painting?

12. What makes it Surreal? Dalí, Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages),1940 HIDDEN + DOUBLE IMAGES Dalí used hidden and double images (images that exist as two different things at the same time) to challenge his viewers sense of reality, creating feelings of danger and delight. What do you see?

13. Creating a Sense of Space When placing objects in a painting, Dalí used several classic techniques to make his landscapes or settings have depth. 1.  SIZE  -- Larger sized objects in front, middle sized objects in the mid-ground, and smaller sized objects in the far distance.2.  COLOR  -- Brighter purer colors in the foreground, more neutral colors in the far ground.  Warm colors up front, cooler hues in the distance.3.  TEXTURES  -- Textures in the foreground, few or no details in the background areas.  4.  EDGE QUALITY  --  Hard edges in front, softer edges in the distance.5.  PERSPECTIVE  -- Lines that recede to the vanishing point (where there is nothing left to see). Also - use of a horizon line to show where the earth and sky meet. Dalí, Sun Table, 1936

14. Get Surreal! With a few cut-out objects from real life, pastel chalk and colored pencils, we’ll make our own dream worlds inspired by the surreal paintings of Salvador Dalí’. Can you find the hidden objects? Sample, Loch Ness Boot, 2012

15. Instructional Resources + Credits Dali Museum / Video “Get Surreal with Salvador Dali” video by the Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ST52WsmUIM Dali Museum / Educational Resources / Key Works http://www.thedali.org/education/docz/KeyWorks.pdf Dali Museum / Educational Resources / Teacher Guide http://www.thedali.org/education/docz/TeacherGuide.pdf Dali Museum / Educational Resources / “The Surreal Deal” Lesson Plan 2 http://thedali.org/education/docz/LessonPlan2-TheSurrealDeal.pdf Publication (available in the Duniway Library / Teacher Resources ) Dali, Gilles Néret, Thunder Bay Press, 1997 Carol Jensen’s Water Color World http://caroljessen.blogspot.com/2012/01/receding-space.html “Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.” – Salvador Dalí