Salvador Dali And Descharnes Analysis

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Throughout Salvador Dali’s life he made many meaningful relationships, and one of these was that of Robert Descharnes a French photographer. Dali and Descharnes worked together on a film called, “L’aventure prodigieuse de la dentellière et du rhinocéros” that was based on Dali’s theories (Lazarus). This was only the beginning of their forty year friendship. Descharnes would help Dali by taking photographs of whatever he might paint, draw or write about. Dali would take these photographs and use them to to start a painting, and then add his own twist and style to each, more than what we could naturally see in the photo. Descharnes tells in an interview that he help to start a few of Salvador’s paintings, and even finished on for him as a collaborator …show more content…

He goes on to explain that while there are some similarities, for example a rhinoceros in both “The Madonna of Port Lligat” and “The Rhinoceros”, Dali didn’t make the rhinoceros the focus of each, it was just a small note. “He did not want to make a film of his paintings; painting did not dominate at all” (King p.137). When asked if I agree with this idea, that Dali’s painting and films are in no way connected other than by “small notes”, I say yes I agree. As I look through several of Dali’s art pieces I must ask myself, “what was his message he was trying to get across? It is clear to me that in some prints, he didn’t have a clear message, and was possible painting using his paranoiac-critical method. During these times he was not in his clear frame of mind to share this thought, it was a self-induced psychotic hallucination instead. Dali himself called these times “hand-painted dream photo’s (Puchko). When asked about these dream photo’s Dali was quoted as stating, “I am the first to be surprised and often terrified by the images I see appear upon my canvas. I register without choice and with all possible exactitude the dictates of my subconscious, my dreams” (Puchko). In saying this, how can anyone convey a clear thought if they are not sure of what they are thinking

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