1000 melting Dali guitars make no sound
Mar. 12th, 2005 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatI thought there was supposed to have been a "wintry mix" yesterday. I mean, I'm glad we didn't get it, but that was part of the reason why I ended up taking the train to Philadelphia, rather than driving. That wasn't the only reason, though. I guess the main reason was that I didn't feel like driving in the city or finding a parking space.
Anyway, the reason why![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bethje and I went to Philadelphia was to see the Salvador Dali exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As I mentioned in a recent post, that museum was where we went when we first met five years ago. I suppose it was sort of our first date, although we didn't consider it such at the time. We managed to find the bench where we had sat and talked for a long time back then, which was pretty cool. It was in some room of rural Pennsylvanian art.
Before I get to Dali, I'm going to mention that I'm not really a fan of modern art. I guess that term is kind of vague nowadays, but you probably know what I mean. The stuff that's a jumble of colors and images, and doesn't really look like anything tangible. I'm sure the artists work hard at it, and it probably has deep meaning to them, but it's hard for me to get anything out of it. I don't necessarily want extreme realism, but I kind of want to know what it is I'm looking at, you know?
The Dali exhibit itself was pretty cool, but more crowded than I would have liked for it to be. I suppose I should have expected that. For the exhibit, they gave us headsets, which we used to play audio commentary on certain paintings and other art objects. Dali's career was basically taken in order, from his early days of painting impressionistic versions of family members, to his experiments in Picasso-esque cubism, to the more commonly known surrealistic stuff, to designs for ballet sets, to a hologram of Alice Cooper and a couch shaped like Mae West's lips. The lip couch was actually on a lot of the merchandise they were selling at the museum, and I think it was kind of an odd choice, since it's not something I would generally associate with Dali. A pair of lips is more likely to make me think of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
One thing I've always liked about Dali's paintings is how, while the net result of a picture is usually weird and nonsensical, the elements within it are realistically portrayed. There's a focus on detail, which is something I like to see. According to the explanations at the exhibit, Dali's argument was that, since we dream in clear, concrete images, that's how a painter inspired by dreams should portray things.
It was apparently pretty common for Dali to take another story or work of art, and read something disturbing into it, usually related to his own family and/or sexual frustration. He saw Millet's Angelus, which was commonly viewed as a simple picture of piety, as a horrible image of the woman wanting to devour the man. William Tell was, to Dali, an evil man who wanted to castrate his son in order to eliminate him as a potential sexual rival. Not surprisingly, Dali was influenced quite heavily by Sigmund Freud. Personally, while I have occasionally been disturbed by unusual things, I just can't buy that just about everything comes down to penis envy, castration anxiety, and the like. I think your mind has to be wired that way anyway to get such things out of otherwise innocent paintings and stories. I mean, I've heard that beheadings in children's stories symbolize fear of castration. What I don't get is why, if beheading has to symbolize a fear, it can't simply be a fear of, you know, losing your actual, physical head. I think I've gotten off the track a bit here, though.
Speaking of tracks, one painting that I don't recall having seen before yesterday was The Station at Perpignan, which was based on a railroad station that Dali thought was the center of the universe. I think this actually makes more sense to me than it might to most people. I'm probably not looking at it in the same way Dali was, but I've spent a fair amount of time in train stations, and, with all those arrivals and departures, they really do sometimes seem like the center of everything. Incidentally, note the images from The Angelus on either side of The Station, as well as the image of Jesus in the background.
I also liked some of the objects Dali had created, including his lobster telephone and a weird chess set. In this set, the pieces were thumbs, fingers, and salt shakers. I wouldn't mind having a chess set like that, if they were to make an incredibly cheap reproduction of it. Which isn't to say that I would ever actually USE it. There was a time when I was all excited about learning to play chess (which was largely caused by my obsession with Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass), but, after I actually tried playing it a few times, I got pretty bored with it. I'm not really much for strategy games, I suppose.
One picture that I had kind of wanted to see but didn't was Sun Table. I saw it in a book of Dali's work, and I really like it, but it generally seems to be ignored. There's just something about the image of this table with drinks out in the middle of the desert that appeals to me. Another painting that was missing from the exhibit was, oddly enough, The Persistence of Memory. It was mentioned a few times, and they did have Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, but I really would have thought they would have included the original, since it's probably his most famous work and all.
After seeing the exhibit, I bought a set of postcards based on Dali's art, and then we left the museum and got dinner at Friday's. By this point, we had done a lot of walking, and our legs, feet, and backs hurt. One thing I don't like about museums is that they involve a lot of walking, interspersed with stopping and standing, which can be much more tiring than simple sustained walking. Anyway, we ended up taking a cab back to the train station.
After we got back to Beth's, we watched Pocahontas, a Disney animated film that I hadn't seen before. It was all right, but kind of ridiculous in spots. I mean, Pocahontas learned how to speak English automatically, for no real reason. I seem to recall hearing that my grandmother, who lives in Virginia, didn't like the fact that they showed mountains in the Jamestown area. And, of course, it wasn't really historically accurate, but then, would you EXPECT a Disney movie to be historically accurate?
Anyway, the reason why
bethje and I went to Philadelphia was to see the Salvador Dali exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. As I mentioned in a recent post, that museum was where we went when we first met five years ago. I suppose it was sort of our first date, although we didn't consider it such at the time. We managed to find the bench where we had sat and talked for a long time back then, which was pretty cool. It was in some room of rural Pennsylvanian art.Before I get to Dali, I'm going to mention that I'm not really a fan of modern art. I guess that term is kind of vague nowadays, but you probably know what I mean. The stuff that's a jumble of colors and images, and doesn't really look like anything tangible. I'm sure the artists work hard at it, and it probably has deep meaning to them, but it's hard for me to get anything out of it. I don't necessarily want extreme realism, but I kind of want to know what it is I'm looking at, you know?
The Dali exhibit itself was pretty cool, but more crowded than I would have liked for it to be. I suppose I should have expected that. For the exhibit, they gave us headsets, which we used to play audio commentary on certain paintings and other art objects. Dali's career was basically taken in order, from his early days of painting impressionistic versions of family members, to his experiments in Picasso-esque cubism, to the more commonly known surrealistic stuff, to designs for ballet sets, to a hologram of Alice Cooper and a couch shaped like Mae West's lips. The lip couch was actually on a lot of the merchandise they were selling at the museum, and I think it was kind of an odd choice, since it's not something I would generally associate with Dali. A pair of lips is more likely to make me think of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
One thing I've always liked about Dali's paintings is how, while the net result of a picture is usually weird and nonsensical, the elements within it are realistically portrayed. There's a focus on detail, which is something I like to see. According to the explanations at the exhibit, Dali's argument was that, since we dream in clear, concrete images, that's how a painter inspired by dreams should portray things.
It was apparently pretty common for Dali to take another story or work of art, and read something disturbing into it, usually related to his own family and/or sexual frustration. He saw Millet's Angelus, which was commonly viewed as a simple picture of piety, as a horrible image of the woman wanting to devour the man. William Tell was, to Dali, an evil man who wanted to castrate his son in order to eliminate him as a potential sexual rival. Not surprisingly, Dali was influenced quite heavily by Sigmund Freud. Personally, while I have occasionally been disturbed by unusual things, I just can't buy that just about everything comes down to penis envy, castration anxiety, and the like. I think your mind has to be wired that way anyway to get such things out of otherwise innocent paintings and stories. I mean, I've heard that beheadings in children's stories symbolize fear of castration. What I don't get is why, if beheading has to symbolize a fear, it can't simply be a fear of, you know, losing your actual, physical head. I think I've gotten off the track a bit here, though.
Speaking of tracks, one painting that I don't recall having seen before yesterday was The Station at Perpignan, which was based on a railroad station that Dali thought was the center of the universe. I think this actually makes more sense to me than it might to most people. I'm probably not looking at it in the same way Dali was, but I've spent a fair amount of time in train stations, and, with all those arrivals and departures, they really do sometimes seem like the center of everything. Incidentally, note the images from The Angelus on either side of The Station, as well as the image of Jesus in the background.
I also liked some of the objects Dali had created, including his lobster telephone and a weird chess set. In this set, the pieces were thumbs, fingers, and salt shakers. I wouldn't mind having a chess set like that, if they were to make an incredibly cheap reproduction of it. Which isn't to say that I would ever actually USE it. There was a time when I was all excited about learning to play chess (which was largely caused by my obsession with Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass), but, after I actually tried playing it a few times, I got pretty bored with it. I'm not really much for strategy games, I suppose.
One picture that I had kind of wanted to see but didn't was Sun Table. I saw it in a book of Dali's work, and I really like it, but it generally seems to be ignored. There's just something about the image of this table with drinks out in the middle of the desert that appeals to me. Another painting that was missing from the exhibit was, oddly enough, The Persistence of Memory. It was mentioned a few times, and they did have Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, but I really would have thought they would have included the original, since it's probably his most famous work and all.
After seeing the exhibit, I bought a set of postcards based on Dali's art, and then we left the museum and got dinner at Friday's. By this point, we had done a lot of walking, and our legs, feet, and backs hurt. One thing I don't like about museums is that they involve a lot of walking, interspersed with stopping and standing, which can be much more tiring than simple sustained walking. Anyway, we ended up taking a cab back to the train station.
After we got back to Beth's, we watched Pocahontas, a Disney animated film that I hadn't seen before. It was all right, but kind of ridiculous in spots. I mean, Pocahontas learned how to speak English automatically, for no real reason. I seem to recall hearing that my grandmother, who lives in Virginia, didn't like the fact that they showed mountains in the Jamestown area. And, of course, it wasn't really historically accurate, but then, would you EXPECT a Disney movie to be historically accurate?
Which sun-sign am I most friendly with?
| Aquarius |    |
11.11% | (2 friends) |
| Cancer | |
11.11% | (2 friends) |
| Leo | |
11.11% | (2 friends) |
| Libra | |
11.11% | (2 friends) |
| Sagittarius | |
11.11% | (2 friends) |
| Scorpio | |
11.11% | (2 friends) |
| Taurus | |
11.11% | (2 friends) |
| Aries | |
5.56% | (1 friends) |
| Capricorn | |
5.56% | (1 friends) |
| Gemini | |
5.56% | (1 friends) |
| Virgo | |
5.56% | (1 friends) |
You Will Die at Age 40 |
40 Not bad, considering your super wild lifestyle Want to live longer? Try losing a few bad habits. |
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-13 03:06 am (UTC)Also -- I recommend checking out Dali's film experiment with Luis Bunuel, too, if you haven't already; Un Chien andalou. (L'Age D'Or is also very, very good, but Dali had a falling out with Bunuel shortly after starting it, and I think the Dali-Content is limited to like the first reel or so. But I think it might be the better film, since, after all, I'm way more of a Bunuel fan than I am a Dali fan.)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-13 03:30 pm (UTC)I've seen Un Chien Andalou, but I wouldn't mind watching it again. There were several mentions of Bunuel at the exhibit.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-13 03:37 pm (UTC)They've finally released UCa on DVD, which is cool; it's not a great print, unfortunately (looks like it's taken from a Decent VHS copy, actually), but it's not horrible, either. L'Age D'Or is good, too, but as I said, much more Bunuel than Dali. (And it's also just come out on DVD.) But yeah -- Dali and Bunuel were pretty much best friends until ~1930; Gala was the main cause of their breakup, from what I recall; Dali loved her (erm, duh...) and Bunuel did not get along with her. In his autobiography, Bunuel claims the final straw was when he and Dali were talking about different female body types, namely that Bunuel didn't like the type of body type where there was a gap between the thighs of a woman, and it turned out that Gala _had_ those sorts of thighs (unbeknownst to Bunuel), and Dali basically cut him off then. Bunuel I think sort of missed Dali, but would get angry, as sometimes in interviews Dali'd go on the offensive and say things about Bunuel that weren't flattering and of dubious veracity. Although I think from time to time Dali'd go into a pattern of saying something nice, which'd make Bunuel want to see about seeing his old friend again, and then he'd attack shortly after. (Bunuel, IIRC, basically stayed out of it.) I think he said near the end of his life, he actually did try to contact Dali again, but never heard anything from it.
Anyway, though, yeah. Big fan of Bunuel -- in May, Criterion is releasing The Phantom of Liberty, which is one of my favorite bunuels, and probably one of the more accessible ones (at least of the surreal ones). I'm also fond of Discreet Charm of the Bourgoisie and That Obscure Object of Desire, too.