Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One ...

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INTRODUCTIONThanks to the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí’s policy of active cooperation with other institutionswhose collections include works by Salvador Dalí, visitors to the Dalí Theatre-Museum inFigueres have recently been able to see a number of the artist’s major pictures on temporaryloan, such as Metamorphosis of Narcissus and The Persistence of Memory. In 2010 we are pleased topresent the oil painting Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One Second BeforeAwakening, from 1944, generously loaned by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. Thework will be on show at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, from 9 February to 2 May 2010.For the occasion, the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí has prepared a dossier and a number ofinformative materials in order to present and analyse a significant picture from Dalí’s oeuvre.1. WORKDescriptionWhen Gala described to Dalí the strange images she had seen in a dream that was somehowrelated to the flight of a bee around a pomegranate, the artist lost no time in painting DreamCaused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening, of 1944. 3 Thesetting for the picture is once again a landscape of Portlligat, which Gala shares with twopomegranates, a large scorpionfish, two tigers, a rifle with a bayonet, a bee and an elephant withlong, insect-like legs. All of these elements, presented in a manner that could be regarded as acinematic sequence, are part of the dream of a voluptuous reclining Gala who seems obliviousto the strange events going on around her. The reading of the painting, as its title makes clear,starts with the bee hovering over the small pomegranate in the foreground. This pomegranate02is also the origin and source of Gala’s dream, depicted on the left side of the picture.Looking a little more closely, we see that none of the objects that appear in the picture istouching any of the others: everything floats, everything hangs suspended. The dream-imageis the snapshot of a precise moment, frozen and perfectly painted by hand.The Context of the WorkDalí painted Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee… at a time of historical impasse and a stylisticcrossroads: World War II was drawing to an end and a distinctively American art was emerging.The year was 1944: Dalí’s creativity was burgeoning, coinciding with the mid point in his stayin America (1940-1948). When Dalí arrived in the United States in 1940 he declared that hisintention was to become rich and famous. During his stay in the New World, Dalí consolidatedhis persona, involved himself in various projects (sets for the theatre, ballet and opera, filmscripts, illustrations for books, designs for jewellery and clothes, photographic projects…)and socialized with rich and influential people, ensuring his social standing.3. TAYLOR, M. (2004). “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate, One Second beforeAwakening” In: Dalí, Bompiani, Milan, p. 334
Painting for the ballet Sentimental ColloquyPoster advertising the book Hidden FacesThe year 1944 was a very productive one for Dalí. He designed advertising images for thestocking manufacturer Bryans, for perfume, lipstick and other products for Elsa Schiaparelli,and for McCurrach ties; he contributed articles and illustrations to a number of magazines, andin June published his only novel, Hidden Faces. At the end of the summer he signed the contractthat resulted in his creating the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s film Spellbound, whichpremiered in 1945. During the last three months of 1944 he designed the sets for the stage playSentimental Colloquy and created the libretto, the costumes and the sets for the ballet Mad Tristan.2. SALVADOR DALÍThe Historical Context in Europe and the United States03With the outbreak of World War II, the art scene in both Europe and America underwent asudden drastic change, and among the artists who fled a Europe at war many sought refuge inthe United States. This migration left Europe relatively bereft of artists while America gainedsignificantly in artistic importance. The new continent’s absorption of transatlantic émigréintellectuals coincided with the advent of a specifically American form of modern art: AbstractExpressionism. Dalí painted Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee… at a time when the Surrealismof the exiled coexisted with the newly emerging Abstract Expressionism. This was a period ofgreat upheaval in art, a moment of synthesis between abstraction and surrealism, marked bythe emergence of what would come to be known as the New York School, whose prominentfigures included Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, William Baziotes and Robert Motherwell. Dalítook no part in this pictorial transition at the artistic level, in the sense that he was not a memberof any movement and instead remained faithful to his own style. There was to be no stylisticbreak in his work, no move towards Abstract Expressionism; nor did he form strong personalties with any of the émigré artists. Maintaining his provocative, rebellious spirit, Dalí baptisedhis painting anew, calling for a return to classicism and turning to photographic realism. Aswe can see in Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee… this was bound up with an evident pictorialpreciosity, and indeed Dalí described painting as ‘“photography” done by hand and in coloursof the “concrete irrationality” and of the imaginative world in general’. 44. DALÍ, S. (1934), ‘The Latest Modes of Intellectual Stimulation for the Summer of 1934’. In: Finkelstein, H.The Collected Writings of Salvador Dalí, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 254
Page 1: Salvador DalíOil on wood panel51 x
Page 5 and 6: 3. INTERPRETATIONThe LandscapeThe l
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Page 10 and 11: APPENDICEWorks Produced by Dalí in
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