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

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In the midst of this turmoil of tendencies and changes, Dalí engaged in a dialogue with ‘theAmerican way of life’, making use of the techniques of promotion and advertising that hadended up defining so much of American culture. Dalí took advantage of his stay in Americato put the finishing touches to the persona of Salvador Dalí that was to gain him universalrecognition.Artistic InfluencesAt an opening in the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in April 1941, three years before hepainted Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee…, Dalí announced that his painting was to bringabout a return to ‘the classical era’. Only a few months after his arrival in the United States,Dalí was looking for inspiration and a new pictorial model in the proportion and harmony ofthe Italian Renaissance, marking not so much a radical stylistic break as a departure from theSurrealist fold:‘My surrealist glory was worthless. I must incorporate surrealism in tradition. Myimagination must become classic again. I had before me a work to accomplish forwhich the rest of my life would not suffice. Gala made me believe in this mission.’ 5Visually, we find not a break in the style of his work but a reutilizing and exploiting of certainelements, of which the landscape is the most striking example. Associations with the worldof mass culture are manifestly present in Dalí’s paintings of the nineteen forties. In everydaythings, used and demanded by the public at large, he found a rich source of inspiration. Hehad previously depicted a Coca-Cola bottle in the 1943 painting The Poetry of America, severalyears in advance of the iconography of Pop Art, and the tigers in Dream Caused by the Flight of aBee… were taken from the posters advertising the popular Ringling Bros. and Barnum & BaileyCircus. These borrowings exemplify the working method of a great artist-observer, filteringand absorbing the world around him and painting his pictures as if they were hand-colouredphotographs, effectively assimilating painting to the photographic image.04Ringling Barnun Bailey Circus posterDalí took advantage of this mediatic moment to seize the attention of the media whileworking with and exploring the potential of supports other than the traditional canvas. Themultitude of options Dalí tested out — new supports, the artistic function of popular imagery,the championing of an anachronistic classicism… — looked forward to many aspects ofcontemporary art: certain Dalinian connotations can be seen in the work of artists such as AndyWarhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons.5. DALÍ, S. (1942). The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí. The Dial Press, New Press, p. 350
3. INTERPRETATIONThe LandscapeThe landscape in Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee… is perhaps the most recognizable elementin the picture, in that it corresponds to Dalí’s immediate and omnipresent surroundings. Forall their realism, the landscapes that Dalí painted in the nineteen forties are products of theimagination, of dreams and memories: the artist lived in the United States continuously for aperiod of eight years (1940-1948), a long way from the Empordà.The figure of Gala lies stretched out on a rocky platform that floats above the sea. The cliff onthe right is reminiscent of those Dalí painted during the thirties and, indeed, continued to paint.A few olive branches adorning the summit of the cliff are the only vegetation on the painting.The blue of the sea and the sky is divided by the first light of day, coinciding with the momentof ‘one second before awakening’; the time is dawn and the moon still lingers in the sky.In many of the pictures from Dalí’s American period (1940-1948) the landscape takes ona predominant presence. The close personal relationship that Dalí establishes with theMediterranean setting can be seen as an extension of himself; the landscape of Cadaqués /Portlligat / Cap de Creus and Dalí are inseparable. In his writings, Dalí acknowledged theprimacy of the landscape in his art:‘[…] I need only to close my eyes in order to recapture landscapes and scenes intact,but at the time I established the strangest kind of dialogue with myself. Everyrock, every promontory of Cape Creus is in permanent metamorphosis. Each is asuggestion that prompts spontaneous visualization of an eagle, a camel, a rooster, alion, a woman – but if you approach from the sea, the nearer you get, the more thesymbolism develops and changes. It is a continual simulacrum. The bird becomesa wild animal and then a barnyard fowl. Like living in a constant mirage… and yet,when we land, the granite beneath our feet is hard, compact, clear, implacable – afterhaving double-dealt us so constantly.’ 605The PomegranateGala’s dream, which is ‘caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate’, commences withthe broken-open pomegranate, two seeds of which are falling into the sea and will become thepomegranate trees that Gala will plant next to the house at Portlligat. The pomegranate is anPomegranate of PortlligatJewel The Pomegranate Heart made of gold, rubies and diamonds6. DALÍ, S. (1976). The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dalí. William Morrow and Company, Inc., new York, p. 129
Page 1 and 2: Salvador DalíOil on wood panel51 x
Page 3: Painting for the ballet Sentimental
Page 8 and 9: ‘[…] flying about like a bee, w
Page 10 and 11: APPENDICEWorks Produced by Dalí in
Page 12: NOTES ON THE PRELIMINARY SKETCHES O

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

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