Art History Comparison of Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali and Better Homes - Research Paper Example

Art History Comparison Essay For many artists, the inspiration for their works stems from the things that they know or have experience with. Salvador Dali included the cliffs of his beloved Catalan Coast in many of his paintings, including his most notorious “Persistence of Memory”, not only because they were a landscape feature he was intimately familiar with, but also because they helped to represent the duality of meaning he wished to convey in his artwork. In a similar way, the African-American artist Kerry James Marshall has worked to include his own experience and background into his paintings in such a way that they work to provide a meaningful background to his subjects, adding subtleties of meaning to the overall work that helps to portray his idea of what the painting is attempting to say. Through analysis, it is possible to gain a better understanding of both the surrealist painting “Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dali as well as the postmodern collage “Better Homes, Better Gardens” by Kerry James Marshall in such a way as to approximate what the artists were trying to express through their selections of color, form, subject and imagery. In both works of art, the background plays a large role in establishing the meaning of the work. Although the Catalan cliffs might not have the same impact on an uninformed viewer than they would have on someone who is intimately familiar with the changing faces of these cliffs as the sunlight plays across their face, they nevertheless add a nuance of meaning to “Persistence of Memory” that might otherwise be lost, especially for individuals who have seen them first-hand or know anything about the background of the artist. For Dali, the cliffs of the background represented the physical equivalent of his “principle of paranoiac metamorphosis.” Dali is quoted as saying “All the images capable of being suggested by the complexity of their innumerable irregularities appear successively and by turn as you change your position. This was so objectifiable that the fishermen of the region had since time immemorial baptized each of these imposing conglomerations – the camel, the eagle, the anvil, the monk, the dead woman, the lion’s head. […] I discovered in this perpetual disguise the profound meaning of that modesty of nature which Heraclitus referred to in his enigmatic phrase ‘Nature likes to conceal herself.’” (Descharnes & Neret 1994 p. 171). This transitory nature of the cliffs is not visible in the finished piece, yet the play of the light upon the craggy surface as well as its reflection upon the water draws the eye deep into the picture with the hint that there might be something there if the viewer could only view it from the proper angle. The light on these rocks serves to soften them somewhat, yet the concept of hard is still present in the blue plank and foreground box that are depicted. The blue plank offers a hard contrast to the softness of the blue water just as the solidness of the foreground box is sharply different from the smooth amorphous shape of the suggested sand on the beach. A small blue rock in the midground is easy to overlook, but helps reinforce the ability of a stray idea to interrupt the flow of thought. The stump of a tree that Dali identifies as an olive tree, offers a single branch as the resting place for one of the melting clocks. This olive branch is traditionally a sign of peace, perhaps offering peace in the stopping of time or peace in the ability to step into the world of dream. Another clock melting along the side of the solid foreground box shows a different time from either of the other two visible clock faces in the painting, perhaps indicating that time has no meaning in the world of dream or perhaps indicating the changing nature of thought as one moves from one to another with no concept of the space in between. A third clock melts over the soft shape of a vaguely human half-face as it sleeps on the sand. The long eyelashes covering the eye are perhaps a reinforcement of the somewhat shaded, indecipherable nature of some dreams. Between these three clocks, one can interpret there is a time for peace, a time for hardness and a time for softness and dreams. There exists one last watch in the painting, but this one is turned with its face down, so that it cannot be determined the time that it would reflect. The back of this clock is covered with several black ants. This is reminiscent of the busyness of the ant hill as the workers constantly scurry around searching for food for the rest of the colony. Perhaps the reason the face of this final clock cannot be seen is because it is representing the effect that time can have on the workers, forcing them to turn away from their thoughts, dreams, aspirations and desires in the never-ending struggle for survival in a harsh, undefined world. Unlike Dali, however, the background meanings of many of Marshall’s paintings are easier to decipher, perhaps because they are drawn from such a broadly experienced background as the civil rights movements of the 1950s and the Watts riots and other cultural issues that hit the streets of Los Angeles in the 1960s. The background here consists of a vividly blue sky, a rising sun, bluebirds, a flower-strewn courtyard, some trees and a housing area, all created in such a way as to indicate the ideals of the suburban lifestyle within the inner city projects. The view on the left side of the painting is obscured by the red brick wall that contains the project’s name “Wentworth Gardens” and the sign is further obscured by a bunch of white flowers growing up in front of it like a suburban entryway. The circular flower garden area is surrounded by the obligatory green lawn. A blue splash toward the center of the painting can almost be considered the jet of a fountain such as those that might be seen outside some of the more classy subdivisions in America. The full trees and brightly colored flowers dotting the lawn help to portray an innocent summer morning walk. The lines on the sidewalk, drawn with a heavy white, almost chalklike stroke, invoke the spirit of the child with the idea of the chalk-drawn hopscotch board on every sidewalk and a bright yellow toy ball on the bottom right hand corner of the painting adds the nature of play into the piece. A coiled up hose lying on the grass brings in the suburban ideal of working in the yard on a nice summer day or the idea of children playing in the sprinklers on the front lawn. Despite the bright hues and innocent nature of much of the scene, though, one begins to see negative aspects that indicate all is not as well as it appears. The flowers that hide the Westwood Gardens sign now give off an impression closer to the appearance of overgrown weeds than actual flowers as it becomes noticed that the landscaped letter W in the flower garden beneath the sign has been partially obliterated and may be simply scratched into the red dirt with chalk or spray paint. The sign itself presents a rather ominous message by instructing its readers to “Drive Carefully” and to “Watch Your Children.” This is not a message that is typically blazed onto every neighborhood greeting. The banner that displays the name of the piece across the bottom portion of the painting is being stepped over by the young black couple that constitutes the primary foreground, as they might step over a stray piece of litter that is blowing in the wind. They don’t look down at it and they don’t trip up on it, indicating that they are accustomed to stepping over flying debris within their neighborhood. The uneven, wandering lines of the sidewalk further indicate a breakdown in maintenance and quality craftsmanship in the construction of this living place. The white flowers dotting the lawn can be an indication of neglect in allowing the weeds to poke through the lawn in profusion while the idle hose lying in the grass further emphasizes the idea of no work getting done to make this property valuable or pleasant. Each of the doors of the apartment complex is painted with a series of horizontal bars, belying the idea of an open, friendly community and emphasizing the idea of a governmental institution in which all the dangers to society are confined. Even the orange color of the complex can be interpreted to indicate a governmental control as it is not a color often used in the construction of subdivisions. The presence of child’s toys with the absence of children also provides an eerie landscape that hints of danger or unnatural conditions. The horizontal bars depicted in the girl’s shirt not only echo the barred nature of the apartment doors, but seem to indicate the additional restrictions that have been placed on the girl in her attempts to break free of the living conditions afforded her by the greater white community. Finally, a very subtle wire fence can be traced arching its way across the bottom portion of the painting, broken just enough to allow the couple passage to the world outside. That there is no gate included indicates that this break in the fence line is accidental and is more the result of the poor maintenance provided to the property than it is to any desire on the part of the dominant community to allow these two young people a chance for freedom. Thus, through such attention to background detail in their paintings, both Salvador Dali and Kerry James Marshall are able to depict conflicting messages regarding their subjects, which were based upon then current concerns. Dali’s focus on thought perfectly reflected the primary concerns of his day as he worked at a time when Sigmund Freud’s theories, as well as the ideas of Albert Einstein, were in full swing (Ades & Taylor, 2004-2005). Similarly, Marshall’s focus on the inner city projects and the accurate portrayal of black people within them coincided with his experiences in the turmoil of 1960s Alabama and later in the Los Angeles Watts Riots (Rowell, 1998). While Dali’s painting depicts both the hard and the soft side of thinking, Marshall’s depicts both the hope and the hardship of the inner city residents, who were primarily black people. Although they each used their own methods to communicate their ideas; Dali through surrealism and Marshall through postmodernism, the means by which these artists illustrated their messages remain surprisingly similar. Works Cited Ades, Dawn & Taylor, Michael. Dali. Philadelphia: Advanta, (September 12 2004 – January 16 2005). Dali, Salvador. Persistence of Memory. [painting]. New York: Museum of Modern Art, (1931). Descharnes, Robert & Neret, Gilles. Salvador Dali: 1904-1989. Germany: Benedikt Taschen, (1994). Marshall, Kerry James. “Better Homes, Better Gardens.” Denver Art Museum, 1994. Art21 [online]; available from http://www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/?slide=994&artindex=140; Internet; accessed November 21, 2006. Rowell, Charles. “An Interview with Kerry James Marshall.” Callaloo. (Vol. 21, N. 1, February 9, 1998), 263-72. Read More