Vast Automobile-joke of Dali
Bill Palmer
Dali shows itself in the fathomless profundity of his humor.
Now, when some people think about humor, they want stand-up
comedians or maybe a cartoon. Dali's humor proves far richer
than any found in the well-defined world of comedians and
funny cartoons, though.
One Dali picture that sets my nervous system vibrating with
laughter is "Apparition of the Town of Delft."
You question my laughter? Perhaps you think the painting a bit
eerie instead.
There is nothing funny about ghosts in morions fading at a
table. That's awe-inspiring. Or frightening, you might
assert.
A great artist knows no genre boundries, however. The same
Dali painting can send frissons of nervousness and fear up and
down your spine but then tickle your ribs with some lurking
humor.
Here is the gigantic Dali-humor of "Apparition of the Town of
Delft": Behind the table, we see an automobile seeming to
grow from a golden rock in purplish late-afternoon sunlight.
A scraggly bush pushes its arms out of the car's windows,
insulting the now-helpless dignity of the ancient vehicle's
design.
That is what makes me laugh, the auto. To me it is a sign of
the futility of our civilization.
In fact, that strange automobile artifact represents an
ingenius Dali-joke--not on our civilization--but on that
part of us which remains so greatly impressed by the
manufactured accomplishments of our modern age.
Those shiny cars zipping along the streets will fade like the
conquistadors--fade even faster, in fact, since autos, being
manufactured, lack the great historic panorama reinacted in
the collective human memory of the conquistadors.
Dali's picture warns us with laughter, of our automotive folly.
Self-important people hurrying back and forth in their autos
never stop to think about how quickly those modern contraptions
they drive (and often almost worship) will fade into grotesque
artifacts...
Using the parlance of our own day, we might observe that Dali's
auto is an "in your face" artifact in his painting. It dominates
the fading soldiers and the beautiful, calm city of Delft in
the background.
An auto shop worker in Ohio and a farmer in Mexico would
instinctively understand the humor of this painting, perhaps
as well or better than any professor of art.
Great artists may--like Dali--prove far ahead of their own
generation in vision and therefore perhaps be considered avant-
garde by the general public for countless decades.
If they are indeed great, as Dali in fact is, they invariably
create art that with time will slice through class and cultural
lines.
My suspicion is that very soon Dali art will be as accessible
and meaningful--possibly far more so--to art lovers as the
"safe and sane" art of Norman Rockwell.
Someone in alt.surrealism pronounced Dali passe the other day!
Stirring laughter echos back and forth through immense and
mysterious halls somewhere in my mind:
It is the cosmic laughter of Dali...
alt.genius.bill-palmer