Art Essay, Research Paper

From the real to the surreal, Salvador Dali embodied it all. Once he was satisfied with his abilities to mimic what he saw in the world, he began to play with objects and space. He comprehended, perfected, and finally transcended realism, and his works became much more than paint on canvas.

At the youthful age of fourteen, his charcoal drawings patterned techniques that Claude Monet is so renown for using. Dali was capable of portraying Monet?s stylistic texture in a texture-less medium. By the time he reached his twenties, he had perfected this impressionistic style using oil paint on canvas. As he perfected this style he became more realistic. From this point, Dali encompassed and transcended realism into pre-surrealism and finally surrealism. He started to incorporate ideas into his paintings and move beyond the material world.

In Dali?s painting , ?My Wife, Nude, Contemplating Her Own Flesh Becoming The Stairs,? his wife is seated with her back to us, staring at a surreal depiction of her form from our point of view. She is painted in perfect realism with beautifully bright and natural colors. Smooth lines and delicate shadows give us a taste of Dali?s talent with a brush. By the title alone, one can say that she is contemplating her image in the distance changing before her eyes. The image is not only surreal, but also majestic in nature.

I believe that there are quite a few people who can paint with the eye of the flesh, it just takes some practice and dedication. But to take the step to the eye of the mind?one has to be willing to open up your innermost part of the soul and just wait to see what comes out. A certain amount of talent must be present to be capable of expressing ideas on the canvas. And not only does it take talent, but to be able to convey ideas in such a matter that they make people stop and contemplate what they are viewing is mind boggling in itself.

To paint with the eye of the spirit you must encompass all of these and transcend yourself into a higher level of thought. Salvador Dali has to be one of my favorite painters because he can achieve so many great levels of his own mind, and then turn around and put them down on canvas. In his work, I see a natural progression from basic painting from sight to something that includes so much more. Each step he took, he did not leave behind any of the knowledge that he had previously learned. Instead, he incorporated it into something much more incredible.