The Dalí Renaissance

Fall 2022

How could an artist who created libidinous paintings and pursued worldly greatness for the majority of his career convert himself through his own work? The Dalí Renaissance (written by various authors and edited by Michael R Taylor) gives us a partial answer through an examination of the life of Salvador Dalí. The book is a compilation of writings from the 2005 International Symposium at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that was itself called The Dalí Renaissance, and it claims to offer “New Perspectives on Dalí’s life and Art After 1940.” The book answers our question excellently because it explicitly addresses Salvador Dalí’s interaction with religion in his work, includes excerpts of his thoughts, and gives background on Dalí’s life outside of his paintings.

Because of the mixed authorship of The Dalí Renaissance, there are a variety of perspectives inside the book concerning Dalí’s artistic motivation, religious affiliations, and personal history. However, there is a distinct underlying perspective in chapters one and three by Michael Taylor, and chapter two by Jonathan Wallis. These chapters speak the most directly to the religious art historical circumstances in Dalí’s life; chapter one talks about his publicity, chapter two exposits his mindset switch from “sacrilege” to “mysticism,” and chapter three explains his “Nuclear Mysticism” philosophy. Later in the book, an interview with two of Dalí’s acquaintances sheds light on the more private aspects of the Spainiard’s life, and offers a richer perspective concerning his religious identity and the way in which the church influenced his work. An advantage of The Dali Renaissance being a compilation of writings from different authors is that multiple viewpoints are retained inside of it. The prominently good, bad, and nuanced personal accounts provide counterarguments to the various positions in the book.

An overarching timeline of this painter’s life will facilitate a deeper look into his personal art philosophy. Salvador Dalí was born on May 11th, 1904 in Figueras, Spain. From a young age, he was a very technically skilled painter. The earliest painting on display at a Dalí museum was painted when the artist was ten years old, and he had his first exhibition at age 15. Later, Dalí went to study art in Madrid and Barcelona. He married his wife Gala in 1934. After painting his final work in 1982, which was the year that his wife died, the artist lived until 1989. The Dalí Renaissance contains relevant information on the circumstances surrounding Dalí's art life, but the book does not thoroughly address every historical detail in the artist’s life. It is more important for us to talk about Salvador Dali’s art historical philosophy, and some of the specific elements of his profession.

"Dalí felt that there was an intimate connection between his art and popular culture."

In addition to his general obsession with his public persona, Dalí fully embraced the secular side of surrealism from his early years until 1950. Jonathan Wallis describes Dali’s Surrealism as “sacrilegious, sensual, and filled with carnal lust and sexual perversion.” One of his first works, from 1932, was literally entitled “Agnostic Symbol.” An article from the Philadelphia Museum of Art says, “Agnostic Symbol demonstrates how Salvador Dalí used a clear, precise, and legible style while also turning away from ordinary reality, and toward hallucination and irrationality.” Although The Dali Renaissance does not directly address Agnostic Symbol, this deliberate excusal of rational thought and obsession with fame should be problematic for scholars hoping to give him a charitable review, because it appears (at first glance) that Dali was rejecting God. By all accounts, Dali was not a man of spiritual integrity.

"I considered it the very unity of the universe: the Christ."

Basically, Dali wanted to redeem modernism with a new art philosophy. Author Jonathan Wallis sums up the change in these words: “[The painting’s] unveiling was preceded by the artist’s announcement . . . that this former sacrilegious Surrealist was in fact a mystic, capable of transmitting the ecstasy of God and charged with the responsibility of saving modern painting from its degenerate, blasphemous aesthetic.” This kind of change is unprecedented in our search for the painter’s religious influences. It isn’t often that one of the artists we study is headed on a trajectory to agnosticism and worldliness, then proceeds to directly address the part of his own career that we are giving all of our attention to, namely, the religious influences on his paintings.

Dali: An Iconographer?

Jonathan Wallis was delighted with Dali’s transformation. He says, “As knowledge of Dali’s postwar period increases, it becomes more and more evident that the artist was as sacred as he was profane.” According to the conclusion of this scholar, Dali’s transformed art philosophy redeems him.

Although the historical perspective on Dali’s ties to religion in The Dali Renaissance is straightforward, other scholars have reservations. Although Dr. Matthew Milliner was a firm believer in Dali’s true transformation –and elaborated in his article Chagall’s Cathedral– the scholar admits, “Dali’s embrace of the same Francisco Franco . . . was regrettably prolonged. The artist . . . even congratulated Franco for Executing Basque secessionists in 1975.” An individual’s outward behavior often betrays the posture of their heart, and an artist who admired Mao Tse-Tung could have problematic ideologies.

Dalí’s infatuation with the world also poses a moral challenge when trying to identify the motivation behind his paintings. John writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.” Indeed, on the very eve of the year in which Dalí turned (in his words) from sacrilege to mysticism, his former friend Andre Breton wrote, “Dalí . . . disappeared in around 1935 to make way for the personality better known as Avida Dollars, fashionable portraitist recently converted to the Catholic faith and to ‘the artistic ideals of the Renaissance,’ who today boasts of receiving congratulations and encouragement from the Pope.” Breton asserts that Dalí was totally and completely of the world, conforming to modern fancies and converting to Catholicism only because of the popular appeal. This kind of criticism is hard to navigate, because only God and the Dalí know the artist’s true state of belief.

Was Christianity simply the popular choice?

After reading about Salvador Dalí’s art mindset from his own perspective, the perspective of Taylor and Wallis, and then the historical facts about his attraction to fame and surrealism, it is obviously difficult to put a single label such as “blasphemer,” “convert,” “heretic,” or “saint” onto the famous artist. Obviously Dalí was a capable creator. During his career after his 1950’s switch to “the right prong,” his ability to construct icons in a beautiful, modernist sort of way (like “Raphaelesque Exploding Head,” Fig. 4) displays his innovative capacity. His personal reflection on his switch from sacrilege to mysticism is promising. If there were no question of artistic intent and identity, Dalí’s paintings could very well be incorporated into modern Christian iconography and church culture without anyone batting an eye. Dalí’s personal “Nuclear Mysticism” philosophy does not exclude him from the art of iconography either. A good faith effort to combine the realms of science and religion through the medium of art has great reconciliatory potential, as we can see in “Madonna of Port Lligat” and “Assumption”.

Matthew 7:7 says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” In order to understand art from a Christian perspective, we need to realize that all creativity and beauty originate in God himself. According to Ultra Violet, the veracity of Dalí’s faith is not what made his paintings beautiful. His icons are not alluring because they are the epitome of all truth. Rather, we can see the beauty in any one of his works because they are each a small brushstroke in the overarching canvas of beauty that Salvador Dalí is trying to create.