If you told me you didn’t know who Salvador Dalí was, I would think you were lying. With a career made up of decades of masterpieces in painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design, and photography, the Spanish master was one of the most influential artists in history.
A quick search on him, if you really don’t know him, will give you this:
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarre images in his work. — Wiki
But what are some other things — which will help to understand the second part of this story — you might want to know about him?
The Wondrous Dalí
If you’ve ever wondered when a master like Salvador Dalí began his work, you should know that he did it when he was only six years old, and he continued to paint until six years before his death. A life spent in art, a life lived through art, and, without a doubt, a life lived as an artist.
Many people believe that Sigmund Freud is responsible for parts of Salvador Dalí’s work. Analysing Dalí has long depended on psychoanalysis as a foundation for interpretation, and Surrealist groups have placed a greater focus on the inner significance of his work by emphasising psychoanalytical precepts of art.
Surrealist art and psychoanalysis share a lot of similarities, or rather, affinities. Also, we do know that in 1938, the two (Freud and Dalí) met in London. Dalí will also produce portraits of the psychoanalyst.
Dalí’s use of automatism to create works of art is another factor that would link him to psychoanalysis in people’s minds. Dream states that are lucid and awake and make art from inside. This notion, in my opinion, establishes a clear line between Salvador Dalí’s work and more modern psychedelic art.
2022: What Would a Reincarnated Salvador Do?
While the complexities of reincarnation fail to persuade me, as a non-believer, I could imagine Dalí coming back for another round at life.
In fact, have I had been born by 1989, I would have believed it if someone had told me Salvador had passed away and risen three days after.
But, what would he be doing if he were getting another crack at it now? My hypotheses follow.
Psychedelic Art
The mind manifested. That is the meaning of psychedelic art, and tell me, who do you think would have been really into the idea of manifesting states of the mind through painting? Yes, him. Not to say, he might even have tried out AI art and sold them as NFTs. But I digress!
In the work of contemporary psychedelic artists, I see much of the art-philosophy of Dalí and often, traces of his aesthetics.
Lowbrow for a long moustache
Lowbrow, often known as lowbrow art, is an alternative visual art style that began in the late 1960s in California. It’s an art movement with origins in underground comics, punk culture, tiki culture, street art, and hot rod.
To fit our 2022 Dalí, the movement is also called Pop Surrealism.
Lowbrow art is unconcerned with being acknowledged as genuine by the art world; in fact, lowbrow artists set their own unabashed norms, laws that were explicit enough to allow this entire creative sector to function on its own. Still, following the success of Juxtapoz Magazine and another important journal, Hi-Fructose, a number of members of the Lowbrow art movement began to shift away from the raw, gritty portrayal of cartoons and counterculture. They began generating artwork with more complexity as a result of their classical creative background; the idea was to make “more beautiful” images while not forsaking the heart of Lowbrow — its subterranean allusions.
If Dalí was alive and into lowbrow, I promise you, we would have surreal emojis and symbols that would make Takeshi Murakami’s flowers wither.
Graphic novels and anime
Destino, a one-of-a-kind animated short film created by Walt Disney and Dalí, was published by Disney Studios in 2003. According to legend, Dalí and Disney first met in August 1944 at a dinner party hosted by Jack Warner of Warner Bros. fame.
All this while Dalí was working on Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound”
While Destino took five decades to finish, the new Salvador would take matters into his own hands and publish a surrealist graphic novel for Kindle.
What’s more, we would now have a very different version of the anime Blue Period. As, I’m sure, Salvador Dalí would have had the idea first and made it about his own life.
Millennial Dalí
Psychedelics, lowbrow, and some anime going on. Would Dalí be as famous aas he was if he were here now?
While it is difficult to argue with the fact that competition due to oversaturated creative markets is now very difficult to get on top of, I think that a 2022 Salvador Dalí would. He would still be memorable.
Why?
Because — and this is not going to sound very logical — he would be Dalí. Not just any eccentric talented artist. But the one and only.
Love this!