Surrealism & Design
Dr Dara Waldron
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Essay
Patryk Klos
K00179392
Vis Com Y2

Dali’s contribution to surrealism is married by controversy. For many critics, he exploits rather than complements the ideas in the Manifesto. Discuss this statement in relation to The Great Masturbator (1929), The Persistence of Memory (1931), and Destino (2003).

I will start explore this statement from author of the Manifesto of Surrealism. Andre Breton was a French psychiatrist who was using Freud theory to heel his patient during the First World War. When war was coming to end he come up with an idea that science was not a solution to give peace to the world. He discovers that the answer could exist in our subconscious mind. He founded a group of artists focused on exploration of the world of dream and subconscious mind. On the beginning of the movement Breton defines principles of Surrealism in Manifesto of Surrealism. “Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life.” (Breton, 1969)
Dali painting The Great Masturbator done in 1929, same time when he join Surrealists group and meet his future wife Gala. Painting is considered the first surrealist work, Dali symbolize his sexual fascinations, at the same time, highlights the mystical and sensual change that Hi had just gone through as a result of Gala’s presence in his life. (Leal, n.d.) For Dali masturbation and erotic fantasies were the only sexual experiences he accepted.” I masturbated frequently, but with great control over my penis, mentally leading myself on to orgasm but disciplining my actions so as the better to savour my ecstasy. Masturbation