Happy New Year!

We have completed another revolution around the sun, bringing us in conjunction with our recent past experiences and plans that will unfold during the new year. Our intentions can work for the amelioration of ourselves as well as others in order to affect positive change. During the next few days, I will be spending some time in deep thought with a focus on bringing you some new examples of iconic realism throughout the coming year.  

Meanwhile, I wish all of you a pleasant, warm, and safe New Year’s celebration!

Cheers!

Salvador Dalí and Iconic Realism

      The Rose by Salvador Dalí

       photo from Google Images

    Below contains excerpts from my book, The Theory of Iconic Realism: Understanding the Arts through Cultural Context.

     

      Suspended in an azure sky, a full, red, dew-kissed rose hovers over a muddy, obscure landscape with a visual representation of humanity strategically painted directly beneath the rose, as if this figure receives the flower’s beauty.  A delicate cloud wisps above the rose, giving the impression of an omniscient breath.  In this painting, the artist, Salvador Dalí, presents the colorful visual stimulus to illustrate an iconic representation of a rose, traditional symbol of love. Moreover, the rose has long been associated with the Blessed Mother. Since May and October have also been associated with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, it is fitting to discuss this painting during the month of May or October. 

Dali places this garden flower in a detached yet dominating position within his fair sky. Although the foreground has a realistic tone, the central position of this suspended rose has a surreal quality. Through this configuration, Dalí stimulates the consciousness of his audience with his visual associations to reality of the rose, the two people, and the landscape. Using mainly primary colors, he places the rose above rather than within the landscape, hovering directly above the humans. He creates a form of symbolism representing an overseeing life force that captures a viewer’s imagination. Could he be depicting eternal Love? 

Through this painting, Dalí incorporates iconic realism by rendering an iconic form (the rose) within a realistic setting in which the iconic structure is not traditionally perceived (hovering in mid-air over a desert landscape) in order to bring an audience to a renewed awareness of the significance and transformation that occurs with the primal cultural activity of human interaction with the Divine.  

Longfellow's "Evangeline" and Iconic Realism ("Evangeline" de Longfellow et realism emblématique) (Click onto this title to hear the song, Evangeline, sung by Annie Blanchard en français)

Photo from DuckDuckGo Images shows the statue of Evangeline, 

sitting in the Acadian Memorial in St. Martinville, Louisiana.

My absolute favorite American narrative poem is Evangeline, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He beautifully illustrates the theory of iconic realism, for he writes of an iconic love between two Acadian villagers, separated by imperialistic orders of the British military.

As the two lovers set off on their lifelong quest, each alone, yet jointly searching through the American wilderness with hope of an eventual reunion, the audience becomes aware of diminishing cultures across this vast continent as one community gains control over another with little regard for cultural tolerance. In the final stanza of this epic poem, Longfellow illustrates that a culture, like love, may go through changes, but with God's gift of human perseverance and Divine purpose, both a culture and love will prevail:

Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow, 

Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping. 

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard, 

In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed; 

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them, 

Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever, 

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy, 

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors, 

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey! 

Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches 

Dwells another race, with other customs and language. 

Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic 

Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile 

Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom; 

In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy; 

Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun, 

And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, 

While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate, answers the wail of the forest.

(Longfellow, Evangeline, Part II, Canto V)