gir⋅an⋅dole
1. a rotating and radiating firework.
2. an ornate bracket for candelabra or the like, sometimes with a reflecting mirror at the back of the shelf.
3. a brooch or earring consisting of a central ornament with usually three smaller ornaments hanging from it.
finally today it dawned on me. i've been working on my honors thesis this semester, which deals with the famous catalonian painter, salvador dalí. this definition doesn't remind me of his art in general, but one of his works in particular kind of made the light bulb go off:
this painting is titled "galatée aux spheres" or "galatea of the spheres," and was completed in 1952. it currently resides at the fundación gala-salvador dalí in figueras, spain. the woman in the center of the painting is his wife gala, who appears in a great number of his works. she was said to be his muse (as well as the muse of a number of other surrealist figures. in fact, it was said that if a surrealist had been inspired, it was likely that he had been with gala). she was a secretive woman, and not much is known about her today other than that she was promiscuous - she was married to poet paul éluard upon meeting dalí, and was known to have many lovers throughout her marriage to the painter.
dalí claimed that he did not paint with intention; in other words, he was unaware of the meaning of his paintings. he simply painted what he drew up from his subconscious. the story with this painting is that dalí was intimidated by gala's many lovers throughout her life, and although she was his wife she was still unattainable to him. the orbs represent gala's lovers overshadowing her, and you will notice that they have sort of taken over her face. it is still very obvious that the woman is gala, but her features are not as distinct as they are in other works.
this is obviously not a traditional example of "girandole," but the orbs sort of reminded me of a "rotating or radiating firework."
later this week... whipsaw. hmmm, this should be interesting.
I really like this take on girandole.
ReplyDeleteI love Dali, but unfortunately I'm only familiar with his more famous works.
One of the wonderful things about our class (and there are several in my opinion) is that the presentation of a single word can suggest such widely diverging images, impressions, etc., to each of us. I find that fascinating.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of Dali, I think of that famous black and white photograph of him, where the ends of his moustache are waxed turned upwards about five inches!
On a more serious note, I also think of his surrealist crucifixion paintings, especially the one called "Corpus Hypercubus."
That is a really interesting work - I've never seen it before, and I'm really glad you shared it! Dali really did a lot of cool things connecting to the subconscious; I'm a fan of old movies and not long ago I saw "Spellbound" again. Dali designed some of the dream sequences in that movie, and there are a few girandole-esque images (the eyes, maybe, and the spokes of a wheel).
ReplyDeleteHere's a YouTube video of the dream sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzxlbgPkxHE
wow i love this painting! what an interesting take on the word of the day. i agree with jane - it's so interesting to see how one word can be interpreted so differently by everyone in our class.
ReplyDeletethis painting is gorgeous and it looks as though all the orbs are originating from a point located on the corner of her lips...i wonder if that's significant?