“The dream caused by a bee flying around a pomegranate, a second before waking up” ( Spanish: Sueño causado por el vuelo de una abeja alrededor de una granada un segundo antes de despertar ) - a painting by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali . Located in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid .
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| Salvador Dali | ||
| Sleep caused by a bee around the pomegranate, a second before waking up . 1944 | ||
| Sueño causado por el vuelo de una abeja alrededor de una granada un segundo antes de despertar | ||
| Oil on canvas . 51 × 40.5 cm | ||
| Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum , Madrid | ||
| ( inv. ) | ||
Content
- 1 Picture Information
- 2 Symbolism
- 2.1 Elephant
- 3 notes
- 4 References
Information about the picture
One of the sources of the picture was a circus tiger poster, and Dali retains much of the vivid immediacy associated with the art of the poster. The bees and pomegranates appearing in the name are depicted as small, directly under the body of a woman who was stretched out in a dream. She is undoubtedly another portrait of Gala, shown floating over (and not resting on) a stone slab, which is washed by the sea of the unconscious. Real bees and pomegranates turn pale in front of the images generated by them - the huge fruit of a pomegranate, a fish escaping from it and two tigers in all their growling ferocity, which the fish spews from their mouths. More traditional Freudian images - a rifle with an attached bayonet and a fantastic elephant on stilt legs - complete this instant dream, which obviously has not yet had time to disturb the sleeping woman [1] .
Salvador Dali wrote about his painting:
The goal was to portray for the first time Freud's discovery of the type of long, connected sleep caused by instantaneous action, from which awakening occurs. Just as the falling of a needle on the sleeping man’s neck simultaneously causes him to awaken and a long dream ending in the guillotine, the buzz of a bee causes a sting here that will wake Gala. All life-giving biology arises from a bursting pomegranate. Bernini's elephant in the background carries an obelisk and the attributes of a pope [2] .
Symbolism
Elephant
In 1667, at the initiative of Pope Alexander VII , a monument was erected in Minerva square in Rome in the form of an elephant carrying an Egyptian obelisk on its back. The sculptor of the monument was Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini [3] . It is assumed that the xylographic illustration from the novel Polyphilus Hypnerotomachia [4] could become a source of inspiration when creating the sculpture. This novel by an anonymous author was published in 1499 at the printing house of Alda Manucius . The plot is based on the hero’s dream, in which he witnesses various fantastic paintings and events [5] . Among other things, he meets a construction with an elephant pierced by an obelisk. In the edition of the novel, one of the illustrations depicted this elephant [4] .
When painting, the artist’s goal was to depict the type of long meaningful dream discovered by Sigmund Freud , which is caused by an external stimulus, which at the same time creates a dream and provokes awakening. In the background of the picture is an elephant with long thin articular legs and an obelisk on its back. Similarly, the artist surrealistically depicted the Bernini monument, which is a reference to the history of Freud, when he saw a dream about the funeral of the pope, caused by a bell ringing. The image of an elephant on long thin legs liked Dali, and the artist used it in his other works [6] .
Notes
- ↑ A dream caused by a bee flying around a pomegranate, one second before awakening . Date of treatment October 23, 2009. Archived February 26, 2012.
- ↑ Sleep caused by a bee flying around a pomegranate one second before waking up . Date of treatment October 23, 2009.
- ↑ Palazzo, Chiara. Rome in shock as Bernini elephant statue vandalised . The Daily Telegraph (November 15, 2016). Date of treatment November 21, 2016. Archived November 21, 2016.
- ↑ 1 2 Heckscher, WS Bernini's Elephant and Obelisk // The Art Bulletin: Journal. - 1947. - Vol. 29. - P. 155. Archived on August 17, 2016.
- ↑ Patronnikova, Yu. The mythology of sleep in the novel by Francesco Colonna "Hypnerotomy of Polyphilus" (1499) . - Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences , 2015. - S. 1-2. - 4 p.
- ↑ Martynov, Semyon. Dali according to Freud: "The dream caused by the flight of a bee ..." from the point of view of psychoanalysis . Around the World (July 29, 2015). Date of treatment November 22, 2016. Archived November 21, 2016.
Links
- A dream caused by a bee flying around a pomegranate one second before waking up in the gallery of Salvador Dali