Dalí and Freud: The transformation of human obsessions in art

Genitals, large breasts and other fetishes. The restlessness that emanates from the paintings of Salvador Dali (1904-1989) found refuge and explanation in the theories of father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, as analyzed by an exhibition in Vienna presented from this Saturday.

Under the title Dalí-Freud: an obsession, the Belvedere Gallery in Vienna will show a hundred objects, including paintings, photographs, writings, sculptures and films, that examine the influence of Freud on Dalí’s creation.

“We have planned the exhibition as a journey from the Dalí’s childhood, when his problems and frustrations arise, until his meeting with Freud in 1938″, explains Jaime Brihuega, curator of the exhibition and emeritus professor of Art History at the Complutense University of Madrid.

The exhibition, which can be visited until May 29, will be officially opened on January 31 in Vienna by the kings of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia.

“Obsessive Flattery” by Freud

A total of 36 original pieces by Dalí, films by Luis Buñuel, 15 works by Federico García Lorca, histological drawings by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and sketches by Sigmund Freud himself bring visitors closer to the life of the Spanish artist.

The exhibition covers the artist’s childhood and his time in Madrid Student Residence, where his “obsessive flattery” towards Freud after learning about psychoanalysis.

Dalí reads it and thinks he finds in it a theoretical justification of everything you feel. Freud legitimizes his personality and opens the door to new productions”, declares Brihuega.

However the Catalan genius he did not paint what the analyst related to dreams but rather, according to Brihuega, “Freud legitimized him to transform his own obsessions into images”.

These obsessions, which are framed in the extravagance and morbidity of Dalí’s work, they can only be understood from the approaches of psychoanalysis, with what the painter hid in his subconscious.

Frustrations and hidden desires

The interpretation of dreams (1899) by Freud, together with surreal movement, offered Dalí a space where translating the human psyche into art, where externalize your hidden memories, frustrations and desires. This is how it shows the gloomy game (1929), shown to the public for the first time in 20 years.

“It is the masterpiece of how Dalí believes that Freud allows him to tell his obsessions: masturbation, not being clear about their sexual orientation, pain linked to love, sexual rage, coprophilia or fear of flaccidity of the penis, “says Brihuega.

The sexual trauma, like the small size of his penis or his unhappy love affair with Lorca, they embarrassed Dalí for years.

The liberation of the subconscious

According to the curator of the exhibition, Freud opened the door that allowed Dalí to see that their torments were common obsessions.

In a state of liberation and in an attempt to approach the creation of the Austrian psychoanalyst, Dalí wrote The paranoid-critical method, in which he defends the transformation and subversion of reality.

However, this interest in Freud’s work is not shared by the psychoanalyst, who conceived of the surrealism as “a crazy thing”. “They have me as a muse, but I see more things in classical art than in them,” Freud once said, according to Brihuega.

They spoke a different language, they were separated by forty years of age and had two opposite artistic positions, but none of this prevented them from Dalí became obsessed with Freud.

the expected meeting

Although this fascination was not mutual, Dalí was determined to meet his referent, and tried it on a trip to Vienna in 1937. couldn’t see it, but it is believed that on a visit to his practice he saw the Roman bronze depicting a hand holding an egg, which he was inspired to paint that year The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937).

Thanks to the mediation of the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig and to British poet Edward James, the father of psychoanalysis and the genius of surrealism finally met in London in 1938, where Freud had gone into exile fleeing Nazi persecution.

With great nervousness, Dalí arrived at Freud’s house in the hope that read his texts and give him his blessing. But nevertheless, Freud was more interested in the “fanatical temperament” of the painter and by The Metamorphosis of Narcissus, which the painter brought to the meeting.

Although Freud, who died the following year, never changed his mind about surrealism, his work did continue to mark Dalí’s artistic career.