AtD-related? "the abstraction of non-imperial art"

[alice wellintown]

When helping Robert Descharnes to prepare his book Dalí de Gala, the
artist said of this picture: 'These Iberian creatures, devouring each
other in autumn, symbolise the pathos of civil war seen as a
phenomenon of natural history'. This relates it to the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War in July 1936, which he anticipated by some months in
his rather similar 'Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition
of the Spanish Civil War' 1936, which is equally visceral in
treatment.


Max Gérard, on the other hand, writes that the 'figures devour one
another, swallow each other in order to become totally and completely
identified with the loved one', and associates it instead with the
first tumultuous climax of Dalí's love affair with Gala which took
place in the autumn of 1929. In The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, the
artist relates: 'And this first kiss, mixed with tears and saliva,
punctuated by the audible contact of our teeth and furiously working
tongues, touched only the fringe of the libidinous famine that made us
bite and eat everything to the last! Meanwhile I was eating that
mouth, whose blood already mingled with mine.' There is however no
confirmation that Dalí had this incident specifically in mind.



http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dali-autumnal-cannibalism-t01978/text-catalogue-entry

On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 10:12 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> You took the words right off the plate I was
> going to eat them from.
>
> And, you can say that again only not as well, I bet....
>
> Is that a savage or a noble?, he proposed to ask modestly, before eating.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Cc:
> Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:04 PM
> Subject: Re: AtD-related? "the abstraction of non-imperial art"
>
> Swift's non-fiction prose, unlike Pynchon's non-fiction prose, is
> lucid, clear, logical,  yet it is like Pynchon's prose fiction,
> beguiling and shocking in its propositions which are most often driven
> home by distinct, startling, even shocking,  imagery. Like Pynchon,
> Swift stands on principles (Christian Humanism) when he lashes out at
> what he views as the harmful abuses of cranks and extremists. Iin both
> men, applying, losely, the antique characterization of Swift as
> Christian Humanist again, the dogma of Deists and Puritans are
> satirized, and both also take on the irreligious, the arrogance of
> atheists and high priests.  Both are humanitarians who satirize those
> who perpetuate and sustain injustice and suffering. Both also despair,
> though neither is a misanthropist, of the inexhaustable capicity of
> humans to de-humanize others and lay waste the gifts of scatterbrained
> mother nature, and both make brilliant use of the ironies of free will
> and expose the heartlessness of humans, the futility of scholarship,
> the stupidity of man & Co.
>