Crazy Eyes: Salvador Dali's Inexpressible Self-Confession

Author: (Spanish) Salvador Dalí, André Bazine
Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: I believe the Paranoiac Critique is a great art. It clearly utilizes all the contradictions within a person, allowing others to experience their anxieties and joys in such a way that this method gradually becomes an indispensable part of their lives. However, I instinctively recognized my life equation early on: to have others naturally accept the excesses of my personality, and to alleviate my own anxiety by creating a collective participation. One afternoon, at the Brothers of Mary primary school in Figueres, I descended the stone steps to play on the playground. Suddenly, I had an urge to jump off the stairs, but I didn’t at the time. The next day, however, I did. I landed on the bottom step, bruised and swollen, and both the teachers and classmates were shocked by my behavior. The shock I caused almost made me forget the pain as everyone rushed to help and paid attention to me. A few days later, I did the same thing again, this time screaming as I fell, and all eyes were on me. I jumped several more times, and in the worry of my classmates, my own fear completely disappeared. Every time I descended the stairs, the entire class’s attention was focused on me, as if I were performing a ritual. In a hush, what is commonly referred to as a deathly silence, I walked, drawing their attention until the very last moment. My personality was reborn. The reward I gained from this far outweighed the trouble it caused. I would often spontaneously jump off walls, as if the greatest danger were needed to soothe my spiritual anxiety. I even became an expert jumper. Every time I jumped, the grass, green trees, and flowers seemed closer to me, giving me a deeper understanding of reality. After jumping, I felt lighter and could share everything with the existing world, could "hear" my feelings. I jumped in front of my peers, making them feel the same anxiety as me, or even greater. In their eyes, I gained dignity, and my actions became something extraordinary. Dalí became the object of everyone’s concern, and his weaknesses turned into strengths. I made everyone recognize my madness, accept this fact, and force them to share the same emotions. This is how the passion of death becomes spiritual joy. It is a typical Spanish style, not Montaigne’s "maintain reason." I despise his narrow petty-bourgeois mentality and his bizarre attempts to beautify death. Such actions deprive death of its vitality and erase its terror. I would rather face death directly and let my death become the magnificent surge of Saint John of the Cross: "Come, death! Hidden so mysteriously that I feel it not. For the joy of death can rebirth me." In light of this stance, Michel de Montaigne’s proposal to distort death is so unfounded. I hope death will burst into my life like lightning, envelop me like a love at first sight, and drench my body with my entire soul. First, I can savor my despair. On the other hand, not knowing would make me happier, my fear makes me bold and contemptuous of everything. The sting of death gives my life and passion a new quality. In 1936, my life’s miracle, Gala, underwent a very dangerous surgery. The day before the operation, we pretended not to care and created several surreal works together. She placed unrelated objects together, creating an assembly that appeared both mechanical and biological, with a feather stuck in a nipple and a metal antenna inserted into a bowl of flour (this alluded to the surgery she was about to undergo). We planned to take a taxi to André Breton’s house to show him Gala’s new creation before going to the hospital. However, the taxi drove over a bumpy hill, and the contraption fell apart, spilling flour all over us. You can imagine what we looked like when we arrived at the hospital. It’s worth noting that that night, I was completely immersed in my inventions—I made a hypnagogic clock, which was a huge French baguette filled with twelve ink bottles, each containing a differently colored feather pen—and enjoyed a lavish dinner, not even thinking about Gala’s surgery. I was still improving the clock at two in the morning. I hung a cardboard on the baguette and added sixty watercolor-painted ink bottles. Then, I fell asleep. But at five in the morning, a tense nerve woke me up. I was sweating profusely and crying uncontrollably. I cried, stumbling out of bed, my mind filled with every memory of the time I spent with Gala. I rushed to the hospital, wanting to shout out my anxiety. For a whole week, I cried, death choking me. In the end, Gala survived the dangerous period. I walked into her hospital room, took her hand with all the gentleness in the world, and told myself, "Now, Galushka, I can kill you." P11-13