Dada and Surrealism: Klaire Chan talks on Salvador Dalí's The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1946.

Artist: Salvador Dali

Title: The temptation of Saint Anthony

Year: 1946

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 89.7cm x 119.5 cm

In this essay, I am going to analysis the painting, “The Temptation of St. Anthony”, which is painted by Salvador Dali in 1946. This is a surrealistic painting which try to construct a dreamlike and fantasy scene. In order to examine the painting, this essay would be separated into four parts including the background, analysis of the painting, the reason for the painting interested me and also questions for this painting.

Background:

This painting is painted in respond to a competition of a film called The Private Affairs of Bel Ami, which the chosen painting would be the only color scene in the whole black-and-white movie. This is the only art competition which Dali engaged in. However, his painting was not chosen eventually, but Max Ernst’s instead. Even so, this is also one of the most influential painting in his life.

This painting is basically depicting the situation when St. Anthony was in Egyptian Desert. He was being tempted by a parade of temptations related to sins of the flesh, such as sex and comfort. “If the Impressionists painted light and color, the Surrealists produced dark and frequently frightening works.” In this painting, it is likely to see that Dali tried to capture a strange and twisted surreal image to show the desperate struggle of St. Anthony to resist the temptations by his belief in god.

Analysis:

Before going into the details of the items in this painting, I would like to focus on the background first. Generally, there is nothing but a clear and flat horizon; however, when looking closely, we can see that there is a few items in the background, such as skull beside St. Anthony, the three people and the mountains. All of them are small in size and even unnoticeable, but are set at different part of the painting. For example, the skull is set in the bottom left of the painting, the people are in the middle ground and the mountains are at the distant back. This arrangement is likely to add depth to the painting, and also give us a deep and endless sight. It also seems to give us an illusion and indicate the endless coming of the parade of temptations.

Moreover, there are some dark clouds on the top of the sky and seems like a rainstorm is brewing. It may interpret as another difficulty that St. Anthony has to overcome to reach the spiritual. It also seems to be the soft element for the whole painting. As in the painting, there is a number of hard element, for example the rock that St. Anthony leaning on and the flat and dry land, the soft clouds are more likely to strike a balance between the soft and hard elements in the painting, and the spider-liked legs link them up.

For the details of the painting, the main characters are St. Anthony and the parade of temptation. For St. Anthony, he seems to be the bearded and naked man in the bottom left corner of the painting. His body movement is strange that he twisted his body at a contorted angle, with one hand crutching himself on a rock and another hand holding the crucifix towards the parade. At the same time, his body structure is also likely to be abnormal. His waist appeared to be too thin compare to his arms and legs. This may indicate that St. Anthony is weak, and therefore have to rely on his faith to resist the temptations. He seems not as eye-catching as the animals due to the use of flesh tones for his body, while the parade of animals is much more outstanding thanks to the golden buildings on the elephants’ back.

For the paradise, there is a rearing horse leading the elephants with buildings on their back. Julien Levy, the owner of Julien Levy Gallery which is seek as an important venue for Surrealists, wrote that, “Nor is it the shapes only that interpenetrate in this way (subject to numerous interpretations), but also the ideas.” As do the most of the surrealistic painting, there are also an array of symbolic meanings inserted in the parade. First of all, the rearing horse represents powers and desires. The elephants are also as symbols of strength and powers due to their bulky body and heavy weight in reality. However, in the painting, both elephants and horse are giving long and spindly legs, which makes them look like they are weightless and floating. “Surrealism is inevitable opposed to naturalism, the pedestrian rending of tangible fact.” The spindly legs indicates that Dali tried to make a contradiction between weight and space, which destroy our established idea. The long and spider-liked legs of the animals also increase height to the scene.

Moreover, each of the golden buildings on the back of the elephants also have different meanings. For the first one, there is a naked woman holding her breasts standing on a goblet. It represents the lasciviousness, eroticism and sexual pleasures. The second one and the elephant behind the cloud carries an obelisk, which has a phallic symbol with the meaning of reproductive organ of male. For the third and fourth elephants, they are carrying palaces with naked female torso inside, which represents earthly and carnal pleasures, such as plush living environment and sexual enjoyment. There is sun light casting this two elephants. It seems that Dali is emphasizing the concept of sex and the idealization of sexual pleasure in the painting.

For the whole painting, it seems that Dali emphasizes more on sin, such as physical pleasures and money, than the struggle from St. Anthony against them. As there is a huge difference in proportion of the two characters and the structure of the painting, which the temptations occupy a larger part and also set in the middle part of the painting.

“The temptation of Saint Anthony” fits into surrealism for several reasons. Firstly, this painting focuses on subliminal messages. There is an array of symbolic meanings inserted in the items, especially in the parade of temptations. Almost all of the building have their own interpretations. Secondly, it emphasize on the expression of human’s most basic drive, such as sexuality and ecstasy. In the painting, it is obvious that Dali depicted the human desire of sexuality and comfort as the biggest temptations of St. Anthony, which is also indicating as the temptation for the general public. However, the message of this painting is resisting the temptations rather than welcoming them. Lastly, it “expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control”. In the painting, Dali also seems to make contradiction between reality and “surreal”, which the elephant’s long and spindly legs are the example. For the above reasons, it can be concluded that this painting is a surrealistic work.

Question about the work

1. Most of the painter would draw the crucifix as straight as possible. However, in this painting, why is the crucifix crooked?
2. What do you think the rearing horse, the leader of the parade, would shy away from St. Anthony because of his crucifix or kill him by stepping on him?

Reference:

1. Breton, Andre. Manifestoes of Surrealism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1969.
2. Julien Levy. Surrealism. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995.
3. Mundy, Jennifer. Surrealism: Desire Unbound. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001.
4. "Surrealism: Desire Unbound." 2002. The Virginia Quarterly Review. http://proxy1.library.ln.edu.hk:2197/docview/205379009?accountid=12107.
5. Surrealism. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/surrealism
6. “Salvador Dali : The Temptations Of St. Anthony”. Accessed April 11, 2015. http://www.fanglewurzle.com/smf/index.php?topic=572.0
7. "Pictorial Work - Salvador Dalí." Accessed April 11, 2015.  http://figueras.weebly.com/pictorial-work.html