Dada and Surrealism: (Yannes Tam) talks on Salvador Dali's The Lugubrious Game, {1929}.

Artist: Salvador Dali

Completion Date:1929

Style: Surrealism

Technique: oil and collage

Material: cardboard

Dimensions: 44.4 x 30.3 cm

In this essay, I am going to analysis Dali’s painting, The Lugubrious Game first, then I will argue why the painting is in surrealism style. Finally, I will explain why I am interested in the painting and my opinion about the painting.

The Lugubrious Game is Salvador Dali’s early work which was painted in the summer of 1929. It displays sexual desire of Dali and “a tone of recollection of childhood”[1]. The title of the painting was suggested by Paul Éluard. Bataille agreed the title “can be taken as an explicit pointer to the meaning of the painting, which presents castration and the conflicting reactions to it in great detail and with extraordinary expressive power.”[2] The work was exhibited in Dali’s first solo exhibition in Paris at the Galerie Goemans on 20 November 1929. The dimensions of the painting are 44.4cm×30.3cm. The medium is a small oil with collage on cardboard.

At the left, a statue hides its face in its left hand which giving a sense of shame may probably connected with the hands. It likely shows that this statue illustrates the shame of Dali connecting with masturbation. In other words, the gesture which means opening himself/herself to eroticism and sexuality. Its left is a gigantic outstretched hand. This shows Dali’s painting style—quoting some parts of classical paintings to form his own painting. The Lugubrious Game is one of the examples. This painting quotes from Titian’s Worship of the Goddess of Love, an oil painted around 1518-19. The figure on the right of the original work was the goddess of love, Venus, is transferred to the left in the Lugubrious Game. The hand holding a container containing some apples offered by cupids, which has been transformed into a huge hand that holding nothing in The Lugubrious Game. Another hand in Titian holds up the goddess’s role which has changed to hide the figure’s face in Dali’s work. [3] Another man sits on the plinth and he raises an object extremely similar to a labia. Under the plinth, a lion is standing here. This is the most frequent tool to express sexual aggression and libidinousness. Lion’s paw grasps a large ball. The combination of lion and the ball may imply to the central authority of Dali. There is a man standing in front of the lion who may create a larger scale of this, since his stick can likely represent a certain maturity of years, he could also represent Dali’s father. A second lion moving off to the left seem like leaving its original place and replacing by a new one. It can represent that the central authority of Dali has finally replaced his father’s authority in his childhood.[4]

There is a large amount of images at the right. At the top, there are showing a lot of sexual meanings. For instance, there are five hats and a mass of stones wheeling around a central body. The clefts appear in the hats may resemble feminine sexual clefts. Besides, at the base of central body are buttock and anus crowding with ants. A phallic-looking finger point to the anus, it seems like preparing for penetration. Also, a girl’s photo collaged onto the cardboard. She is placed in a sexually-available way. One of her arms is the phallic finger.[5]

The lower part is a sleeping head of Dali himself. His eyes closed and a huge grasshopper attaching in his mouth. The grasshopper was identified by Dali as a terrific element since he was scared by grasshopper and teased by his schoolfellows when he was young.[6] Grasshopper become an extreme terror object to him from his childhood. The representation of horror in Dali’s paintings can be possibly explained by Sigmund Freud in The Interpretation of Dream as Freud had a greater influence on Dali at that period. According to Freud, the grasshopper is a “thèmes-objet” (object-motifs) representing the images in the dreams as condensed messages from the subconscious flow. It is illustrated the terrors of infancy. As a result, it is plausible that grasshopper represents the terror of childhood in The Lugubrious Game. Also, it probably associated with Dali’s fear about his father in his childhood. Furthermore, the grasshopper attaching to the month and this result in the absence of mouth and teeth. These are the common symbols in Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams. They referred to the thought of lack of power and speechlessness. [7]

At the top-right of Dali’s sleeping head, there is a hand holding a cigarette. There is another red cleft which referring to the sexual meaning. Near the sleeping head, there is a groping hand which also bearing sexual connotations. The neck of the head is a sequence of curvilinear. Mass images under the neck that is hard to analysis all the elements on by one. There are “rock fragments, a lump of excreta, a multi-colored thumb, a foot, a tubular object not unlike certain internal body organs, and the lower half of a female.”[8]

In the lower right, a man and a youth standing at the corner. I thought the man wearing dirty underwear was raped at the beginning as the whole picture give me a sense of sexual anxiety. But it is said that the underpants are stained with excreta. The man is embraced by another man who grasp his own head. In the center of the head, there is a deep cleft which probably has the same meaning with the clefts mentioned before. The man who wears underpants is clutching a bloody handkerchief, the suggested meaning is a detumescent penis[9], and also it can represent the implication of castration[10]. In my opinion, it is possible to read the identity of the men as Dali and his father in the painting since most of the elements in The Lugubrious Game illustrating Dali’s childhood.

There are several reasons for why this work belongs to surrealism according to its various features.

First, there are sexual meanings of the images in the painting, which is the key theme of Surrealist representation.[11] The Lugubrious Game is full of the images of human sex organs—breasts, penises and vaginas etc. also there are various sexual acts, like a finger poking an anus. Through various sexual image, Dali could imply the meaning of sexual desire and sexual anxiety more effective.

Second, Surrealistic paintings mostly rely on the symbolic meaning of the represented images. In other words, “thèmes-objet” (object-motifs) mentioned by Freud is another key feature of Surrealism. For example, grasshopper in the painting illustrated terror. Furthermore, there are some images appearing in deconstructed shape or some fragmentary pieces. Take the middle part of the picture as an example, there is a profusion of images, like rocks, pebbles, seashells and the face of the great masturbator. Also, some of them have religious or sexual meaning. However, those images array disorderly which will showing a sense of iconographic delirium.[12]

Thirdly, there is a condensation of images in the painting, which is another important features of Surrealism. For instance, the clefts of the hats which float in the sky, being combined with the female sexual organ. Also, the beard of the man and the edge of the stone. Dali tried to condense two different things into one in order to present some sexual meaning. This condensation can make the sexual meaning expressing in a harmony way as it totally integrated with those images.

The major reason I like the work is its medium. This painting is a mixed genre, mixing oil and the collage, and the combination is very unique. It is hard to distinguish where collaged area is and where the painted area in The Lugubrious Game is. Louis Aragon had comment about the technique. He said oil mixing with collage would not undermine the representation of the painting. In contrast, this process can enhance the “sense of trompe l’ oeil”.[13] In this situation, the glued areas look painted while the painted areas look stuck on the cardboard which is very interesting. But the confusion can let audiences more close to the picture’s actual essence.

My first impression about the painting is colorful, and the painting is full of images which is hard to distinguish them one by one. However, the painting offer me a good feeling seeming that is depicting some nice things in the mental state. But when I know more information about the work, I found my first impression towards the work is totally wrong. Inside the painting, a lot of sexual tattoos and fear about Dali’s childhood and family were expressed through various images. I was shocked by those “beautiful” pictures but I am interested in learning a more comprehensive connotation of them.

In conclusion, the above are some analysis about The Lugubrious Game and some of my opinion towards this masterpiece. I know this essay is not a comprehensive piece to argue the overall meaning of the work even I cite as many as information to proof my opinion but I have try my best to avoid the over interpretation and misinterpretation about the work as possible as I can.

Questions:

1. Do you know which the painted areas are and which are the collaged areas？

2. Why do Dali use this kind of technique to create the painting？

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[1] S, Fe. "Playing the Lugubrious Game." In Salvador Dalí: The Construction of the Image, 1925-1930, P150. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

[2] Descharnes, Robert, and Gilles Néret. Dali: The Paintings. Köln: Taschen, 1997. P143.

[3] S, Fe. "Playing the Lugubrious Game." In Salvador Dalí: The Construction of the Image, 1925-1930, P134-151. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

[4] Shanes, Eric. The Life and Masterworks of Salvador Dalí. Rev. and Updated 2nd ed. New York: Parkstone International, 2010. P96.

[5] Shanes, Eric. The Life and Masterworks of Salvador Dalí. Rev. and Updated 2nd ed. New York: Parkstone International, 2010. P96.

[6] Gibson, Ian. Salvador Dalí: The Early Years. London: South Bank Centre, 1994. P153.

[7] Freud, Sigmund, and Joyce Crick. The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

[8] Shanes, Eric. The Life and Masterworks of Salvador Dalí. Rev. and Updated 2nd ed. New York: Parkstone International, 2010. P98-99.

[9] Shanes, Eric. The Life and Masterworks of Salvador Dalí. Rev. and Updated 2nd ed. New York: Parkstone International, 2010. P99.

[10] Moorhouse, Paul. Dali. London: PRC Pub., 2001.

[11] [11] S, Fe. "Playing the Lugubrious Game." In Salvador Dalí: The Construction of the Image, 1925-1930, P147. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

[12] S, Fe. "Playing the Lugubrious Game." In Salvador Dalí: The Construction of the Image, 1925-1930, P139. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

[13] S, Fe. "Playing the Lugubrious Game." In Salvador Dalí: The Construction of the Image, 1925-1930, P134. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.