Dali Vs Miro

            As World War I came to an end the Dada movement was engulfed by a new movement called Surrealism. Surrealist ideas often conform to anti-logical depictions under a subconscious influence. Artists in this school may use elements from dreams, visions, memories, and psychological distortions that are drawn upon through the use of familiar objects such as childhood icons. Salvador Dali and Joan Miro, both born around the turn of the 20th century in Spain, are two exemplary figures that belonged to the Surrealist school. Both artists, however, were able to solve creative and artistic dilemmas "once they felt able to influence objects, to manipulate them according to desires unknown even to themselves" (Nadeau 203). A key distinction between the two is the treatment of images: Dali favoured representational imagery while Miro preferred abstract imagery. This representational distinction is evident in Dali's painting, Accommodations of Desire (1926) while Miro's abstraction can be observed in The Potato (1928).
             Dali, who joined the Surrealists in 1929, created Accommodations of Desire three years earlier out of only oil paint and not, as the Metropolitan Museum of Art indicates, cut-and-pasted print paper on cardboard. The oil paint colours are chosen with great care, for they carry a certain degree of meaning. The viewer first sees the white pebbles that take up a large portion of the space. Because they are white, the pebbles seem to be screens for emphasizing the objects that are on them; the white colour acts as a sort of highlight as the pebbles are even accompanied by cast shadows. These shadows also alert the viewer that the pebbles are three-dimensional objects. .
             Also contributing to Accommodations is the intensity of the colours. The reds of the outlined lion's mane and the lion's afterimage draw attention to themselves. Noted art historian and writer Dawn Ades believes that red is a colour of passion, rage, and blood and is therefore used to intensify the emotions that Dali has put into the painting itself (Ades 78).