On Saturday, June 8, 2013, I visited the Dali Museum in downtown St. I was eager to see the numerous paintings and sculptures Dali had created. The three pieces of art work that stood out to me were, Daddy Longlegs of The Evening, The Hallucinogenic Toreador, and The Lobster Telephone. These works stood out to me because art should function as a means of expression between life's realities and what ones dreams or imagines. .
Daddy Longlegs of The Evening was an oil canvas painting by Dali from 1940. In the painting there is a horse being shot out of a canon, a woman melting into a violin, the daddy longlegs is on the blouse of the melting woman, and a boy is sitting with his back toward the viewer of the art. The painting grabbed my attention with all the different characters in it that caused me to think about why there is a horse being shot out of a canon and a woman melting. I believe Dali wanted to display the connection of dreams to what is real or imaginary. The purpose of Daddy Longlegs of The Evening was to make the viewer think how everything in the picture is tied together and how things in life are related even when there may be no apparent connection. The universal theme of this painting to me was the use of eroticism, which is an underline theme of art today. Dali masks the eroticism through images such as the melting plane and the female physique hidden throughout the painting. .
The Hallucinogenic Toreador was also an oil painting that Dali started in 1969 and later finished in 1970. Once I saw the painting I was in awe from its enormity! It had his wife Gala, in the top left corner with statues of Venus de Milo all throughout the painting. When I looked a little closer I could see the face of a toreador in the second statue of Venus de Milo holding a red cape on the side of him that is the dress of the first Venus de Milo statue. The content of The Hallucinogenic Toreador decipher where the toreador was hidden throughout the images of Venus de Milo.
