Fall of Man

Fall of Man

By ESQ

Here, a novice tries to account for his prior assertions as evident in the first paragraph of “Absolute Thoughts”…

Truly Adam and Eve in the Garden were misconceived.
By God...., it was We who did the dirty deed!
Perfection be not in pure Paradise gained.
But in the sinful life of everyman re-gained.

The fall of all mankind is generally believed to have occurred with the notion of the “First Sin” as committed by both Adam and Eve in their partaking of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This willful choice or act is seen as done out of man’s disobedience and contrary to God’s Will leading to man’s own downfall to the very depths of sin, degradation, and removal from Paradise, then finally death.

Here, the novice asks a few daunting questions, namely:

1. Who’s really to blame for the fall of mankind and Creation itself? Is it the Serpent(Satan)… fallen Angel created by God; or Man who is created in the image of God; or perhaps even the Almighty God Himself who epitomizes Perfection (the Creator who acts without further responsibility for His own creation)?

2. Does “perfection” mean to be pure (sinless), unknowing (good and evil), and eternal (undying)?

3. What does being “human” truly mean without the concept of free choice, being purely ignorant of good and evil, not laboring (working), suffering, or even knowing what death means?

The novice wishes to advance that to become “truly human” and to achieve a proper/truthful/adequate notion of “Paradise”, Man must exercise free will/choice, boldly choose to eat of the fruit of good and evil, take full responsibility without pointing fingers at either Satan, God or Adam and Eve, intimately know the suffering of existence bound by struggle/labor, then finally and gladly die in the end with the knowledge of having truly lived the paradox of time and eternity.

The paradox which is life itself encompasses both heaven and earth at the same time, being equally adequate in the knowledge of good and evil, is able to consolidate the sinful and redeeming qualities of sin, thereby expressing oneself as the creator and creation at the same instance in the dialectical world of history (time as eternal). So that even if one cannot chose to be born ( to one's parents, place, time or occasion), one must consistently chose to live henceforth.

Let us then begin at the beginning with Genesis.

Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Gen2:9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made.

Gen 3:3-7 …but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die”. But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”….she took of the fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked;

Gen 3:12-13 The man said, ”The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate”….The woman said, “The serpent beguiled me and I ate”.

Gen 3:22-23 Then the Lord God said,” Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God send him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Fear and Trembling

Fear and Trembling

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

By ESQ

Soren Kierkegaard is a well known Danish existential philosopher and theologian of the 19 century.

In, “Fear and Trembling”, Kierkegaard sets out to question the notion of “faith” and particularly the type that has earned Abraham the title of the “Father of Faith”. Kierkegaard boldly advances the position of faith as being that of “Paradox”. Accordingly, faith is the paradox and the only asserted position that can grasp both the infinite and the finite in a double but simultaneous movement, creating a synthesis realizing a final and solitary position being that of the “absolute relationship to the absolute”. Ironically, faith is also presented as existing only by “virtue of the absurd”, a position that cannot itself be made intelligible except though the demonstration of faith itself.

Kierkegaard begins with the command of God for Abraham to sacrifice his only begotten son Isaac on top of Mount Moriah. Quoting Genesis 22:2,

“And God tempted Abraham and said unto him, Take Isaac, thine only son, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon the mountain which I will show thee.”

Kierkegaard then presents a host of intellectual situation whereby Abraham as the Knight of Faith is distinguished from the knight of resignation (tragic hero). The action of Abraham is elevated to the religious expression of ultimate sacrifice instead of the universally accepted ethical expression of murder. The absurdity of the situation is that whereas the tragic hero renounces everything including himself and all that is finite to attain the infinite, which is universally held to be morally and ethically justified as the highest calling. The Knight of Faith, on the other hand, renounces nothing but rather acquires everything by holding on to the temporal finite in an unexplainable movement of impossibility characterized by grasping all by virtue of the absurd. Kierkegaard calls this movement the “teleological suspension of the ethical”. He writes,

“Faith is precisely this paradox, that the individual as the particular is higher than the universal, is justified over against it, is not subordinate but superior—yet in such a way, be it observed, that it is the particular individual who, after he has been subordinated as the particular to the universal, now through the universal becomes the individual who as the particular is superior to the universal, for the fact that the individual as the particular stands in an absolute relation to the absolute. This position cannot be mediated, for all mediation comes precisely by virtue of the universal; it is and remains to all eternity a paradox, inaccessible to thought. And yet faith is this paradox”.

Kierkegaard believes that since faith has a higher telos, Abraham is not a tragic hero (a knight of resignation) who remains within the realm of the ethical, but rather either a murderer or a believer. Abraham is someone who can only be approached with an underlying understanding of “religious horror”. For Kierkegaard, it is precisely that the paradox of faith is also how the great are tried by the fires of dread and distress…as it were one’s “personal hell”, for …“It is not what happens to me that makes me great…it is what I do”.

The paradox of faith reveals the absolute relationship of one to the absolute, a relationship which encompasses the universal, yet surpasses it by neither renouncing nor negating the absolute duty of love towards other or God. So is faith to be considered absolute self-sacrifice or extreme egotism? Kierkegaard answers by saying that Faith is unintelligible for one cannot in truth make oneself intelligible, unlike the tragic hero who we can all empathize with. For faith the tension of dread and despair exists and becomes a part of how one lives out the absolute relationship to the absolute, keeping in mind that everything turns on the finite.

In Luke 14:26 it says that, "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple ". Here we are reminded that the absolute duty toward God must be reckoned with just as the command to Abraham in Genesis 22:2. to sacrifice Isaac. How shall we deal with this situation? The Knight of Faith must bear the burden of this paradox…the paradox that absolute duty calls for unequivocal love but it does not negate love, neither can it be made intelligible. One suffers just as Abraham does and goes no further than Abraham in faith. Abraham does not speak or make himself intelligible. We see that Abraham’s only reply to Isaac is ironic or paradoxical when asked where the lamb is for the burnt offering,

“And Abraham said, God will provide Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son”.

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali

By ESQ

Introduction

Salvador Dali was probably the most prominent and controversial figure associated with the Surrealist movement. Indeed, many would regard his name and brand of artistry as synonymous with Surrealism itself. It could be said that Dali was the most vivid, eccentric, flamboyant and self-indulgent of the Surrealists. Often times his popular and individual brand of surrealism (both provocative and exhibitionist in nature) exceeded much of the group’s ideology that brought criticism and ultimately even exclusion from within its own membership. Dali proved defiant even till the end but nevertheless regarded himself as the true surrealist. He was quoted as saying that, “The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist”.[1] However much criticized from without and within the Surrealist movement, Dali was indeed a tough act to follow. Beyond his widely renowned paintings, much less is known about Dali’s other pursuits in life. However, Kirsten Bradley enlightens us in her book Essential Dali that:

Not only was Dali a painter (and, of course, draftsman,

Illustrator, and printmaker) but he was also a sculptor,

a maker of objects, of ceramics, of furniture and of

jewelry; he was a film maker, theorist, novelist,

autobiographer and perhaps most crucially of all,

a master of self-publicity[2]

Dali’s fame was indeed centered around his persona and egocentricity. His flair for the excessive and extravagant characterized his mastery of daily public demonstrations, sense of style and unceasing love of attention. Sacrificing few words Dali once said that, “Picasso is perhaps a minor painter, but he is the most destructive genius of modern times”.[3] With Dali, “incessant controversy” seems to be the operative word of the day everyday. Dali’s most recognized and perhaps his most popular art piece is The Persistence of Memory, 1931. It was reportedly sold to a New York art dealer during a formal art exhibition in 1932 for $250.[4]

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Surrealism

Surrealism emerged in the early twenties between the two World Wars and was begun by Andre Breton with the publication of the Surrealist Manifesto in 1924.[5] Some well known members of the surrealist group besides Dali and Breton included Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro, Rene Magritte, Pierre Roy, and, Paul Delvaux. Surrealism has its roots in the outgrowth of the Dada art movement. Dadaism was founded during World War 1 (1914-1918) by Tristan Tzara and recognized as a movement that is “disillusioned by the massive destruction and loss of life brought about by the war, the dadaists’ motivations were profoundly political: to ridicule culture, reason, technology, even art”.[6] Thereafter, the Dadaist sought to make a new beginning by “rejecting all accepted moral, social, political and aesthetic values”[7] and in its place introduced all forms of media that would apparently shock societal values by making all known facets of live seem or at least portrayed to be absurd.

Whereas the Dadaist tradition exhibited a negative, subversive, destructive and nihilistic tendency towards discrediting and overthrowing the popular and conventional viewpoints arising out of justifications in favor of World War 1, as evident in its inherently nonsensical artistic display, Surrealism on the other hand, utilized positive expression in countering the “rationalism” of the time period. Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in “an absolute reality, a surreality”[8] Surrealism does not reject all social–political, psychological and philosophical issues by relegating them into non-understandable phenomenon unlike the Dadaists, but Surrealism tries to positively identify, embrace and incorporate in a constructive and enriching manner the framework of our social and political consciousness, even finding a place for the repressed unconscious psyche within the realm of conscious reasoning and interpretation. Surrealism strives to achieve a transcendence of the dialectical world of material objects and the metaphysical realm of concepts/consciousness through analysis and interpretation of the dialectical issues.

The Surrealist movement drew heavily upon the psychoanalytic theories advanced by the Austrian doctor Sigmund Freud who is regarded as the founder of psychoanalysis. To an extent, the psychology of Doctor Carl Jung was also instrumental to a certain surrealistic understanding. It is widely believed that two distinct groups of surrealists (the Automatist and Veristic) emerged from adopting the methodology of either Freud or Jung. The Automatist Surrealist with their notions of “free association” and influenced by Jung, subsumed consciousness in favor of the unconscious. Jung’s theory of the “collective unconscious” suppresses all conscious reason thereby defying rational knowledge in favor of the irrational. The unconscious overpowers the conscious and establishes itself as the base of all reality. Veristic Surrealism, on the other hand, was more aligned with Salvador Dali’s version of the “paranoiac-critical method” that was deeply influenced by Sigmund Freud’s theories as advanced in The Interpretation of Dreams in 1922. For the Veristic Surrealist, conscious reason interprets the unconscious realms of dreams and suppressed desires. Here, conscious interpretation comprehends and incorporates the unconscious in a reality that understands both realms in a controlled and critical manner.

Salvador Dali is the conscious and conscientious Surrealist who strives to understand the reality of the unconscious and the irrational. Dali tries to rationalize or understand the “irrational”, capture the essence of the “absurd”, and consciously tries to dissect the “unconscious”. Dali portrays himself as the extreme surrealist, the only “True Surrealist”, who daringly lives out his art form in a humanly conceived reality that is ultimately surreal. He was indeed a contradictory figure who loves to display himself as a true contradiction.

Facts on Dali

· 1904: Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali was born in Figueras, Catalonia, Spain.

· 1922: Dali attends The Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid.

· 1923: Dali suspended from The Academy for inciting a student rebellion against school authorities.

· 1926: Dali expelled from The Academy for refusal to be examined in his final exam.

· 1929: Gala Eluard went into his life.

· 1930: Dali joined the group of Surrealists.

· 1931: Dali and Gala settle in Port Lligat.

· 1932: The Persistence of Memory is first exhibited.

· 1934: Dali and Gala are married.

· 1938: Dali introduced to Sigmund Freud.

· 1982: Gala died.

· 1989: Dali died.

Quotations

• “Surrealism is myself."

• “The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist”.

• “Picasso is perhaps a minor painter, but he is the most destructive genius of modern times”.

• “Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”

• “I believe that the moment is near when, by a procedure of active paranoiac thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality.”

• “I have Dalínian thought: the one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.”

• “Paranoiac-critical activity makes the world of delirium pass onto the plane of reality...”

• “The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant

• “The only difference between myself and a madman, is that I am not mad!”

• “The only thing that the world will not have enough of is exaggeration.”

• “The world will admire me. Perhaps I’ll be despised and misunderstood, but I’ll be a great genius, I’m certain of it.”

• “There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.”

[1] Robert Descharnes, Dali (New York: Abrams, 1985) 9.

[2] Kirsten Bradbury, Essential Dali (London: Paragon, 2001) 28.

[3] Conroy Maddox, Salvador Dali (W. Germany: Taschen, 1990) 7.

[4] Dawn Ades, Dali’s Optical Illusions (New York: Athenum, 2000) 38.

[5] Harry Abrams, Dali: Great Modern Masters. (New York: Abrams, 1995) 5.

[6] “Surrealism,” Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, 2003

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/refarticle.aspx?refid=761554397

[7] Duane Preble and Sarah Preble, Artforms. (New Jersey :Prentice Hall, 2002) 423

[8] “Surrealism.com-The definition of a movement!”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, Harry. Dali: Great Modern Masters. Ed. Jose Faerna. Trans. Teresa Waldes. New York: Abrams, 1995.

Ades, Dawn. Dali’s Optical Illusions. New York: Athenum, 2000.

Bradbury, Kirsten. Essential Dali. London: Paragon, 2001.

Descharnes, Robert. Dali. Trans. Eleanor Morse. New York: Abrams, 1985.

Maddox, Conroy. Salvador Dali. West Germany: Taschen, 1990.

Preble, Duane and Sarah. Artforms. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002.

“Surrealism” Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, 2003

http://www.encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/refarticle.aspx?ferid=761554397.

“Surrealism.com- The Definition of a Movement”

http://www.surrealist.com/new/default.asp.

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Persistence Of Memory

Salvador Dali's

Persistence of Memory

By ESQ

The Persistence of Memory

The Persistence of Memory is perhaps the single most identifiable piece of art that is associated with Salvador Dali. It was completed in 1931 and the media used by the artist was oil paint on canvas. The painting measures 9 ½ inches x 13 inches and is currently being presented in the Museum of Modern Art in New York as a permanent collection.

Iconography

GENRE: Representational Art. (Representational Surrealism)

The Persistence of Memory depicts objects and things that are easily recognizable in our everyday experience/world. These objects included watches, a body of water, skyline, rocky cliffs or mountains, a tree trunk and man- made concrete structures that have a geometric (rectangular) shape. This representational art form is also surrealistic in nature. The three “limp/melting/soft” watches and the seemingly extraterrestrial figure that looks very much like a profile of a person’s head(probably that of Dali’s own) elevates the art form into a dreamy/fantastic realm that is quite different from our own natural world.

STYLE:

The Persistence of Memory is categorized as a Surrealistic work.

Salvador Dali has been intrinsically linked to the Surrealist movement begun by Andre Breton in 1924. Surrealism was heavily influenced by the Dadaist movement as well as the psychoanalytic methodology of Sigmund Freud. Surrealism employs images and visions from dreamlike states which are believed to be unconsciously activated and then portrayed as represented images in art form which must then be consciously critiqued and interpreted for meaning. Dali’s use of vibrant color and portrayal of both natural and surrealistic objects seem to indicate a dreamlike realm that is nevertheless quite believable, however absurd it may be. There are elements of real objects, distorted but real objects as well as objects that are neither real nor distorted or both real and distorted.

ANALYSIS:

The main focus of the art piece is apparently the three seemingly melting or soft watches that are draped on three separate and different surfaces. One watch hangs over the only solitary branch of a dead/dying tree. Below the tree, another watch is laid on the edge of a man-made structure that is perhaps concrete and rectangular in shape. A big fly or flying insect is on its face. Next to the watch and in a descending diagonal order is another time piece that has been overturned with the metallic copper back piece showing. Insect like creatures looking like ants seem to form a symmetrical pattern on its back surface. This is the only watch that still retains its original harden shape and is set aside a triangular formation. Besides having its back and not its front (face) showing, it also seems to be the smallest in dimension and may also be made of a different material (copper brown) instead of the fluid blue color/shape of the other three watches. The last melting/soft watch lies on an amorphous grayish figure on the darkened ground. This nebulous looking figure seems to take on a partially human form with long eyelashes, eyelids, eyebrows, a nose, a chin and a tongue like protrusion. An elongated shape seem to round up the mysterious figure where the neck could have been positioned. A rectangular structure shaped like a flat platform is shown in the distance beyond the trunk of the tree. This structure seems to border the edge of the horizon where the ground meets the water. The blue color of the water seems to reflect the dark blue skyline. The body of water also reflects the edges of a mountainous rock formation to its right. The mountainous formation shows jagged edges and cracks that may have been caused from natural land form activity and the weathering process.

INTERPRETATION:

The Persistence of Memory is an attempt to capture the essence or understanding (concept) of the spatial and temporal realm in its relationship to the “totality” of the human psyche that is both conscious and subconscious. The artwork encompasses elements of the natural, unnatural (man-made), and supernatural (surreal). The natural elements are represented by the tree trunk, mountain, water, sky, ground, and insects (ants and fly). The man made objects are the overturned hard time-piece and the two concrete rectangular shape platforms. The surreal objects are represented by the three overhanging watches that seem to be limp, soft, or melting, and, the amorphous figure resembling the profile of Dali’s head lying on the ground.

The entire picture is interjected with vibrant coloration giving it a quality that is like a fantastic “dream scape” that demands further interpretation. A sense of mysteriousness prevails when we are presented with ordinary everyday objects that look so familiar and yet some form of distortion, addition and introduction of phenomena, forces us to reorganize our conceptual understanding of “what really constitutes reality”.

The blue skyline with the reflection in the body of water below it seem to convey a calming effect and fluidity of infinite space, whereas, the bluish faces on the three soft watches tended to show a disintegration and the relativity of time while suspended in a spatial-temporal moment. The flat blue rectangular shaped platform situated on the edge and abutting the land and water horizon, seems to impose a sense of man-made structure of reality in contrast to the infinity of time and space. The brownish and much greater geometric block of concrete could also symbolize and reinforce a man-made structure that holds up nature (tree trunk and insects), while interjecting itself with formulated notions of object-concept (hard and soft watches). The great brownish block complements the color of the ground taking up nearly two thirds of the picture, seemingly to exemplify the natural state of nature that is barren and stripped to its core.

The grayish amorphous figure resembling Dali’s profile, complements the color of the dead/dying tree trunk and the grey rims of the two limp watches draped over the tree branch and body of the figure lying on the ground. The grey color seem to indicate the power of “death” or the impending mortality of life and the annihilation of all living forms whether found in nature or created in our subconscious world. In contrast to this grim picture, are the bright yellowish and golden colors of the sky, rocky mountain formation, and the bright golden rim of the third and largest limp watch hanging over the brown concrete shape. These bright yellowish-golden colors seem to give a sense of value, majesty and overcoming of any temporal impending peril. It represents a glimpse of light and life itself, a meaningful struggle to understand and encompass life’s mysteries that is governed by space and time. The solidity of the mountains seems to provide strength against the ever changing forces of nature and time. Some believe that the mountains resemble the conscious memories of Dali’s Catalan landscape.

Insects looking like ants form a symmetrical pattern on the back surface of the only “hard” watch. This brownish-copper time piece is set apart from the other “soft” watches that seem to form a triangular shape in a melting array. It is also the only timepiece that is overturned, with a huge army of little ant like creatures which seem to be decorating its surface. A huge fly is also prominently displayed on the melting surface of the nearby golden rimmed limp watch. The insects presented bring to mind an association of organic decay to either man-made objects (watches) or man-structured concepts (time).

The mysterious grey figure on the ground exhibits facial features such as long eyelashes, eyebrows, eyelids, a nose and possibly a protruding tongue while seemly to be either asleep, resting or even dead. It exists as a creation or creature from our dream state or

Subconscious. It looks very much like the profile of Dali himself but it could also represent the anonymity of any human being in a strangely attractive-repulsive manner.

The surrealistic dream scape of Dali’s Persistence of Memory avails itself to almost infinite interpretations. It is very much like our humanly constructed conceptualization of spatial and temporal order, including the physical realms of nature and the metaphysical psyche of our consciousness and subconscious, in our attempt and struggle to define, understand, and, live the dialectic of time-space and existence.

Self Construction With Boiled Beans

Salvador Dali’s

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans

-Premonition of Civil War 1936.

Oil on canvas.

By ESQ

Wall Card (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Salvador Dali

Spanish Born 1904, died 1989

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans

(Premonition of Civil War)

1936

Oil on canvas.

Dali’s gruesome allegory of the Spanish Civil War depicts his homeland as a deformed body tearing itself apart. It was painted shortly before General Franco’s nationalist forces revolted against the democratic government of the Spanish Republic. Dali later described the painting as “a vast human body breaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of auto strangulation”.

The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection

1950, -134-41

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans

Premonition of Civil War, 1936

The media used was oil paint on canvas. The artwork measured 39 ½ X 39 ½ in. enclosed in a square frame and is currently being presented in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Iconography

Genre: Representational Art. (Representational Surrealism)

Dali’ Soft Construction with Boiled Beans presents some very familiar objects like different body parts (head, hands, feet), natural environment consisting of the sky, clouds, landform, and a partial mountain, a chest of drawer, a well dressed figure of a man, beans strewn on the ground, modern constructed buildings in the distance and the figure of another person in the same direction.

Style:

The focus of this art piece is mainly concentrated on the huge and exaggerated features of a grotesque figure that seems to be in agony and in the process of ripping itself apart. This unusual looking figure seems to be stretched out towards the square sides of the frame with parts of the head, knee, hands and skeletal feet almost touching the edges of the picture. The entire figure spans almost three quarters of the artwork and locates itself in the upper regions of the illuminated sky with a lot of cloud formation. The other one quarter of the figure is situated on the ground. The compact nature of the ground is featured mostly in the darker colors of brown and gray and contains a multitude of objects. Juxtaposed to the compactness of the ground is the vastness of the sky that is illuminated with bright and fluorescent colors of blue and green with white as well as black cloud formations. The intensity of the agonized figure is complemented with a discolored white, gray, brown, black and touches of red. The figure on the whole seems to be asymmetric and distorted to resemble parts of a human body that is somewhat mangled.

Analysis/Interpretation:

The head of the figure seems to be tilted backwards, with the eyes shut and the face grimacing in agony. With somewhat unkempt hair, red lips, and a tensed face with veins popping out from the neck, a scene of unbelievable pain, suffering and senselessness seem to be displayed. The head face in the direction of the patch of dark blue, almost murky black corner of the sky thus emphasizing an even more profound and complimentary level of agony. Behind the head, dark and black patches of cloud seem to cushion the impact of the pain that is being transmitted.

Below the head, a blackened and seemingly scarred/burnt hand reaches out to grab part of a body that looks very much like an accentuated female breast with a profound red nipple showing. The grabbing intensity of the darkened and probably burnt hand seems to show power and determination to hang on to a pronounced body part which holds up the upper body regions at an angle. In contrast, the other hand displayed is tilted at 90 degrees towards the direction of the ground. Its grasps seem to be loose, lifeless and powerless. This limp hand devoid of the arm muscles seem to be the counterpart of the other hand and it is profoundly different as it does not show signs of struggle, life, force or tension. However, this hand can be said to support the whole structure to the left.

A well dressed and scholarly looking man is situated on the top portion of this limp hand. The man seems to be examining something or is in a reading posture looking downwards. This man seem to exemplify a person of culture, education or reasonableness and can perhaps be interpreted to mean the small voice of reason and rationality as opposed to the vicious and chaotic irrationality of War as displayed by the hideously large figure tearing at itself. The tiny figure of this person stands in stark contrast to the large monstrous figure. Also, very tiny structures of development (man-made buildings) are evidently portrayed on both sides of this limp hand further emphasizes the insignificance of a civilized community structure in the face of armed civil struggle.

A leg with muscular calves but an almost skeletal foot is displayed standing on top of what looks like a torso on the far right. This foot looks somewhat alive, or at least has some form of energy left in its gait. In contrast, another foot is featured below the torso that looks somewhat lifeless and deformed or decomposing. Nevertheless, this foot supports the torso and the other structures above it on the right.

The middle part of the torso that seems to connect the two hands on the left and the two feet on the right seems to be smooth and has a rounded curved form. Its bright gray colors tend to complement this unusual figure identifying it as part of the whole figure. Below the lower central portion of this torso is a chest of drawers which seems to be holding up the entire figure from the central location and firmly planted on solid ground. Dali often used drawers as an object to indicate where secret/ private things are kept. Perhaps, we can interpret these drawers to mean the rationale for War (in this case the Spanish Civil War) is often times hidden, publicly unknown or kept secret. What seems to look like a piece of brown crusted bread is seen to hang over the part of the torso on the lower right and its colors complement the brown mountain and rocks beneath. Elsewhere, grey beans are scattered on the ground and on parts of the torso. The colors of the beans seem to complement the colors of the grayish white figure. The bread and beans may be said to symbolize the dependence or recognition of life supporting fundamentals (food and food sources) even in the face of social and political turmoil and war. Perhaps man’s dependence on food matters just as much to its survival as the politics of war.

Absolute thoughts

Truly Adam and Eve in the Garden were misconceived.
By God...., it was We who did the dirty deed!
Perfection be not in pure Paradise gained.
But in the sinful life of everyman re-gained.

To live to live, to die to die.
Is but the Spirit in its very plight.
Hark to the Cross roads we do bend.
Carrying the heaviest burden on our Mind's end.

How now my fair Spirit lives?
According to the cares of the world lies undeceived.
What first brought forth this thought of Love to my mind's eye?
Reason, be thou faithful now I cry.
For faith also has its reasons that I do not deny.

Truly a poet I am not I plead.
But bear me this discourse as you would a creed
For life, love and truth we may in words discuss.
And to live it in reality is a Divinely human task.




In "Absolute Thoughts", a novice attempts an interpretive narrative in semi-poetic manner concerning the "Idea of Perfection". Centrally linked is the well known Biblical story of Creation wherein man's "first sin" was generally believed to have taken place, through the advent of Adam and Eve's disobedience to God. Arguably, the novice intends to subscribe to a reading that's more perplexing and consistent with John Milton's rendition of "Paradise Lost and Regained".