Can Be Swallowed By Desire

The remarkable talent and creativity of Salvador Dali made him one of the most distinguished and controversial artists in the 20th century. Dali became a member of Surrealist Group in the early 1930's, and obtained a welcome and admiration from the Group. Due to their different understanding on the origin of psychoanalysis and dissimilar political attitudes, Dali has been expelled from the Group in the late 1930's. And in a period of time, Dali has been criticized due to his indifferent political attitude. This thesis approaches to analyze the war related artworks of Dali through a cross-cultural aspect by using various disciplines and theories, such as the theory of art history, society, psychology, and religion.Chapter 1 introduced the influence of Freud's theory of Psychoanalysis on Dali and the Surrealist Group, which exposed the relationship between them, and also explain the reason Dali been accepted by the Group. This chapter also takes the case of Dali's Paranoiac-critic Method to demonstrate how Dali and the Group treat differently with psychoanalysis theory, which creates their first dissension.Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 are the key points of the thesis. In Chapter 2, by analyzing the serials of "Angelus couple" and "William Tell", outlined the definition of desire and the motif of cannibalism and castration anxiety. The analyses of "William Tell" demonstrated the politic difference between Dali and the Group. By comparing the illustrations of "Les Chants de Maldoror" with "Angelsu couple", this chapter pointed out the clue of cannibalism in Dali's war related artworks.Chapter 3 expounded Dali's artworks which depicted the Spanish Civil War and the World WarⅡrespectively, then analyze the desirable motif of cannibalism in the artworks at length. This chapter also explained the influence of the matter of religion and the paranoiac delirium in his war related artworks. And this chapter concluded the meaning of desire in the artworks.Neither the admiration nor the censure is the aim of this thesis, the art thoughts and intentions could only be conclude from the artist's works. And from the artworks, we could discover the social consciousness and humanity of Dali and moral standard in his war related artworks.