A lot about Salvador Dalí’s painting “Nature Morte Vivante (Still Life-Fast Moving)” is, well, normal. But you don’t have to zoom in much to find the weirdness.
“What I love about it is that it’s drawing upon these still life traditions of Dutch and Flemish artists from the 17th century, these incredibly illusionistic, precise styles of painting where you almost feel like you can reach in and grab the apple of the table,” Julia Welch, Art of Europe assistant curator at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.
“First you see all these objects, these fruits and platters and bottles,” she continued. “Then you realize that all of these things are floating above the table, flying through the air.”
Dalí is a master of misdirection, complexity, and absurdity. And that can be hard to appreciate if you’re looking at his art reproduced on a poster, postcard, or coffee mug, which, let’s face it, we often are.
At the MFA’s first-ever Salvador Dalí exhibition, “Dalí: Disruption and Devotion” (now through Dec. 1), New Englanders can dive in a little deeper.
“These are the kind of works that you want to get up close to and really see these details in person with your own eyes,” Welch said. “His painting style is so precise, it’s so detailed, it’s almost photo realistic… Another thing that I’m excited for people to see is the number of works in the show that feature optical illusions that he incorporates into his work. They are things you can only appreciate when you see these works in person.”
Shockingly, the MFA owns no Dalí works (it does have half a million other pieces of art, so it’s hard to complain about a blind spot or two). Thanks to a loan of a few dozen paintings and prints from the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, locals can get a rare look at key works from one of the most popular and controversial artists of the last century.
“Dalí: Disruption and Devotion” includes his most famous painting, “Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory” (that’s the melting clocks one). The exhibition gets at the grand scale of many of his works such as “Ecumenical Council” and Welch’s favorite “Nature Morte Vivante (Still Life-Fast Moving).” But, by pairing the surrealist’s work with pieces from other artists in the MFA’s collection, the survey shows Dalí’s place in the arc of visual art.
“It’s important for people to make the connection that artists of the 20th century, like Dalí especially, were looking back to these masters from the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries,” Welch said. “I think about how Velázquez or El Greco (two influences on Dalí featured in the exhibition) are influencing the work of artists now.”
Dalí has often been dismissed as an unserious artist. Often this was because he could come off as an unserious person — this can happen when you pal around with everyone from Luis Buñuel to Alice Cooper to a pet ocelot named Babou. It’s wonderful that the MFA will give New England a chance to see the weight of his work, even when that work features weightless apples and platters and bottles flying around a painting.
For details, visit mfa.org