There was a time where I would have skipped a museum dedicated to an artist like Salvador Dalí.
Part Of The Exterior Of The Dalí Museum
Elementary school tends to instill structure and organization; a young student is continually shaped into adopting those values.
Nonconformity is not tolerated.
My art curriculum in those early years focused on conventional depictions of real scenes rendered by obviously skillful hands.
This style appealed to the principles reinforced at that young age.
However, as I progressed through school, these traditional visuals gave way.
What followed were images that required more contemplation to grasp. The talent of the artist became increasingly less obvious.
This art was unlike anything I had seen, with little correspondence to the norm.
I remember thinking, “How hard can it be to draw a bunch of mismatched cubes?”
“This was a joke…”
“Had my art teacher gone off the deep end?”
I had no sense of appreciation for this departure from the straightforward to the fundamental differences of cubism, impressionism, surrealism, etc. These movements had gone against the principles of structure and organization I had been accustomed to and come to expect.
My mind was too immature to acknowledge that this type of aesthetics had a role in the world.
Dalí, with the flamboyant mustache, was one of those artists I had regrettably dismissed.
Iconic Mustache
Now, with more life experience and education, I have gained understanding for the deviations artists have made encouraging “breaking the mold,” inspiring rebellion against conventions, and reminding us of the multitude of outlooks and perspectives that exist.
Saint Petersburg, Florida is home to the The Dalí museum, the largest collection of Dalí’s art outside Europe.
A. Reynolds Morse and his wife Eleanor Morse, who through collecting Dali’s art had even become his friend, assembled a collection of over 2,000 pieces during a forty-year period.
Needing a larger space to display the works, the Morses contacted museums throughout the United States offering to donate everything on the condition that the collection remains intact in its entirety.
No established museum agreed.
After reading that the Morses had failed to find a new home for their art, an attorney in Saint Petersburg, realizing the significance of this body of work, devised a proposal with the city and the State of Florida to create a new museum with the intention of to keep the collection intact.
The Morses approved and the collection has called Saint Petersburg its home since 1982.
Titled- The Disintegration Of The Persistence of Memory | (Note The Well Known Melting Pocket Watches)
Titled- The Average Bureaucrat | (Note The Lack Of Ears! Said To Be Modeled After His Father)
Titled- The Discovery Of America By Christopher Columbus
The Spiral Staircase Represents The Shape Of DNA To Reflect Dalí’s Interest in Science
// Oliver – Day 14 – Saint Petersburg