Picasso and Dali discuss life
Share Article They are speaking in A Century is Nothing.
"Have you thought of a name for your new work my friend?” asked Dali.
“Guernica comes to mind,” Pablo said.
“How appropriate,” Dali replied, stroking his exquisite mustache. “It will become a classic. It will connect the wild subconscious and rationality. It’ll make you famous, old boy.”
Picasso’s Guernica commemorated the small Basque village of 10,000 in northern Spain. It was market day on Monday, April 27, 1937. In the afternoon waves of planes from the Condor Legion, Heinkel 51s and Junker 52s piloted by Germans blasted Guernica. Survivors found 1,660 corpses and 890 wounded people in the rubble.
“Be that as it may,” Pablo replied. “Art historians and critics will have their say hey kid. It will shock supporters of social realism and propaganda art in France and Spain.”
“How did you do it?” Dali queried.
“From May 1st to June 4th in 1937 I made forty-five drawings on blue or black paper. I incorporated the bull, the horse, classic bullfighting figures and the lantern from my 1935 Minotauromachy. I used the weeping Dora Maar because she has always been a woman who weeps. Guernica is a bereavement letter saying everything we love is going to die. And that is why everything we love is embodied in something unforgettably beautiful, like the emotion of a final farewell.”
“I still think your vision aspires to greater heights,” said Dali. “Your work contains your fantasies meeting the objective violence of history.”
“You are too kind my dear Dali. People are talking about your work. Your intentional dreams, so strangely manifested, in the way you masterfully allowed your subconscious free rein on the canvas. Most amazing, your Persistence of Memory.”
“You are too generous Pablo. I merely reflect the ongoing crisis in society, the surreal absurd nightmare, with shall we say, a twisted rather sordid but truthful elusive creative beast we must acknowledge to allow our perverse authenticity freedom wherever it leads us.”
“So true my friend, for we are only the conduit of the magic,” said Pablo. “We paint what we see with our innermost senses, born by authentic inner visions.”
“We are the mysteries speaking through the mysteries,” said Salvador.
