Play those word association games and when someone says “surrealism”
everyone shouts out “Dali”, maybe Magritte and for the aficianados Andre Breton
but Dali is the standout man, the numero uno choice.
Avida Dollars as he was known for his self declared love of
money , “I want gold, I want cheques, I want cash” Dali was quoted as saying
(and he got it in spades), is seldom associated with food painting. But think again, think ‘Fried Eggs on a Plate
without the plate’ 1932 depicting an immaculately painted soft fried egg
dangling from a long string or the grotesque ‘Soft construction with boiled
beans’.
Needless to say Dali had a whole raft to things going on
behind the food but it is the fabulous image that is the point here. Have to say he wasn’t quite so hot with the boiled
beans or the lamb chops in ‘Gala with Two Lamb Chops in Equilibrium on Her
Shoulders’ but check out the bread basket in ‘The Bread Basket’ 1926 – a bit
before he got weird like his ‘Ordinary French Loaf with Two Fried Eggs Riding
without a plate, Trying to Sodomise a Heel of a Portuguese Loaf’ 1932. Now there’s a dish you don’t see too often on
your average restaurant menu!
Gotta say that Dali’s imagination was pretty wild and maybe
we could do with a bit more of that in restaurants. There used to be a restaurant up here in Port
Douglas called ‘Going Bananas’ run by a French guy who was pretty wild. He would put a snake (lolly variety not the
real thing) in your mouth and then cut off the protruding bit with a pair of
scissors – ouch! I wonder if he ever went too far?
I recently finished a Dali-esque painting called “Apple of
my Eye”. It seems there is a different
hidden meaning for different people. A
Tas Facebook friend commented : “Very appropriate”. Had to think about that one – maybe the apple
just out of reach floating in an empty landscape? I hadn’t thought of that but like all
surrealist art it’s in the eye of the beholder.
'Apple of my eye' oil on canvas by Michael Edwards
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