The Infanta Margaret Visual Analysis
Downtown St. Petersburg, Florida is the home of the largest Salvador Dali art collection outside of Europe. The Salvador Dali museum took its first breath on March 7th, 1982. This historical building holds 96 oil paintings, more than 100 water colors and drawings, and 1,300 graphics, photographs and sculptures. This location is also the home of 7 out of 18 masterworks done by Dali. Salvador Dali left an outstanding line of art behind on January 23, 1989, He actually passed away in his hometown, Figueres, Spain. While exploring the museum I came across the painting “Homage to Crick and Watson” also known as “Galacidalacidesoxyribonucleiacid”. This painting immediately became my favorite work of art in the museum. Dali created this painting in 1963, placing it amongst the Pop art movement. The image was with oil on canvas. The title of the work of art can be a little
…show more content…
confusing for those who may not know or understand the background information. “Homage to Crick and Watson” is a portmanteau of the name of Dali’s wife, Gala Dali and Deoxyribonucleic also known as DNA. Giving tribute to Francis Crick and James D. Watson who were well known for the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA in 1953. This painting belongs to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is very large in size, standing much taller than myself at 120in by 136in. In the image we are able to see a woman with her back facing towards the audience. On the right hand side men are drawn in a cube shape with rifles in their hands. In the upper left of the image one can see a man amongst the clouds with a scroll in his hand appearing to be an angel. The colors in the image are very simple a light shade of orange and a shadowy black on the outer edges. While Dali was creating this work of art he shows his interest of the double helix referring to men’s connects with God. Dali aligned men with rifles pointed at each other’s head in a cube form, this technique is called “Cubes of Death”. What I received from this part of the painting is the dominoes effect, everyone will die and the closer you look the rifleman begin to fade into darkness representing being away from God. In the middle of the image there are clouds and seems to be angels in the clouds and the contrast of color begins to lighten up representing a connection with God. The upper left corner holds a visual of the prophet Isaiah holding a scroll, written on the scroll are words in code. The first word written is Gala, Dali’s wife and the word next is “Cid” an Arabic word for God. The last written word on the scroll is the scientific word for DNA. “Homage to Crick and Watson” stands out to me dud to how complex the painting is. The quality of the image is of no other, Dali really showed his creativity and understanding with this work of art. Detail is a huge part of understanding this image and Dali did an excellent job. My least favorite work of art I came across is the “Velazquez Painting the Infanta Margarita”.
The image was created in 1958 by Dali, using oil on canvas. This work of art isn’t as big as the “Homage to Crick and Watson”, standing at 60 ½ by 36 ¼ inches. Just as the title suggests the painting depicts the late Spanish princess Infanta or also known as Margarita. This is image was very hard for me to break down and understand the meaning and interpret the thoughts of Dali while he was creating it. Dali admired the technique of Velazquez , so in this painting he demonstrates his admiration of the way Velazquez paints. In the left hand corner I see a room or office with multiple people in it. The farther away I stand from the image I can also see a women’s face, which is said to be the Spanish princess. There also is a soldier or knight standing near her on the left bottom corner, making it known that she is royalty. Throughout the rest of the image Dali expressed his love for atomic energy. He put multiple splashes of colors throughout the work of art representing atomic
energy. Both of these works of art represents more than I can explain in this paper, in fact every time I carefully look at each image a new idea pops into my thoughts. I love the thought process of Dali; he specializes in detail which can give the audience different meanings every time they may look at the image. Coming into this course I didn’t really understand art but the museum visit gave me a ton of understanding. I will definitely go back for another exploration.
confusing for those who may not know or understand the background information. “Homage to Crick and Watson” is a portmanteau of the name of Dali’s wife, Gala Dali and Deoxyribonucleic also known as DNA. Giving tribute to Francis Crick and James D. Watson who were well known for the discovery of the double helical structure of DNA in 1953. This painting belongs to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. It is very large in size, standing much taller than myself at 120in by 136in. In the image we are able to see a woman with her back facing towards the audience. On the right hand side men are drawn in a cube shape with rifles in their hands. In the upper left of the image one can see a man amongst the clouds with a scroll in his hand appearing to be an angel. The colors in the image are very simple a light shade of orange and a shadowy black on the outer edges. While Dali was creating this work of art he shows his interest of the double helix referring to men’s connects with God. Dali aligned men with rifles pointed at each other’s head in a cube form, this technique is called “Cubes of Death”. What I received from this part of the painting is the dominoes effect, everyone will die and the closer you look the rifleman begin to fade into darkness representing being away from God. In the middle of the image there are clouds and seems to be angels in the clouds and the contrast of color begins to lighten up representing a connection with God. The upper left corner holds a visual of the prophet Isaiah holding a scroll, written on the scroll are words in code. The first word written is Gala, Dali’s wife and the word next is “Cid” an Arabic word for God. The last written word on the scroll is the scientific word for DNA. “Homage to Crick and Watson” stands out to me dud to how complex the painting is. The quality of the image is of no other, Dali really showed his creativity and understanding with this work of art. Detail is a huge part of understanding this image and Dali did an excellent job. My least favorite work of art I came across is the “Velazquez Painting the Infanta Margarita”.
The image was created in 1958 by Dali, using oil on canvas. This work of art isn’t as big as the “Homage to Crick and Watson”, standing at 60 ½ by 36 ¼ inches. Just as the title suggests the painting depicts the late Spanish princess Infanta or also known as Margarita. This is image was very hard for me to break down and understand the meaning and interpret the thoughts of Dali while he was creating it. Dali admired the technique of Velazquez , so in this painting he demonstrates his admiration of the way Velazquez paints. In the left hand corner I see a room or office with multiple people in it. The farther away I stand from the image I can also see a women’s face, which is said to be the Spanish princess. There also is a soldier or knight standing near her on the left bottom corner, making it known that she is royalty. Throughout the rest of the image Dali expressed his love for atomic energy. He put multiple splashes of colors throughout the work of art representing atomic
energy. Both of these works of art represents more than I can explain in this paper, in fact every time I carefully look at each image a new idea pops into my thoughts. I love the thought process of Dali; he specializes in detail which can give the audience different meanings every time they may look at the image. Coming into this course I didn’t really understand art but the museum visit gave me a ton of understanding. I will definitely go back for another exploration.