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"One of Dali's greatest paintings from the mid-1920s, not exhibited since 1927. The influence of Picasso is manifest. It develops the theme of Saint Sebastian that so fascinated Lorca [Federico García Lorca] and Dali." (Caption); "The greatest painting of Dali's 'Lorca period' is undoubtedly Neo-Cubist Academy, subsequently entitled Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy). […] this masterpiece, apart from its intrinsic beauty, is vital to an understanding of Dali's development as an artist and of his relationship with the poet. […] In Spanish art terminology the word 'academy' corresponds roughly to 'academy figure' in English and refers to a painting or drawing of a nude figure done more for the sake of practice or instruction than as a work of art. In the case of the present work the term probably alludes ironically to the staid Royal Academy School in Madrid from which Dali had just been ousted and where Cubism, 'neo' or otherwise, was still virtually unacknowledged. […] Rafael Santos Torroella has shown that the composition's central figure, seen from a window of the house at Es Llané, is a sailor-version of Saint Sebastian, patron of Cadaqués. That this is so is indicated by the branch lying on the becalmed sea at his left flank (symbol of the tree to which, in some representations, he was bound by his executioners); by the fact that his right arm appears to be tied behind his back; and by the exposed vein on his left wrist, which occurs in various drawings of Saint Sebastian done by Dali at this time. […] One cannot doubt that Lorca and Dali were perfectly aware of the well-established artistic tradition which has elevated Saint Sebastian to the status of unofficial tutelar of homosexuals and sado-masochists, from the Renaissance up to our own times. […] Pondering on this predilection for Saint Sebastian on the part of homosexuals and sado-masochists, Alberto Savinio, brother of Giorgio de Chirico and an essayist admired by Dali, concludes that, as well as the saint's youth and 'ephebes body', there is an added lure. 'The reason why inverts are so attracted to Saint Sebastian', he writes, 'can be found in the analogy between certain sexual details and the arrows which lacerate the naked body of the young relative of Diocletian.' The arrows, on other words, are phallic symbols. […] Dali would have agreed, and so, as he probably knew, would Freud. In a letter apparently written in September 1926, Dali reminded Lorca that Saint Sebastian was the patron of Cadaqués and asked him if he had noticed that, in the representations of the martyr, there is never any suggestion that the arrows pierce his buttocks - a teasing allusion, surely, to anal intercourse and to the poet's attempts to possess him. […] The same letter shows that at this time Dali viewed Saint Sebastian above all as an embodiment of the objectivity to which he had come to believe contemporary art should aspire. The saint's impassivity, serenity and detachment as the arrows sear his flesh are the qualities the painter was now seeking to express in his own life and work […]. The painting owes a huge debt to Picasso's Studio with Plaster Head, which Dali had seen when he visited the artist in Paris. Many elements in Picasso's still-life [���] passed directly into Dali's canvas. The branch by the saint's left flank is almost identical to Picasso's; Dali has borrowed the plaster-cast head, and the shadow it projects is so similar to Picasso's that it could almost be substituted for it; the framework around the window echoes Picasso's; both works feature pointed, elongated clouds; both, an open book; and the scroll, firmly grasped by the hand of the severed arm in the Picasso, reappears in the left hand of Dali's Sebastian. […] The scroll, though, is no longer just a scroll. Santos Torroella proposes a staff or scepter, sensing a reference to Polykleitos' Doryphoros. But this does not explain the elliptical hole, which reminds one of an object appearing in a painting done by Dali the previous year, Large Harlequin and Small Bottle of Rum, interpreted by the same critic as a portrait of Lorca. In this work, which, like Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy), is set in the Dalis's house at Es Llan�� and features similar, Mantegna-style clouds, the instrument lying on the floor next to the ace of hearts has the look of a simple rustic flute. Perhaps Sebastian is carrying this selfsame instrument, emblem of music and poetry? And it may be significant, too, that, to the right of his head as we look at the picture, Dali has introduced what appears to be a tuning peg. This can be read as a further allusion to Lorca who, in the earlier picture, is playing a guitar with two such pegs. […] Lorca's presence in the picture becomes explicit in the plaster-cast head borrowed from Picasso, which Santos Torroella has shown represents his and Dali's fused faces, with Dali's in the centre and Lorca's chunkier features on the right. […] The two female figures who dominate the foreground of the painting are further evidence of the impact of Picasso's work on Dali's art at this time […]. The female in the bottom-left corner of Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) recurs in other Dalis of the period, such as Figure on the Rocks, and belongs to the category the painter baptized crudely as trossos de cony ('bits of cunt'). The figure's see-through shift has run up to reveal the naked lower part of her ample body, the shadow that envelops the genital area heightening an eroticism further signaled by her erect nipples. It is little wonder that Santos Torroella interprets her as 'Venus, or perhaps Lust'. She is gazing in the direction of the saint, her clenched fist perhaps signaling her emotion at his unexpected appearance. The head casts a dark shadow which parallels that thrown by the placid seated female immersed in her book on the right, whom Santos Torroella sees as 'Virtue, or Reflection, somewhat hieratic but very human in her self-absorption'. […] No analysis by Dali of his intentions in Composition with Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) has come to light. All we know is that he was ecstatic about the canvas, sending a photograph of it to Lorca for publication in the avant-garde Granada magazine gallo ('cockerel') with the comment: 'Neo-cubist academy (if you saw the real thing!) (it measures two metres by two).'" (Excerpts, pp. 186-191) |
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