The Old Age of William Tell.
|
Title |
The Old Age of William Tell. |
|
Creator |
Dali, Salvador (Spanish painter and printmaker, 1904-1989) |
|
Date |
1931 |
|
Cultural Context |
Spanish
European
Western European |
|
Style/Period |
Surrealist
Modern (styles and periods)
Modernist |
|
Subject |
Fantasy
Allusions
Symbols
Sex
Relations between the sexes
Fear
Anxiety
Lust
Nudes
Men
Women
Couples
Older people
Beards
Breasts
Backs (Anatomy)
Animals
Wild cats
Lions
Shadows
Bedsheets |
|
Description |
"Action behind the sheet, in the presence of the ubiquitous lion. Dali said the painting referred to his and Gala's repudiation by his father. There are allusions to Gala's operation, which Dali feared might be fatal." (Caption); "During his stay, [René] Crevel worked on Dali or Anti-Obscurantism, an essay published the following November […], frolicked with Gala in the garden, marveled with Dali at the mica-schist metamorphoses of Cape Creus and participated in the trick photography sessions with a sheet that Dali quoted in The Old Age of William Tell. André Thirion was deeply struck by this and other paintings done at the time, which he reads as a passionate homage to the Gala whom Dali had feared might not survive her operation. It seems that the painter explained later that The Old Age of William Tell expressed his and Gala's repudiation by Dali Cusí. But this is only part of the story. Behind the sheet, 'unmentionable things', as one of Dali's biographers has put it, are being done to Tell by two females (presumably involving masturbation or fellatio or both), while the couple representing Dali and Gala walk away in shame or disgust. Tell is wearing breasts as in Memory of the Child-Woman. One of the females is looking at his genitals with ravenous lust. The scene is watched by the ubiquitous lion, whose threatening shadow falls across the sheet. Against the column on the left leans a figure reminiscent of the vulnerable Gala who appears in Imperial Monument to the Child-Woman, while in the right background a naked couple are embracing, breasts with grotesquely erect nipples, droplets of blood and the same red blooms that adorned the Muse in The Invisible Man and The Bleeding Roses, making this look like another expression of Dali's anxiety about his father's sexual interest in Gala." (Excerpt, pp.341-342) |
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People Pictured |
Tell, William |
|
Material |
Oil on canvas
Oil paint (pigmented coating)
Paint
Canvas |
|
Measurements |
98 x 140 cm |
|
Technique |
Oil painting (technique)
Painting (image-making) |
|
Work Type |
Oil paintings
Paintings |
|
Repository |
Private collection |
|
Source |
Gibson, Ian. The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali. New York; London: W.W. Norton, 1998. (Color plate XXII) |
|
Rights |
Photograph reproduced in Gibson courtesy: Private collection. |
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Digital Publisher |
University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center |
|
Format |
image/jpeg |
|
Digital File Name |
VRC 2447-15.jpg |
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Rating |
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