Art Wednesday

Salvador Dali, “Galatea of the Spheres” – 1952

An interesting quote from the book I have on Dali says that he claimed to have a “paroxysm of joy”… After reading this, I immediately went to the dictionary and looked up the word “paroxysm” (don’t pretend that you know what it meant).

par‧ox‧ysm  [par-uhk-siz-uhm]
–noun
1. any sudden, violent outburst; a fit of violent action or emotion: paroxysms of rage.
2. Pathology. a severe attack or a sudden increase in intensity of a disease, usually recurring periodically.

It is a really beautiful thing in my mind to think of having a sudden or violent outburst of joy… I remember having them as a kid. I am going to work on having a “paroxysm of joy” sometime in the next week.

Anyway, on to my comments on the art at hand… It is so pretty.

To me this piece is a comment on the state of being a woman, or at least a man’s comment on the state of being a woman. I see something segmented, something deep, something complex, something beautiful, something happy and sad, something that the eye and the brain have to work at to make sense of… The circular shapes making up this portrait lead me to think about the wholeness of the individual parts, and the blue background brings me to nature and the link between woman and nature.

I see a celebration… A beautiful celebration. A “paroxysm of joy”.