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Aeneas and Dalí
Aeneas and Dalí
Looking back in history at the story of Aeneas and at the paintings of Dalí,
one can state that both Aeneas, the Trojan hero that left Troy to later found Rome, and
Dalí, the talented artist from Spain that expressed images through unconventional
techniques and distortions, have exceeded time and space through their journeys,
legendary city of Troy, which the Greeks destroyed. After the war was over, Aeneas and
some of his followers traveled to the land that would soon be known as Italy, and
according to the Romans, he founded Rome, and became its first legendary hero. One can
state that Aeneas is the founder of a new world just as God who calls Abram, tells him to
travel in the world because He was going to make a new nation: “The Lord had said to
Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's
house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will
bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those
who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed.’”1 Thus, Aeneas becomes the demiurge that fashions and arranges
the physical world, who takes the preexisting materials of chaos (Troy), arranges them
according to the models of eternal forms (undertakes a long voyage), and produces all the
reveals another origin of the genesis of people, founding “a genuine cultural and spiritual
1
Genesis 12:1-3, Holy Bible, New International Version, 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society, USA, p.
10
heritage”2 as presented in his painting Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New
Man.
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man is the perfect
example of the struggle of successfully coming out into the world. A dark umbrella type
canvas shades over a large egg shaped world. It has what appears to be a young male
fighting and struggling trying to get out. The world is resting on top of a bright white
canvas with thick blood draining on to it from the opening of the world. On the outside of
this, a person, who appears to be both man and woman is standing pointing at this event
unfolding as a young child is gripping tightly to the person watching with his or her eyes
full of curiosity.
This painting suggests the struggle of becoming a new man, the renewal
and rebirth of a new world that covers a long process of creation in order to create life. It
is a mixture of fascination, incredulity and fear in the face of new and boundless world.
Salvador Dalí, is represented in the image of the egg from which emerged the Roman
Empire. Just as the young man in the painting is fighting to be born of the world, Aeneas’s
journey can be related to the struggles and the hassles of chaos transformed eventually
into order.
One can assume that the man in the painting represents the people,
personified in the character of Aeneas who has come a long journey, leaving Troy,
wandering for nine years until founding Rome and, that now can free itself of the past and
2
Fiorella Nicosia, Dalí – Life and Work. Painters of Genius Collection, no. 9, Adevarul Holding Publishing,
Bucuresti, 2009, p. 7
thus rebirth into a new world, the Roman Empire. This new world is the symbol of the
countless works and each time it is used it appears to take on a new meaning. In
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man, the egg is a symbol of life, the
symbol of creation of the world, the symbol of birth and rebirth, an apparently lifeless
object out of which life comes. The cracked egg symbolizes the making way for a newborn
creature. The egg represents the Creation, the elements, and the world itself, with the
shell representing the firmament, the vault of the sky where the fiery stars lie; the thin
membrane symbolizing air; the white symbolizing the waters; and the yolk representing
earth. The blood seen in the painting suggests the past struggles that Aeneas had to face
in order to resurrect again. One can say that the longing of all men comes to be expressed
Both Aeneas and Dalí have given people the chance to start all over again,
to relive a new genesis that would fill them with love and hope. Aeneas’s journey
embodies the great ideal which serves as an interpretation of history and of the world in
which man finds himself. It gives expression to a pervading human sympathy to which
the human mind and heart from one age to another instinctively resound. Salvador Dalí
exposes through “concrete images”3 the journey of Aeneas to recreate the genesis of the
world so that people should enjoy again Paradise and experience the catharsis of their
struggle.
3
Salvador Dalí: We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Through Abstract art will have been good for
one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.
Bibliography
Primary sources:
Fiorella Nicosia, Dalí – Life and Work. Painters of Genius Collection, no. 9, Adevarul
Holy Bible, New International Version, 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society,
USA
Internet sources:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/salvador_dali.html