BellaOnline Forums Education Art Appreciation Person at the Window - Salvador Dali

http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--10063397/SP--A/IGID--793534/Person_at_the_Window.htm

Jilly was talking about Dali's most popular work - and here it is!!

I had done the clocks one instead of this for our "Dali Discussion" because this seems, to be honest, a bit boring to me. It's his sister at a window, looking out over a Spanish landscape. Certainly it is peaceful, something I'd imagine at a lakeshore cottage. But it's not something I would sit and ponder, or talk about with friends. It's something I imagine friends would glance at and say "oh that's nice" in a sort of "mostly harmless" sort of way

I get the sense that she was washing the windows or doing some other chore and took a moment to rest and relax ...

Popular work is different than what is the "body" of someone's work.

I think I am just feeling grumpy tonite and need to go to bed. I have done too much study on art and Dali is both great in his calm moods and often incredibly disturbing when not. I was very let down by Dali, in a sense. It's an issue for me. I always LOVED his well-loved works. When I was moved to dig deeper, I realized how sick his stuff was. And I understand being disturbed. Been there. But don't want to look at it. I think i just need sleep.

This is a very interesting discussion point! Should anybody ever be defined by a certain phase of their life? If someone writes 50 trashy country music songs and then writes 10 gorgeous operas, should they be judged as a "trashy country music singer"? If you like operas, isn't it fine to appreciate the operas and not worry about or need to appreciate other things he's done in other phases?

Robert B Parker has written detective stories with a variety of characters. I like the Spenser stories - and am far less fond of his female-character stories. That is fine by me. I appreciate that he created a great character / environment that I love with Spenser, and don't worry that I don't like every thing he's made.

I'm sure we can all name a movie by an actor we adore, where that actor made a movie we dislike. People take different paths in life. We appreciate the paths that match well with our own emotions, and allow them the humanity to have pursued other paths that are less matched for us.

So this is intriguing to me. Let's say Daniel Day Lewis made a movie where he's a violent child molester. I would really not like that movie and not watch it. But I would keep watching Last of the Mohicans and still love it immensely

Is it more of a moral thing - that someone who is that "twisted" inside sort of taints everything they create?

Feel free to answer in the morning when you're rested And others can chime in too!