Salvador Dali: The Lady Gaga of His Time?

5th graders at Emerson learned about the eccentric surrealist, Salvador Dali.  The Spanish painter once showed up to an art lecture wearing a full scuba suit carrying a pool cue.  Does that kind of crazy, exhibitionism and fashion forward wardrobe choice remind you of any famous artist in today's music scene??  Maybe Lady Gaga is a Dali fan?

Students viewed and discussed "Persistence of Memory", perhaps Dali's most famous and recognizable work.  We talked about the idea of "time melting away" and the way sometimes "time flies" and sometimes "the minutes drag on".  Students offered examples of places or activities in their lives that transcend time....When do you get lost in the moment?  How do you escape the pressures of deadlines and schedules?  Students noted that although the overall feeling of the painting is sad...the brightness in the background and the absence of clocks on the seaside mountain in the top right might symbolize such an escape from the daily schedule.  We watched this short video about Surrealism and what makes a painting surreal.

•Laws of nature are reversed (something alive becomes an inanimate object)

•Juxtaposition

•Transformation (turning something familiar into something unusual or disturbing)

•Dislocation (objects placed where they shouldn’t be)

•Metamorphosis (something changes)

•Symbols

Double image

Students were then asked to create a drawing given the theme of "time" and incorporate some element of surrealism.

This was the 5th graders last Art Talk of the year and the last at Emerson.  These students have been given Art Talks by Emerson parent volunteers since Kindergarten and had a chance to reflect on those works of art that most impressed them!  Students mentioned Sky Above Clouds by Georgia O'Keefe,  The Child's Bath by Mary Cassatt, Love of Winter by George Bellows, and The Starry Night over the Rhone by Vincent Van Gogh in their discussion of past Art Talks.  Portrait of Sylvette David by Pablo Picasso, The Oregon Trail by Albert Beirstadt and Flowering Cherry with Poem Slips by Tosa Mitzucki are a few more of the wonderful works of art that these children were exposed to as a result of this valuable PTA program.  We wish them the best of luck in Middle School and beyond and hope that an appreciation of art and all things beautiful will follow them all their lives!  Congratulations Emerson 5th Graders!