Dali & Freud: Connection between Art & Philosophy

Austrian neurologist/psychoanalyst, Sigmond Freud provided a map to explore the terrain of subdued infantile desires, hidden in the depths of the unconscious, driving through a vehicle of dreams in his study of psychoanalysis. Surreal artist Salvodar Dali was the man who narratively drove this vehicle uncovering the mysterious mind disguised in the rationality of conscious psyche through his paranoiac critical method in art. “My ambition is to give the world of the imagination the same degree of objectivity and reality as the everyday world…. It’s the themes derived from Freudianism, that are new.”- Salvador Dali

Freud (1856-1939) began his career as a neurologist which intrigued him with questions related to the human mind, particularly hysteria. To understand the unexplainable symptoms of neurosis he came up with the idea of free associations which enabled his patients to communicate freely about their childhood memories. He called it a ‘talking cure’. This study on neurosis gave a foundation to Freud’s model of mind. In his first typography (1900) he describes unconscious as the deepest part of the psyche which gives rise to preconscious and conscious while in his later model of mind (1923) he distinguishes between Id – the most powerful, irrational, and pleasure oriented unconscious mind, Super Ego- the conscious mind in the grasp of morality and social bondages, and Ego- the chaotic mind which is pulled by the id and superego in opposite directions. It is the tussle between the three that results into an alienated and neurotic psyche. Given a mode of expression (dreams as in his case) the violent, erotic, and often destructive irrational thought of the unconscious can be distorted with the rationality of the conscious in a psychologically acceptable periphery. When left untamed in their raw and rustic form such unconscious desires resulted in hysteria. Freud’s model of mind thus explains “how one aspect of mind works against another to restrain the havoc of unconscious energies” This mental structure driven by instinct, irrationality and the unconscious desires, constant across all ages was considered a true parameter to comprehend an individual in Freud’s New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis 1933. On similar grounds Dali’s paranoia as a child can be traced to some disturbing memories of his childhood planted deep into his unconscious mind. To mention a few -loss of his mother to cancer, being called as a reincarnation of his brother and his claims to be able to visualize the traumatic life in a womb explains his erratic persona. Oedipus Complex and Libido a Survival Instinct – Unlike Marx, Freud focuses on the inner, psychological life which is inclined towards sexual desire as a fundamental aspect of survival – a desire to reproduce. His famous Oedipus Complex based on the tale of Oedipus2 Rex states how these sexual energies are present from birth as unconscious energies, and drives that explains how a male child fantasises to kill his own farther in a desire to unite sexually with his mother. A similar dilemma of “to be or not to be…” is staged in Shakespearian ‘Hamlet’ where the protagonist is inconsistent about killing Claudius who killed his father and married his mother. He kindred the spirit of Claudius and felt like murdering him was akin to enacting his own death. Dali was not far from the clutches of Oedipus complex, his dream-like images being erotic and irrational channelised sexual energies of a disturbed childhood.

Dream Mechanism - Freud described dreams as imaginative constructs like a pack of ice which are like the semantically rich works of art that are inexhaustibility interpretable. Freud’s dream mechanism gives a safe passage to the subdued violent and sexually oriented unconscious desires in a form of socially acceptable disguise. This is called a Primary process while a secondary process involved a logical interpretation of these archaic images which are often contradictory and lead to a delayed gratification building up frustration, anger and often neurosis. According to Freud, dreams were idiosyncratic- linked with the personal unconscious contents and one must psychoanalyze the dreamer to decipher the meaning behind those dreams. This is also applicable to comprehend the meaning behind the dreamlike images depicted in art.