Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening

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Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee
around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening

Artist	Salvador Dalí
Year	1944
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	51 cm × 40.5 cm (20 in × 15.9 in)
Location	Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944) is a surrealist painting by Salvador Dalí. (The title is also known as One Second Before Awakening from a Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate and as Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Waking up.)^[1]

It was painted while Dalí and his wife Gala were living in America.^[2]

[edit] Description

The painting depicts a woman (Dalí's wife, Gala) sleeping while sunbathing naked during a calm day on rocks floating over the sea, possibly at Port Lligat.^{[1] [2]} An elephant with incredibly long, extremely thin legs walks across the sea's horizon while carrying an obelisk. Near the woman float two drops of water and a small pomegranate.^[1] From a larger pomegranate comes a fish that spews a tiger from which comes another tiger, while in front of that second tiger a rifle's bayonet touches (or nearly touches) the woman's right arm.

[edit] Themes and symbolism

The bayonet, as a symbol of the stinging bee, may thus represent the woman's abrupt awakening from her otherwise peaceful dream. This is an example of Sigmund Freud's influence on surrealist art and Dali's attempts to explore the world of dreams in a dreamscape.^[2]

The bee around the smaller pomegranate is repeated symbolically. The two tigers represent the body of the bee (yellow with black stripes) and the bayonet its stinger. The fish may represent the bee's eyes, because of similarity of the fish's scaly skin with the scaly complex eyes of bees.

The elephant is a distorted version of a well-known sculpture by Bernini that is located in Rome.^[3] The smaller pomegranate floating between two droplets of water may symbolize Venus, especially because of the heart-shaped shadow it casts.^[3] It may also be used as a Christian symbol of fertility and resurrection.^[1] This female symbolism may contrast with the phallic symbolism of the threatening creatures.^[3]

It has also been suggested that the painting is "a surrealist interpretation of the Theory of Evolution."^[4]

In 1962, Dalí said his painting was intended "to express for the first time in images Freud's discovery of the typical dream with a lengthy narrative, the consequence of the instantaneousness of a chance event which causes the sleeper to wake up. Thus, as a bar might fall on the neck of a sleeping person, causing them to wake up and for a long dream to end with the guillotine blade falling on them, the noise of the bee here provokes the sensation of the sting which will awaken Gala." ^[1]

A short, alternate title for the painting is "Sting Caused by the Flight of a Bee."^[2]

[edit] References

v • d • e Salvador Dalí List of works Selected paintings Landscape Near Figueras (1910) • Vilabertrin (1913) • Fiesta in Figueres (1914-16) • Port of Cadaqués (Night) (1918-19) • The Artist's Father at Llane Beach (1920) • The Garden of Llaner (Cadaqués) (1920-21) • Cabaret Scene (1922) • Cubist Self-Portrait with "La Publicitat" (1923) • Self-portrait with L'Humanitie (1923) • Portrait of Luis Buñuel (1924) • Siphon and Small Bottle of Rum (1924) • The Basket of Bread (1926) • Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood (1927) • The Lugubrious Game (1929) • The First Days of Spring (1929) • The Great Masturbator (1929) • The Persistence of Memory (1931) • The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As a Table (1934) • Morphological Echo (1934-36) • Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's Angelus (1935) • Autumn Cannibalism (1936) • Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936) • The Burning Giraffe (1937) • Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) • Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937) • Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938) • The Sublime Moment (1938) • Shirley Temple, The Youngest, Most Sacred Monster of the Cinema in Her Time (1939) • The Face of War (1940) • Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire (1940) • Honey is Sweeter than Blood (1941) • Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944) • Galarina (1944-45) • Basket of Bread (1945) • The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946) • The Elephants (1948) • Leda Atomica (1949) • The Madonna of Port Lligat (1949) • Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951) • Galatea of the Spheres (1952) • The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952-54) • Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954) • Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954)  • The Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955) • Still Life Moving Fast (1956) • The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1958-59) • Tuna Fishing (1966-1967) • The Hallucinogenic Toreador (1968-1970) • La Toile Daligram (1972) • The Swallowtail (1983) • Other works Writings: L'Âge d'or (1930)  • Giraffes on Horseback Salad (1937)  • Libretto for Bacchanale (1939)  • Films: Un chien andalou (1929)  • Spellbound (1945, dream sequence) Animated Films: Destino (1946, 2003) Logos: Chupa Chups Opera: Être Dieu (1985) Sculpture: Lobster Telephone (1936)  • Mae West Lips Sofa (1937) Costumes: Costumes for Lorca's play Mariana Pineda (1927) Related articles Castle of Púbol • Dalí Universe • Espace Dalí • Dalí Theatre and Museum • Salvador Dalí Museum • Salvador Dalí (film) • Gala Dalí • Paranoiac-critical method

chinese translation[1]