After which came breakfast, which was served on the large table of the dining room, for me alone. Two large pieces of toast drenched with honey and a glass of very hot coffee and milk. The walls of the dining room were entirely covered with oil paintings and colored etchings, most of them originals, by Ramon Pitchot, who at this time lived in Paris, and who was the brother of Pepito Pitchot.
These breakfasts were my discovery of French impressionism, the school of painting which has in fact made the deepest impression on me in my life because it represented my first contact with an anti-academic and revolutionary esthetic theory. I did not have eyes enough to see all that I wanted to see in those thick and formless daubs of paint, which seemed to splash the canvas as if by chance, in the most capricious and nonchalant fashion. Yet as one looked at them from a certain distance and squinting one’s eyes, suddenly there occurred that incomprehensible miracle of vision by virtue of which this musically colored medley became organized, transformed into pure reality. The air, the distances, the instantaneous luminous moment, the entire world of phenomena sprang from the chaos! R. Pitchot’s oldest painting recalled the stylistic and iconographic formulae characteristic of Toulouse-Lautrec. I squeezed from these pictures all the literary residue of 1900, the eroticism of which burned deep in my throat like a drop of Armagnac swallowed the wrong way. I remember especially a dancer of the Bal Tabarin dressing. Her face was perversely naïve and she had red hairs under her arms.
But the paintings that filled me with the greatest wonder were the most recent ones, in which deliquescent impressionism ended in certain canvases by frankly adopting in an almost uniform manner the pointilliste formula. The systematic juxtaposition of orange and violet produced in me a kind of illusion and sentimental joy like that which I had always experienced in looking at objects through a prism, which edged them with the colors of the rainbow. There happened to be in the dining room a crystal carafe stopper, through which everything became “impressionistic.” Often I would carry this stopper in my pocket to observe the scene through the crystal and see it “impressionistically.”
Suddenly I would realize that I had exceeded the time allotted to breakfast, and my contemplation would always end with a “shock of violent remorse” which caused me to swallow my last mouthful of coffeeand-milk the wrong way, and it would spill down my neck and wet my chest inside my clothes. I found a singular pleasure in feeling this hot coffee dry on my skin, cooling slowly and leaving a slight sticky and agreeable moisture. I became so fond of this moisture that I finally purposely produced it. With a quick glance I would assure myself that Julia was not looking, and then just before she went out I would pour directly from the cup a sufficient quantity of coffee-and-milk, which would wet me down to my belly. One day I was caught red-handed doing this, and for years the story was told by Señor and Señora Pitchot as one of the thousand bizarre anecdotes relating to my alarming personality which they adored to collect. They would always begin by asking, “Do you know what Salvador has done now?” Everyone would prick up his ears, prepared to hear about one of those strange fantasies which were utterly incomprehensible, but always had the power to make everyone laugh till the tears rolled. The sole exception was my father, who by his worried smile could not but betray the anguish of menacing doubts about my future.
After the honey and the cafe-au-lait poured inside my shirt I would run over to a large white-washed room where ears of corn and rows of sacks filled with grains of corn were drying on the floor. This room was my studio, and it was Sefior Pitchot himself who had decided this, because, he said, “the sun came in the whole morning.” I had set up a big box of oil colors on a large table where each day a pile of drawings would accumulate. The walls too, before long, were soon filled with my paintings which I put up with thumb tacks as soon as they were finished.
One day when I had finished my roll of canvas I decided to do something with a large unmounted old door which was not in use. I placed it horizontally on two chairs, against the wall. It was made of very handsome old wood, and I decided to paint only the panel so that the doorframe would serve as the frame for my picture. On it I started to paint a picture which had obsessed me for several days—a still life of an immense pile of cherries. I spilled out a whole basket of them on my table to use as a model. The sun, streaming through the window, struck the cherries, exalting my inspiration with all the fire of their tantalizing uniformity. I set to work, and this is how I proceeded: I decided to paint the whole picture solely with three colors, which I would apply by squeezing them directly from the tube. For this I placed between the fingers of my left hand a tube of vermilion intended for the lighted side of the cherries, and another tube of carmine for their shade. In my right hand I held a tube of white just for the highlight on each cherry.
Thus armed I began the attack on my picture, the assault on the cherries. Each cherry—three touches of color! Tock, tock, tock—bright, shade, highlight, bright, shade, highlight...Almost immediately I adjusted the rhythm of my work to that of the sound of the mill—tock, tock, tock tock, tock, tock tock, tock, tock ...My picture became a fascinating game of skill, in which the aim was to succeed better at each “tock, tock, tock,” that is to say with each new cherry. My progress became so sensational, and I felt myself at each “tock” becoming master and sorcerer in the almost identical imitation of this tempting cherry. Growing quickly accustomed to my increasing skill, I tried to complicate my game, inwardly repeating to myself the circus phrase, “Now something even more difficult.”
And so, instead of piling my cherries one on top of another as I had done so far, I began to make isolated cherries, as far separated from one another as possible, now in one corner, now in the most distant opposite corner. But as the severe rules of my new experiment required that I continue to follow the same rhythm of the sound of the mill, I was forced to rush from one spot to another with such agility and rapidity of gestures that one would have thought that, instead of painting a picture I was being carried away by the most disconcerting kind of dancing incantation, making agile leaps for the cherries above and falling back on my knees for the cherries below; “tock” here, “tock” there, “tock” here...tock, tock, tock, tock, tock, tock. And I kept lighting up the old door which served as my canvas with the new and fresh fires of my painted cherries which were joyously born at each monotonous “tock” of the mill as if by an art of enchantment of which “in reality of truth” I was the sole master, lord and inventor.
This picture really astonished everyone who saw it, and Señor Pitchot bitterly regretted that it was painted on an object so cumbersome, so heavy and difficult to transport as a door, and which moreover was riddled with wormholes in certain places.
All the peasants came and stared in open-mouthed admiration at my monumental still life, in which the cherries stood out in such relief that it seemed as though one could pluck them. But it was pointed out to me that I had forgotten to paint the stems of the cherries. This was true—I had not painted a single one. Suddenly I had an idea. I took a handful of cherries and began to eat them. As soon as one of them was swallowed I would glue the stem directly to my painting in the appropriate place. This gluing on of cherry stems produced an unforeseen effect of startling “finish” which chance was once more to heighten with a delirious effect of realism. I have already said that the door on which I painted my picture was riddled with worms. The holes these had made in the wood now looked as though they belonged to the painted pictures of the cherries. The cherries, the real ones, which I had used as models, were also filled with worm-infested holes! This suggested an idea which still today strikes me as unbelievably refined: armed with a limitless patience, I began the minute operation (with the aid of a hairpin which I used as tweezers) of picking the worms out of the door—that is to say, the worms of the painted cherries—and putting them into the holes of the true cherries and vice versa.
I had already effected four or five of these bizarre and mad transmutations, when I was
surprised by the presence of Señor Pitchot, who must have been there behind me for some time, silently observing what I was doing. The effect of the cherry stems must have struck him as quite astonishing, but I understood immediately that it was my manipulations with the worms that kept him standing there so motionless and absorbed. This time he did not laugh, as he usually did about my things; after what appeared to be an intense reflection, I remember that he finally muttered between his teeth, and as if to himself, “That shows genius,” and left.
I sat down on the floor on a pile of ears of corn, feeling very hot in the sun and thinking over Señor Pitchot’s words, which remained deeply engraved in my heart. I was convinced that I could really achieve “extraordinary” things, much more extraordinary than “that.” I was determined to achieve them, and I would, at no matter what cost! One day everyone would be astonished by my art! And you, too, Dullita, Galuchka Rediviva, even more than all the rest!
The contact with the hot ears of corn had felt very agreeable, and I changed places to find another hotter pile. I dreamt of glory, and I should have liked to put on my king’s crown. But I would have had to go up to my room and fetch it, and it was so comfortable here on the corn! I took my crystal carafe stopper out of my pocket, and looked through the prismatic facets at my picture, then at the cherries, then at the ears of corn scattered on the floor. The ears of corn especially produced an extremely langorous effect seen in this manner, set off by all the colors of the spectrum. An infinite laziness came over me, and with slow movements I took off my pants. I wanted my flesh to touch the burning corn directly. I slowly poured a sack of grain over myself. The grains trickled over my body, soon forming a pyramid that entirely covered my belly and my thighs.
I was under the impression that Señor Pitchot had just started off on his morning inspection tour and would as usual not be back before the lunch hour. I therefore had plenty of time to put back all the spilled corn in the sack. This thought encouraged me and I poured out still another sack of corn in order to feel the weight of the pyramid of grain progressively increase on top of me. But I had erred in my calculations as to the duration of Señor Pitchot’s walk, for the latter suddenly reappeared on the threshold. This time I thought I would die of shame at seeing myself caught in my voluptuous attitude. I saw consternation contract his features and, backing away without saying a word, he disappeared, this time for good. I did not see him again before lunch time.
At least an hour must have gone by meanwhile, for the sun had long since left the spot where I remained without moving from the moment of Señor Pitchot’s unexpected reappearance. I was stiff and ached all over from having kept the same half-lying position for so long. I began to pick up all the corn I had spilled, putting it back in the sack. This operation took a long time, for I was only using my two hands. Because of the unusual size of the sacks I did not seem to be making any headway; I was several times tempted to leave my work unfinished, but immediately a violent sense of guilt seized me in the center of my solar plexus, and then I would begin again with fresh courage to put the grains of corn back into the sack. As I neared the end my work became more painful because of the constant temptation to leave everything as it was. I would say to myself, “It’s good enough as it is,” but an insuperable force pressed me to keep right on. The last ten handfuls were a real torture, and the last grain seemed almost too heavy to lift from the ground. Once my task was finished to the end I felt my spirit suddenly calmed, but the weariness that had come over my body was even greater. When I was called to lunch I thought I would never be able to climb the stairs.
An ominous silence greeted me as I entered the dining room, and I immediately realized that I had just been the subject of a long conversation. Señor Pitchot said to me in a grave tone,
“I have decided to speak to your father, so that he will get you a drawing teacher.” As though I felt outraged by this idea, I indignantly answered,
“No! I don’t want any drawing teacher, because I’m an ‘impressionist’ painter!”
I did not know very well the meaning of the word “impressionist” but my answer struck me as having an unassailable logic. Señora Pitchot, dumfounded, broke into a great peal of laughter.
“Well, will you look at that child, coolly announcing that he’s an ‘impressionist’ painter!”
And with this she went off into an immense, fat and generous laugh. I became timid again, and continued to suck the marrow of the second joint of a chicken, noticing that the marrow had exactly the color of Venetian red. Señor Pitchot launched into a conversation on the necessity of picking the linden blossoms toward the end of the week. This linden blossom picking was to have consequences of considerable moment for me.
But before I enter into the absorbing, cruel and romantic story which is to follow, let me first continue, as I had promised, to describe the rigorous apportioning of the precious time of my days lived in that unforgettable Muli de la Torre. This is necessary, moreover, to situate precisely, against a chronological, ordered and clear setting, the vertiginous love scenes which I am about to unfold to you. Here, then, is the neurotic program of my intense spring days.
I excuse myself for repeating once more in summary the manner in which these began, so that the reader may more readily connect this part with the rest of my program and be in a position to obtain the necessary view of the whole.
Ten o’clock in the morning—awakening, “varied exhibitionism,” esthetic breakfast before Ramon Pitchot’s impressionistic paintings, hot coffee-and-milk poured down my chest before leaving for the studio. Eleven to half past twelve—pictorial inventions, reinvention of impressionism, reaffirmation and rebirth of my esthetic megalomania.
At lunch I collected all my budding and redoubtable “social possibilities,” in order to understand everything that was going on at the Mill through the conversations sprinkled with euphemisms of Señor and Señora Pitchot and Julia. This information was precious in that it revealed to me plans of future events by which I could regulate the delights of my solitude while establishing an opportunistic compromise between these and the marvels of seduction offered me by the whole series of activities connected with the agricultural developments of the place. These events always brought with them not only the flowering of new myths but also the apparitions (in their natural setting) of their protagonists who were heretofore unknown to me—the linden blossom picking (in this connection only women were mentioned), the wheat threshing, performed by rough men who came from far away, the honey gathering, etc.
III. Thirty Years Before—Thirty Years After
As a little boy at school, I stole an old slipper belonging to the teacher, and used it as a hat in the games I played in solitude.
In 1936, I constructed a Surrealist object with an old slipper of Gala’s and a glass of warm milk.
Years after my school-boy prank, a photo of Gala crowned by the cupolas of Saint Basil revived my early fantasy of the “slipper-hat.”
Finally Madame Schiaparelli launched the famous slipper-hat. Gala wore it first; and Mrs. Reginald Fellowes appeared in it during the summer, at Venice.
IV. The Orifice Enigma
“Weaning of Alimentary Furniture”: my nurse, from whose back a night table has been extracted.
“Portrait of My Sister.” During the execution of this picture, I had an instantaneous vision of a terrifying rectangular hole in the middle of her back.
Photo of Dali at the time he visited the Park Guell in Barcelona.
Avenue in the Park Guell. The open spaces between the artificial trees gave me a sensation of unforgettable anguish.
Ursulita Matas, who took me to visit the Park Guell.
“Sleep,” 1939 painting in which I express with maximum intensity the anguish induced by empty space.
Hérisson.
The afternoon was dedicated almost exclusively to my animals which I kept in a large chicken coop, the wire mesh of which was so fine that I could even confine lizards there. The a
nimals in my collection included two hedgehogs, one very large and one very small, several varieties of spiders, two hoopoes, a turtle, a small mouse caught in the wheat bin of the Mill where it had fallen, unable to get out. This mouse was shut up inside a tin biscuit box on which there happened to be a picture of a whole row of little mice, each one eating a biscuit. For the spiders I had made a complicated structure out of cardboard shoe boxes so as to give each kind of spider a separate compartment, which facilitated the course of my long meditative experiments. I managed to collect some twenty varieties of this insect, and my observations on them were sensational.
The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) Page 11