The Work of Man Ray and Salvador Dali

             Assignment: Discuss how theories about art influence the practice of artists and/or art critics' and/or art historians.
             Response: Artists' practices over the years have been greatly influenced by the theories of art movements as well as their social, cultural, and historical context. Salvador Dali and Man Ray were similar in the way that both wanted to shock or confuse the audience. Both artists were influenced by modernism and surrealism. They intended to surprise, outrage, and shock their audience with radical practices while presenting them with ideas of the irrational world. Man Ray was also affected by the theory of Dadaism, which was a response to the world gone mad due to the atrocities of ww1. Exposed to Cubism at the 1913 Armory Show, the artist soon incorporated those stylistic elements in his work. Later on in his life, Man Ray decided to join the surrealist movement where he played with the notions of originality and redefined the meaning of 'vision'. Much of his work was developed for its shock value.
             Salvador Dali, however, was part of the surrealist movement, which grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement. Dalí worked from a subjective frame using his Paranoid Critical Method to enter alternate levels of reality, in which his perceptions were particularly different from everyday reality. Surrealism inherited its anti-rational sensibility from Dada but was lighter in spirit. Like Dada, it was formed by emerging theories on our perception of reality, the most obvious influence being that of the subconscious mind. Through his experiences of the world in the Spanish Civil War and communism, Dali's art practice was developed further. Dali had also managed to pursue personal interests in Cubism and Futurism, which all assisted in creating his 'dream-like' photographs. Later on, in the late 1930s, Dali switched to painting in a more academic, 'mimetic' style under the influence of the Renaissance, which led to ...

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The Work of Man Ray and Salvador Dali. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 19:46, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/4576.html