Monday, January 26, 2009

freud versus dali

I'm just finishing this excellent book about the Death of Freud
in which is the delicious description of an encounter between an aging Freud and Salvador Dali
in london - at the time, Freud was dying of cancer and was very deaf
and Dali was almost certainly mad

Dali kept asking Freud about Paranoia
eventually Freud heard him and said
that the thought classical art was interesting for what it revealed about the
subconscious while surrealism only revealed things about the conscious (meaning that it was intellectually contrived)
at which Dali wailed "so surrealism is now definitely dead"

freud remarked in his diary about the meeting that "Dali was the perfect Spaniard"

now put that in your Turing pipe and smoke it!

1 comment:

The Incarnation said...

A very interesting encounter, it was. Two of the greatest rebellious (in the not-quite-contemporary sense) minds confronting each other would certainly have been delightful.

I'm awaiting your book, if it's going to be as good as you say it is.