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This centenary of the birth of Spanish-Catalán artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) affords us the opportunity to honor their work, learn about the personal and intellectual environments in which they came of age, and reflect on the meaning of their lives and works for us in the early 21st century. From opposite ends of the Hispanic world, the two shared certain circumstances: Both Dalí and Neruda felt close to the sea and landscape of their native region, yet became in their own way citizens of the world. Each in his own medium experimented with surrealist explorations of the inner self, creating visual and word images that often delighted their avant-garde colleagues and produced consternation in the public. Both experienced periods of exile because of the political climate in their homeland. While embracing revolutionary changes in art and society, Dalí and Neruda become consecrated as visionaries of new ways of being human and of transforming human culture and history. They and their unique creative works constitute powerful critical perspectives on the Western tradition and challenged the moral, social and political values of their day. In this sense they form part of the mainstream of twentieth century art and literature.

Pablo Neruda, born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 in recognition of his long and distinguished poetic career. His poetic voice, always authentic and uniformly resonant, assumed multiple forms of expression from the lyrical “pure poetry” of Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada [Twenty love poems…], through the seemingly subconscious yet tellurian explorations of Residencia en la Tierra [Residence on earth], the denunciation of colonialism in Canto General [General song], the celebration of the simplist materials of nature and culture in Odas Elementales [Elemental odes], the mature love poetry of Cien Sonetos de Amor [One hundred love sonnets], and the autobiographical reflections of Memorial de Isla Negra. All the while, Neruda lent his voice to causes of freedom and social justice for all peoples, especially those of Latin America.

Salvador Dalí has been considered one of the most original and emblematic artists of of the 20th century. A participant in the surrealist movement, his artistic self-exploration based on Freudian psychology, following his own “critical-paranoiac method,” called the attention of an international audience in the 1930s. The disquieting and often shocking images of Dalí’s creative works were parallelled by his flamboyant and controversial lifestyle. His creative energies, personal ambition and ludic sense led him beyond painting to such areas as film, stage design, and performance and installation art. Dalí’s cultivation of a personal pathology, his daring juxtapositions of psychological and philosophical concepts in his work, and his portrayal of mathematical and scientific principles in his later “quantic realism,” with its combination of mysticism and science, continue to engage our interest today.

by Alice J. Poust

Manuel Delgado, Department of Spanish, Faculty Coordinator