Dali Planet #124:
Face to face with a fascist
In 1956 Dali was invited to Madrid’s Pardo Palace to meet General Franco. Beneath works by Goya, in Charles III’s immense castle that began as a ninth-century Islamic fort, the surrealist met the dictator who had been responsible for the execution of his friend, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
After his return to Spain following World War II, Dali had publicly voiced support for Franco’s bloodstained regime, for “clearing Spain of destructive forces”. He even sent the generalissimo a telegram “praising him for signing death warrants for political prisoners”, and painted a portrait of Franco’s granddaughter. Some argue that his outrageous pronouncements were just dadaist mockery, or at least opportunistic, but many remain convinced of Dali’s fascist enthusiasm.
By 1970 Dali was declaring himself an anarchist and monarchist, and to the musician Costas Ferris about the same time he said Franco wanted to be his friend “just because of the competition” — because Picasso had refused to give “Guernica” to Barcelona — “but I’m not a friend of Franco. I’m a friend of the future king, Juan Carlos.”
Dali had his “own” version of “Guernica”, the powerful anti-war statement of “Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)” from 1936, seen here — click for a large version — with its tormented figure in the throes of what Dali called “a delirium of autostrangulation”. The beans? “One could not imagine swallowing all that unconscious meat,” Dali said, “without the presence (however uninspiring) of some mealy and melancholy vegetable.”
In 2003 Spanish art historian Jose Milicua uncovered evidence that republican troops had used surrealist art to torture prisoners during the civil war. An obscure “artist” named Alphonse Laurencic had used geometric abstraction and disorienting surrealist techniques to build cells in which fascist prisoners were tortured by being forced to stare at the walls incessantly. Beds were placed at sleep-depriving angles, bricks secured at irregular intervals on the floor to retard walking and the lighting was manipulated.
At any rate, for those who refuse to forgive Dali for his perceived fascism, there is finally the Bunuel argument. On to Toledo.
