Deux têtes empalées 1966

Salvador Dalí created this watercolor and ink painting, "Deux têtes empalées," sometime in 1966. The washes of color pool and mingle on the paper’s surface, creating eerie, surreal apparitions. I can imagine Dalí’s hand moving quickly, intuitively, almost like automatic writing. The paint is thin, translucent, allowing the white of the paper to glow through, giving a ghostly feeling. Look at the drips of red, thick and viscous, contrasting with the delicate rendering of the figures in the background. What was Dalí thinking when he made this? He was obviously obsessed with death but was he also having fun? Was he satirizing something? I think painting for Dalí was a way to probe his subconscious, like a dream journal made visible. Dalí, like all artists, was in conversation with other artists and their works, responding, reacting, and riffing on what came before. Painting is a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple readings.