EGRETION: Salvador Dali in St. Petersburg FL

In all my travels I have not ventured down into Florida more than a few times, and I am making preparations to move to the other side of the country in the spring. So a girlfriend and I took a road trip together with our dogs to visit friends in New Smyrna Beach on the east coast of the state & then family in Clearwater on the west coast. How could we not go to the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, which houses the largest collection of the artist's work outside of Spain?! Here are a few of my favorites pieces in the permanent collection that were on display...and some close up shots of the incredible technical skill for which he is known.

Enchanted Beach with Three Fluid Graces-1938

The Broken Bridge and the Dream - 1945

The Average Bureaucrat - 1930

I followed the tour only while this painting was being explained since I really don't like guided Museum tours very much. However this piece is so clearly about Dali's father I was curious what he had to say. His father was a notary public, which at the time and place was very much like a lawyer. When Dali struck off on his own in his early twenties his father disowned him. This is a portrait of his father showing him while he is engaged in managing the most intimate affairs of his customers without laying eyes on them, and with no ears to hear. In the distance you can see the tiny figure of the Father and Son, hand in hand which is the only time the two family members ever spent together in relationship. Inside of his father's head are empty thought bubbles... nothing but sand and seashells. Apparently his father was too embarrassed to have a conversation with his son about the birds and the bees and instead would leave lured pamphlets about sex on the grand piano in the family home to be found. This engendered a terror of pianos in the young artist and in his future work pianos are a representation of repressed understanding of our erotic nature. In this painting the piano is present in the long dark black shadow it cast across the right side of the picture.

Shades of Night Descending - 1931

The Ecumenical Council - 1960

Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid - 1963

The Hallucinogenic Toreador - 1969 - 1970

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory - 1952 - 1954

Vela'zquez Painting the Infanta Marguerita with the Lights and Shadows of His Own Glory

- 1958

This painting in particular memorized me, it is a perfect representation of how I feel when I worked as a figure model.

Dionysus Spitting the Complete Image of Cadaques on the Tip of the Tongue of a Three-Storied Gaudinian Woman - 1958

Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire - 1940

Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra - 1936

The Weaning of Furniture-Nutrition - 1934

Beigneuse - 1928

The Three Ages - 1940

Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano - 1934

Fantasies Diurnes - 1931

I found being in the company of this painting very serene.

Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln - Homage to Rothko (Second Version) - 1976

The First Days of Spring - 1929

Sentimental Colloquy - 1944

The Front - 1930

Sugar Sphinx - 1933

Standing before Sugar Sphinx was another experience for me of being enveloped in a rendition of my inner world, right before my eyes.

My posture has suffered terribly from so much driving these last few years. My arms are always sticking out in front of my body, which means my shoulders are pushed farther behind my hips than they should be. When I stand I tend to thrust my pelvis forward. I have some mindfulness work to do incorrecting.