The Spanish artist’s two etchings relating to Shakespeare’s Macbeth are on display at Victoria Memorial Hall, says Sudipto Mullick From Kolkata.
Heritage monument cum museum, The Victoria Memorial Hall (VMH) is presently exhibiting two rare original colour etchings of Catalan surrealist giant, Salvadore Dalí, which will run till the end of July.
It’s the only Dali artwork available anywhere in India on a permanent basis — be it a gallery or a museum. The only other major exhibition that comes to mind was the recent “Dalí Comes to India” at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre and thereafter to Massarrat by Bruno Art Group spanning February 23 to March 16, but both were timed exhibitions.
Surreal Shakespeare
Displayed in the Central Hall of the museum, the etchings are as such untitled, however VMH has coded them as R7695 and R7696. Both the etchings, are a part of Dalí’s ‘Macbeth series’ and are made on copper plates, printed on Japanese rice paper with cotton threads and signed by the artist in pencil. Dalí is known to have created this series comprising 12 illustrations in 1946 for Doubleday & Company’s reprint of “Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare, which feature surreal and eerie interpretation of the bard’s tragedy. Though small in size (average about 12 inches X 18 inches) one can still adduce his characteristic signature surrealism iconography comprising dreamlike imagery, symbolic landscapes, and distorted figures, which in the case of these series commensurate with themes of ambition, guilt, violence and the supernatural.
Some viewers might have difficulties in relating the Shakespearean tragedy to these plates because these are not a direct literal depiction but are rather his symbolic, surrealistic and complex interpretation of the elements which provocatively veer towards the dark psychological aspects of the plot.
Quite in line with Dalí’s mien, these series of etchings were declared as “excessively strange” by a contemporary New York Times article.
The twin works on display are, similarly, to be viewed with a liberal mind. R7695, most probably, is a portrait of Macbeth about to go into battle. A stratified Macbeth, with a brandished sword in hand, is shown to extend to a horse from the lower-end with rickety upwardly-pointing tail. The bulbous belly segues to a dragon’s wing with the front portion of the horse being just a skeletal structure with weakened ribs. This could highlight Macbeth’s inner yearning, ambition, and confidence to go to the battle yet the psychological basis of which being unconvincing, can only end in decay, destruction, and death.
The R7696 is probably a reaction to The Witches on the Blasted Heath. Three well-bouffanted orange-heads from the rear are sprouting strong rays hitting the eye situated in the distant evil looking ‘witchy’ hand flanked by green scribbly lines, probably hinting at heathy vegetation and or the stormy situation. Irrespective of what it is, one can get a sense of the mystery and foreboding.
Come This Way
This is only the third time that these works are being put up for public display after 1993 — three years after VMH received them, and 2014. They came VMH’s way when Calcutta born, New York-based abstract expressionist, Bimal Banerjee donated them, in 1990, along with 83 other original drawings, etchings, lithographs, and opaque watercolours including works by Giorgio de Chirico, Italian artist.
Mr Banerjee, in turn, received the two rarities from Dali himself, as a neat exchange for some of his own works, during their meeting in Paris in 1972. One might recollect Dalí to famously design a set of whimsical ashtrays for Air India, to be distributed to first class passengers and in lieu, he all the more famously and outrageously demanded an Indian baby elephant as compensation! Dalí’s demand might seem outrageous, but those familiar with the artist and his legacy know that it was very much in keeping with his personality.
India In Dalí
It might be interesting to note that Dalí was immensely fascinated with Indian mysticism in the 1960s and 1970s but he could not ever make a visit. Such was his fervour that, despite not being able to make a trip, he none the less took surrogate inspiration from photographs by Pierre Argillet, a French arts collector who had purposefully experienced the spiritual quests in India in the 1970s, during the peak hippie movement. Of course, Dalí’s transcreation of those photographs into paintings will be all of his own. These paintings have sages, elephants, and temples alright, but not in the way that we know it. Human bodies would be sprouting flowers for heads; eyeballs dancing in a psychedelic matrix of squiggles and strokes and even the lifeless — the dismembered body parts would be strangely animated in their idiosyncratic surroundings. His works were an extension of his own colourful and eccentric outlook of life, complete with flamboyant suits and severely pointy moustache that almost seem to be puncturing his eyes.
Which now brings us to the exhibition — quite contrary to the stature of the artist – in every sense, the showcasing of his works here, are anything but well received. Instead of taking a hallowed centre space, most of the visitors who are uninitiated, simply walk by it. There is simply no preparation or announcement. The details (very basic) of the works in a nearby signage are shy of declaring. Mr Banerjee’s purpose for donating these masterpieces, that of providing Indians a chance to view original modern European masters reflect his deep love for art and great generosity.
