Reinterpreting the Second Half of Salvador Dali's Career
An interview with the world's leading Salvador Dali expert, Nicolas Descharnes.
Robert Descharnes was one of Salvador Dali's closest friends from the 1950s until his passing in 1989. His son, Nicolas, grew up spending summers around Dali, even playing in his studio a few times as a child. Today, Nicolas is the world’s leading expert and authenticator of Salvador Dali’s artwork. I was lucky enough to sit down with him for close to two hours to get his perspective of Dali’s art, career, and legacy.
If you’d like to listen to the full interview, you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
*The below has been edited for clarity.
Nicolas, you have one of the most unique experiences when it comes to Salvador Dalí. You, from my understanding, grew up spending your summers in Cadaqués and as a child you used to play in his studio. And I was curious if you could kind of tell me about those experiences.
I didn't have the opportunity to be in the studio of Dalí a lot. I have been a few times, but I was a kid. I would say that I didn't have the chance because my maturity was not there to have a deep conversation with the late Salvador Dalí. I discovered Salvador Dalí by the work that my father was doing for him, researching, searching for inspiration to help Dalí and things like that. So I discovered all the research that Dalí was doing period by period.
So can you explain a little more, how is your father helping him find inspiration?
I don't think Dalí needed my father to find inspiration, but you know, they met in 1950. So Dalí was like 46, and my father was 24. So he was very happy to have these young guys, who have the same skill as him regarding curiosity for everything that is around you. And we know that Salvador Dalí was perfect for that, trying to interpret everything that happened to him. And I guess there are a lot of contemporary people who live the same. The very unique in Dalí is that he used that for creation. So in fact, all his life was a kind of therapy. His main quest is a spiritual quest for the faith, to acquire the faith. So he was very afraid about death and looking to acquire faith, it's to attain serenity. So a few times he says that he believed, but he didn't accept the faith. But I think that was more for marketing because I have worked on the painting that he did in Fatima, regarding the Vision of Fatima, these three boys that in 1917 had the vision of Lady of Fatima, and he met the sister Lucia, who was one of the three kids, the only one that survived after the apparition. And we believe that at that time, probably he attends faith, because he wrote in 1951, like 10 years before, he wrote the Mystic Manifesto, and the conclusion was that he was looking for faith and he was dreaming of painting a portrait of the Christ. And he did it 10 years later, which is the Christ of Vallés. And he depicted the portrait of the Christ that he wanted to paint with a face very quiet and happy. And that's exactly his painting with the crown of thorns.
That's an interesting interpretation of his career, because a lot of the stuff that I've been looking at, everyone seems to focus a lot less so on his faith and his progression towards faith, and more so on the paranoiac critical method. So how do those two things fit together? How did he get from the paranoiac critical method to faith? Did it help him find faith in any way?
The paranoiac critical method helped him for the creation, but to interpret all what's happening around him and in his dreams and the coincidences between events. It's quite difficult and it was even difficult for him to give a perfect, clear and simple definition, which I did later on because of my maturity and everything. Now, this is my opinion. So for me, the critical paranoiac method – it's like you register everything that happened, then you try to link them and it generates the creation. So the association is irrational, but the way he put it on the canvas, you make it rational to be able to explain, to show that to the people. But as he says, even for him, sometimes he doesn't have the explanation of the composition. The meaning, of course, the composition, it's him who created it. So it was very much a study, you know? Well, I think that what he wanted was really to do cinema, but it was very difficult for him to work in teams. There is one drawing where he wrote in French, but I'm going to say it in English, the difficulty is to finish. So you can imagine you have played only with two dimensions. When you go to cinema, it's three dimensions. And then [when you factor in] time, you have four dimensions. So that was even more difficult.
Do you think it was true that he didn’t know the meaning behind his images or was he trying to leave that open to interpretation for his audience? Because as soon as he would tell them what he thinks it means, that's what everyone else is going to accept.
The artwork by Dalí makes you interrogate your subconscious. That's why it's so popular. The thing is that you can say he's crazy or whatever. But the way he was painting was to ensure that the people will, even if they don't agree with him, they can say, wow, the paintings are beautiful, like the great master of the Renaissance.
Did the Great Masters of the Renaissance have a greater impact than people realize on him? I feel like that's overlooked by many people when it comes to talking about his influences.
Dalí started to be with the Surrealists in 1929, then he was ejected in 1934, but they knew that he was so powerful that more or less he was still connected. But at the end, 1939-1940, he left for the US. All his paintings from the very Surrealist period don't have an angel represented, they don’t have a biblical representation. And then in 1939-1940, it turned to that, but his creations after 1940 weren't that popular in the classical art world. It was rediscovered recently, in the last twenty years. When the atomic bomb happened, Dalí was convinced that there would be a second renaissance. But after the second world war, the world turned completely materialist. And [Dalí] was alone in the quest of spirituality. This is the great difference between the surrealist period and the period after 1940.
I'm curious what you think has led to that resurgence in appreciation for the second half of his career?
I think it's the evolution of society.
Explain.
The influence of the Renaissance. If you look at the painting of the Renaissance, it's very linked to spirituality. And now. you have one great doctor and writer in the US, which is Raymond Moody, who wrote in 1972, The Life After Life, and he studied near-death experiences and things like that and it became accepted by the scientific community. You know, it's the classical problem between science and spirituality. I think now there are all these tools that if you connect to art, could make people understand some of the paintings of Dalí because he made reference to the great painter of the Renaissance and spirituality.
Oftentimes science and spirituality don't necessarily go together, but Dalí was unique in the fact that he was both scientific and spiritual. So he was able to kind of combine those two things in his works as well.
Correct. But that’s the challenge – to merge science and spirituality. Everybody wants to have proof of the existence of God. I like the image of the angel, and the angels are present in many religions, including in India, they have a correspondence with the angel. I say the angel, but you can say, the little voice that came to me and said, you shouldn't do that. What I really believe is that you can trust this “voice” or your angel and it helps you in your life.
What do you think is most misunderstood about Dalí?
I would say the spirituality. When he uses some moment of the Bible or recycles a painting linked to the Bible from the Renaissance it's not because he's a Catholic, it is because it's a moment that depicts a strong text or a strong happening in the Bible. Maybe if he was born I don't know, in Lebanon or whatever it would have been the Koran, but he's born in Spain so the roots are Catholic, the Christianity. The good question would have been if he had been born in a Jewish family, because one day I had a long discussion with a Jewish friend of mine and we were discussing science and religion. And he said in the Jewish religion, you never try to mix the two. It's two different places, two different things, and they never try to connect or to study one versus the other or whatever, which is not the case in the Christianity. Why? Because Christianity is bicephale (two-headed). You have the power on earth and you have the spiritual power. It's like the Catholic, the religious and then there was this conflict between the science and spirituality.
But I think that's the power of his images is it allows us to confront this duality of science and religion. He makes it more digestible, we're able to confront this challenge through his art.
Yes.
What do you think his legacy is today? Because I feel like it has shaped, and molded, and changed so often during his life and the time since his death.
His legacy... I would say for me, is the search for spirituality and faith.
Nicolas, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much. Take care.
Bye bye.
Thanks for reading! If you’d like to listen to the full interview, you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.