Salvador Dalí
Alice is a muse for a moustached man that moussed the mind of a mathematician. Even the Queen dazzled with the story of the donzel. Queen Victoria met Lewis Carroll, asking him if he’d written more books. He replied “many more”, so the Queen responded that she wanted to read them all. Next morning, at the gates of Buckingham Palace, stood a huge package with all the mathematical treatises by the authorship of Charles Dodgson. Yes, Carroll was Dodgson and Dodgson is logically the name of a mathematician. Alice, daughter of Charles’ friend Liddell, asked the mathematician for a “crazy” tale, during an afternoon by the river. The story poured out that very boat with a hurried Rabbit, but time flew on and the limitless story hung on through the summer, incomplete. Yet, Dodgson didn't forget to sketch the story that night, publishing it two years later. Still, the Muse to come was not the real Alice, who grow up to be dull and banal, much like those who choose to grow up - the character that came to help shape surrealism lived among pages. The first person to ever illustrate this madness was John Tenniel. Although far from surrealism, within the Victorian illustration style, the nonsense spirit of the book blinked with irony, for he who envisioned Wonderland was one eyed blind. Alice is still a muse for those seeking the oneiric, it was only natural for the girl who dreamed to be pictured by the painter of sleep, Dali. But Alice was not his only Muse. “Only” is not really a perfect choice of words for another Muse: Gala. Gala lived in the artistic environment, inspiring and stimulating. Gala, Paul Éluard and Max Ernst engaged for three years in a “ménage à trois". Later she would meet the young Spanish prodigy Salvador Dalí. She became such an important part of his Art that the Surrealist started to sign both his and her name - “It is with your blood, Gala, that I paint”I too have a Muse, with whom I would love to see the world, but he keeps getting in the way every time I peek through the mirror. How will I look “Through the Looking Glass”, then?
- Artur Deus Dionisio
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