Assignment 5A...

Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man (1943).

Cropped Version of Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man.

THOUGHTS:

I was drawn to this original image of Salvador Dali's because of it's interesting use of space. Though the entire painting seems to be extremely flowing (such as the continents of what I subjectively believe to be the earth) there are major breaks in space as Dali uses three people as depth cues. The first is barely distinguishable (a cue that it is at too great a depth for the human eye to see), the second seems to be in the forefront, and the third is up close, at the right/bottom portion of the painting. Breaking the painting into three using the Rule of Thirds, it is clear that Dali has followed the school of thought that believes the focal point of the painting should be in the middle third. It is interesting that despite all of the norms that Dali tended to break, he still followed this rule, seeming to know that it is undeniable that the eye is drawn to the middle third.

Objectively, I chose the portion of the painting that I did, because I believe it is the most intricate and debatable part of the painting. When the other pieces are ruled out, it is easier to focus on what I interpreted to be an egg/the earth. In this cropped version, the "Geopoliticus child" is absent entirely, which seems to leave us with a painting of simply "the Birth of the New Man". I believe that in doing this, I have removed some, but not all, of the subtext from the text. What I mean by this is that without the Geopoliticus child, this painting subjectively seems to have much less political (and possibly religious) subtext. Instead, with the cropped version, I believe the audience is forced to confront the Birth of the New Man alone, and read purely into its text.

I believe that Salvador Dali chose not to zoom in on the part that I have cropped from his original painting because he had a lot more to say than just what lies within the cropped version. Most of Dali's paintings have great depth. Only after Dali sold out and painted purely for profit did his paintings begin to lack this depth and spacial play. Dali chose to expand this painting, because he wanted to show more than just what the cropped version can reveal. Though it is hard to objectively say what all of the pieces of this painting mean together, it is clear that Dali at least believed that each component was necessary to fully express what he was truly trying to say.

JAC...