This is a painting by Salvador Dali. He entitled it "Neo-Cubist Academy (Composition with Three Figures)." The name is a little puzzling. It's a very striking picture. What it's not is a cubist picture. Not, at least, if you're expecting to see something like Picasso in his best-known Cubist phase, or Georges Braque. Maybe Dali meant that he was reducing the amount of visual information in a comparable way. It makes for drama and beauty here.
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Apparently Cubism developed because photography had made Realism redundant. I've never developed the sophistication to see most examples of Cubism as other than 3D jigsaw puzzles. I know Picasso is a genius but I hate most of his paintings. Braque I like a lot more.
I agree that this image by Salvador Dali does not amswer the definition of Cubist. However, it is a beautiful image for the reasons you named.
Jer asked me to send you his favorite story of so far this week. You may have heard about the fire under a bridge in LA where pallets that were stored caught fire. The bridge was repaired and here's a picture and the story of how this was done. Then there's the video.. You can't make this stuff up.
The development of the camera was a motivating factor behind a lot of 20th century art movements. Fauvism and expressionism also come to mind. With the outer world transferred directly onto silver plates art became concerned strictly with inner worlds. I get what you mean about Picasso. It's easier to see his influence everywhere than to actually enjoy him.
With Dali I guess you have to take him seriously, not literally. But yeah, it is a wonderful painting.
The first paragraph of that Substack essay was certainly an attention grabber. I thought that surely Bray must be exaggerating. And then I saw the video. Apparently the LA freeway is being held up by popsicle sticks and Elmer's now. That's just great.
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