Below, an extant fragment of a letter from Federico Garcia Lorca to Sebastian Gasch, wherein the poet recounts, with an ebullient intensity, his admiration for Salvador Dalí. Gasch, an art critic and major figure in the Catalonian avant-garde, had recently collaborated with Dalí on a project.
[Fall, 1927]
Everyday I appreciate Dalí’s talent even more. He seems to me unique and he possesses a serenity and a clarity of judgment about whatever he’s planning to do that is truly moving. He makes mistakes and it doesn’t matter. He’s alive. His denigrating intelligence unites with his disconcerting childishness, in such an unusual combination that it is absolutely captivating and original. What moves me most about him now is his fever of constructions (that is to say, creation), in which he tries to create out of nothing with such strenuous efforts and throws himself into the gales of creativity with so much faith and so much intensity that it seems incredible. Nothing more dramatic than this objectivity and this search for happiness for happiness’ sake. Remember that this has always been the Mediterranean canon. “I believe in the resurrection of the flesh,” says Rome. Dalí is the man who struggles with a golden ax against phantoms. “Don’t speak to me of supernatural things. How repulsive is Santa Catalina!” says Falla.
Oh straight line!
Pure lance without a knight!
How twisted my path
dreams of your light!
Say I. But Dalí doesn’t let himself be led. Besides his faith in astral geometry, he needs to be at the helm. It moves me; Dalí inspires the same pure emotion (and may God Our Father give me) as that of the baby Jesus abandoned on the doorstep of Bethlehem, with the germ of the crucifixion already latent beneath the straws of the cradle.
FURTHER READING
For information on “Little Ashes,” a bizarre film that speculates about a possible romance between Dalí (Robert Pattinson) and Lorca, go here.