Sebastian′s Arrows – Letters and Mementos of Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca - Hardcover

Salvador Dali; Federico Garcia Lorca

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0967880882 ISBN 13: 9780967880884

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2005

Synopsis

"Let us agree," Federico Garcia Lorca wrote, "that one of man's most beautiful postures is that of St. Sebastian." "In my 'Saint Sebastian' I remember you," Salvador Dali replied to Garcia Lorca, referring to the essay on aesthetics that Dali had just written, "and sometimes I think he is you. Let's see whether Saint Sebastian turns out to be you." This lively and intense exchange is but a glimpse into the complex relationship between two renowned and highly influential twentieth-century artists. On the centennial of Dali's birth, Sebastian's Arrows presents a never-before-published collection of their letters, lectures, and mementos. Written between 1925 and 1936, the letters and lectures bring to life a passionate friendship marked by a thoughtful dialogue on aesthetics and the constant interaction between poetry and painting. From their student days in Madrid's Residencia de Estudiantes, where the two waged war against cultural "putrefaction" and mocked the sacred cows of Spanish art, Dali and Garcia Lorca exchanged thoughts on the act of creation, modernity, and the meaning of their art. The volume chronicles how in their poetic skirmishes they sharpened and shaped each other's work - Garcia Lorca defending his verses of absence and elegy and his love of tradition while Dali argued for his theories of "Clarity" and "Holy Objectivity" and the unsettling logic of Surrealism. Christopher Maurer's masterful prologue and selection of letters, texts, and images (many generously provided by the Fundacion Gala-Salvador Dali and the Fundacion Federico Garcia Lorca) offer compelling and intimate insights into the lives and work of two iconic artists. The two men had a "tragic, passionate relationship," Dali once wrote - a friendship pierced by the arrows of Saint Sebastian.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Maurer, a professor of Spanish literature, is the editor of Garcia Lorca's Collected Poems, the author of Fortune's Favorite Child: The Uneasy Life of Walter Anderson, and has published extensively on sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and twentieth-century Spanish poetry.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0967880882
• ISBN 13: 9780967880884
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 220
• Editor: Christopher Maurer