Art: Modern Salamander

Another early hero of Surrealism, Salvador Dali, had been excommunicated for a rankling crime: success. Dali’s slick-as-grease craftsmanship and even slicker pressagenting had won him a reputation as a sort of a screwball Benvenuto Cellini in modern dress. Last week a new edition of the real Cellini’s famed Autobiography appeared (Doubleday Limited Editions; $10) and it was illustrated by Dali.

Dali had drawn 40 illustrations, and they were enough to make Cellini do a double roll in his grave. For example, Dali had decided to picture an incident when Cellini was five, and saw a lizard among the hot coals in the fireplace. The incident was memorable to Cellini, because his father “gave me a great box on the ears—and spoke as follows: ‘My dear little boy, I am not striking you for any wrong that you have done, but only to make you remember that the lizard which you see in the fire is a salamander, a creature which has never been seen before.'”

To illustrate this cozy miracle, Dali characteristically drew on his modern and Freudian imagination instead of trying to recapture Cellini’s childish wonder. Result: Dali’s salamander looked more like a roasting, disjointed dragon on a barbecue spit (see cut).

Cellini’s art had been well-tailored for a discerning market and highly polished enough to reflect the spirit of the Renaissance. Dali’s purely subjective and surprisingly slapdash illustrations did not.