This article accompanies the page
Alice's Mirrors


The Great Masturbator

The Great Masturbator (1929) below was a gift by Salvador Dali to the Spanish State, and it must have appealed to his sense of humor that the painting would go on display in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. At bottom (no puns intended) is Dali pushing the limits of the boundaries between art and pornography with Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized by the Horns of Her Own Chastity (1954).

As the art critics see it, Dali had four major artistic themes throughout his life: masturbating, his wife Gala, enigmas, and melted clocks ( to which I would add a fifth, crucifixion).  They argue that his fear of impotence resulted in masturbation being the main sexual activity of his adult life and they see a strong correlation between his paintings and Freudian symbolism.  But if he was both attracted to and horrified by sex, then he certainly knew how to put on a good show.

Here are links to other Dalis on this site:

Tristan and Isolde
The Virgin of Guadalupe
Un Chien Andalou