Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508210097
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It may be great art - but some Bedford County women believe it needs a "PG" rating.
Especially, they say, since the reproduction of a surrealist painting that includes nudity and genitalia is in an area of the Art Museum of Western Virginia meant just for kids.
"To put something like that in the children's section - I would have to say I was offended," said Dale Dudley, one of the women who took their children to the museum's ArtVenture galleries on a field trip this month. All of the women educate their children at home, Dudley said.
Dudley said she is used to steering her boys, ages 7 and 9, away from things they aren't old enough to understand in the larger world, but "You just feel like somebody snuck something in on you when you go someplace like this. It's pretty frustrating."
At issue is a painting by the Spanish surrealist master Salvador Dali.
Experts say "Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach" shows Dali's dismay at the Spanish Civil War, which was raging when he painted it in 1938.
The original painting hangs in the Wadsworth Atheneum museum in Hartford, Conn.
The copy in the Roanoke museum - which has been there for more than two years, with nary a complaint - cost about $20, frame included, museum officials said.
As the saying goes, trouble comes cheap.
"We expected children's art," said Mary DeWald, who coordinated the Aug. 11 outing for the Bedford-based home schoolers. "Parents should be aware that this isn't all their children are viewing when they make this field trip."
DeWald's comments were made in a letter to the editor of The Roanoke Times.
In her letter, DeWald also claims the dreamlike Dali copy depicts a child being sexually molested by a man, and another child who has been molested and then left for dead.
She labeled the Dali painting "pornography" - adding, "I wonder how many parents would protest if they knew?''
The letter ran Friday.
By midday, a beleaguered museum staff was insisting to one caller after another that DeWald had got it all wrong.
"It's a reproduction of a very important painting in the Wadsworth Atheneum," said Joanne Kuebler, the museum's director. "It's especially popular with the schoolchildren in Hartford."
She said the painting is "a metaphor for the Spanish Civil War" and the desolation that it caused.
ArtVenture, which is funded by the Junior League of Roanoke Valley, is meant to give children an understanding of art history and encourage creativity, museum officials said. Between 10,000 and 12,000 schoolchildren have visited it over several years.
Museum officials said the Dali copy there is meant to show the place of surrealism in the history of art.
"I've never heard anybody complain about it before," said Lee Woody, former chairwoman of the Junior League's ArtVenture committee.
"ArtVenture is just such a wonderful children's center," Woody said. "I would like to concentrate on the positive things they have there."
Woody, who went to the museum to view the Dali again after the letter to the editor appeared, said it does not offend her. "I certainly think Mrs. DeWald is entitled to her opinion."
DeWald, in an interview, said there were "a lot of interesting things" at ArtVenture. But she also insisted the Dali painting was "not something children should be exposed to without parental guidance."
Told art experts believe the painting is intended to convey the ravages of war, DeWald replied, "There just seemed to be an awful lot of interest in genitals to me. I think you can show the ravages of war without showing all that."
Surrealism is a 20th-century movement in art that plumbs the unconscious and the dream world for its subject matter.Sexual symbolism is not uncommon in Dali's work; the Encyclopaedia Britannica notes that Dali's discovery of Sigmund Freud's writings on the erotic significance of subconscious imagery was pivotal in his development as a painter.
The late Frederick Hartt's "Art: A History of Painting- /Sculpture/Architecture" says of the Spanish painter's work: "Sometimes Dali's sexual symbolism is explicit enough to suggest pornography. Usually, however, it is veiled, but the terrifying images are always brought home with tremendous force by the virtuosity of his draftsmanship and modeling."
Dali's stature in 20th-century art is large - there are museums in Spain and in Florida devoted exclusively to his work.
Cynthia Cormier, curator of education for the Wadsworth, where the original hangs, said the molestation of children was never a theme in Dali's work.
Cormier also said they show the original "Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach" every year to thousands of schoolchildren, most of whom don't even notice the portion of the painting to which DeWald referred.
"It's very popular" among schoolchildren, Cormier said of the painting, which has an overarching theme of war's pain.
Cormier said the nakedness of the figures shows that they "are literally alone and exposed in this world. ... It's not pornographic. It's not meant to titillate in any way."
Mark Scala, the Roanoke museum's director of education, said the museum chose to use the Dali copy because it was the best example of surrealism available.
"We would never show what I think most people would consider pornography," Scala said. But he also said, "There's no question an art museum is also a museum of art history, and art history is full of nudes" - including those painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. "We had to be a genuine teacher in regard to art history."
Scala stressed that the criticism of the Dali is "not something that we take lightly.
Visitors may view the Dali copy - and the rest of ArtVenture - from 12-3 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The Dali is slated to come down Aug. 31.
by CNB