The Great Masturbator Analysis

Ai Weiwei, has had an incomprehensibly tough life, living in exile for the first 16 years on the Russian border, with a non-existent educational system in the surrounding area and harsh living conditions. He creates many pieces of art that convey and express the many experiences he’s had in his life. From being illegally arrested by the government to growing up ostracised and being an illegal alien in New York after graduation. Artwork created with such experiences and honest feelings can be highly moving and generally is interpreted in the way the artist wants you to view it. (Ai et al.) On the other hand, Salvador Dalí’s artworks are based more on his philosophies, occurrences happening around him not directly to him and the way his mind …show more content…
The main composition of this painting consists of a portrait of his face horizontal looking down on the floor, the shape inspired by a rock he saw on the coastline. In the same manner as his other works, this painting contains an immeasurable amount of symbolism, all relating to “his inner thoughts: his fears, personal anxieties, persistent obsessions.” (Dalipaintings.net). I think this work as an expression of personal experience but rather his immediate state of mind and feelings. The poem, written by Dalí, that accompanies the painting farther refers to his compulsive addiction to masturbation. Much of the metaphors he uses are inspired by the concepts and ideologies of his good friend Freud. It is certainly not a direct response to a personal experience but rather what has resulted from ordeals he had faced up till that moment in time. ‘The Great Masturbator’ is famed piece of work by Dali that shows that art is not always a direct “expression of personal experience”, but in this case an expression of one’s deepest shames, fears and infatuations, a very controversial approach to art at the time it was