cheech

A journalist has come from New York to ask me what I think of Leonardos Mona Lisa. I tell him:
I am a very great admirer of Duchamp, who happens to be the man who has made those famous transformations on the face of the Gioconda. He drew a very small moustache on her, a moustache that was already Dalinian. Below the photograph, he added in very small letters that could only just be read: L.H.O.O.Q. Elle a chaud a cul! which in French means, Her cunt is hot. For myself, I have always admired that attitude of Duchamps, which at the time corresponded to a question that was even more important- whether or not the Louvre Museum should be burned down. At that moment, I was already a fervent admirer of ultra-retrograde painting, incarnated by the great Meissonier, whom I have always considered to be a painter very superior to Cezanne. And, of course, I was one of those who said that the Louvre Museum should not be burned down. Up to now, I see my point of view on the subject has been taken into consideration- the Louvre Museum has not been burned down. It is evident that if it should suddenly be decided to burn it down, the Gioconda should be saved and if need be even transported with all dispatch to America. And not only because she has a great psychological frailty. Throughout the world, there exists an absolute Giocondolatry. Many people have attacked the Gioconda, notably in lapidating her some years ago, the very type of a flagrant case of aggression against ones own mother. Knowing all Freud thought about Leonardo da Vinci, all that the latters art kept hidden in his subconscious, it is easy to deduce that he was in love with his mother when he painted the Gioconda. Without realizing it, he painted someone who has all the sublimated maternal attributes. She has big breasts, and she looks upon those who contemplate her in a wholly maternal way. At the same time, she smiles in an equivocal manner. Everybody has seen, and can still see today, that there was a very determinant element of eroticism in that equivocal smile. So, what happens to the poor wretch who is possessed by an Oedipus complex, that is the complex of being in love with his mother? He goes into a museum. A museum is a public house. In his subconscious it is a brothel. And in this brothel he sees the representation of the prototype of every mother. The agonizing presence of his mother gives him a tender look and an equivocal smile and drives him to a criminal act. He commits matricide by picking up the first thing that comes to hand, a stone, and destroying the painting. It is a typical paranoiac aggression
On leaving, the journalist said to me, It was worth the trip!
I should think it was worth the trip! I watched him climbing the hill, deep in thought. As he walked, he bent down to pick up a stone.

-- Diary of a Genius (May 13th, 1956), Salvador Dali