Twentieth Century Don Quixote: The Character's Modern Pictorial Representation and Textual liberation

Abstract

In this study, the interpretation of Don Quixote has been examined within the work of three artists: Honore Daumier, Salvador Dali, and Joan Pon9. Each artist has represented Don Quixote in a uniquely modern artistic style that questions the artistic discipline in itself, while using it to portray the concepts and ideology of modern times. While these interpretations may not portray Don Quixote in the parodic way its author intended him to be, they are not completely romantic versions of the hero either. Don Quixote, as shown through the eyes of these three artists, has escaped the constraints of the text and has become not the nobly suffering hero of the Romantics, but the internalized hero representative of man himself in an increasingly isolated and modern society. The recurring theme of alienation from the others is then presented in this study as three different visions of Don Quixote. The first chapter seeks to examine the traces of modernity within the portrait painting of Don Quixote done by Honore Daumier. By taking the first steps towards abstraction and expressionism, as well as presenting a solution of withdrawn indifference that begins to question the state reality, Daumier sets the foundation for the modern interpretation of Don Quixote. In the second chapter, Salvador Dall depicts a Surrealist Don Quixote, illustrating a version that has completely submitted himself to the internally-based and absolute surreality. Dali reconciles the opposing internal and external realities in the figure of Don Quixote. Finally, Don Quixote faces the interior battles of existence in the work of Joan Pony. This modern, isolated depiction of Don Quixote in front of the infinite unknown marks the final transition from the external internal dialectic to that of yo vs. yo mismo . The conclusion then summarizes and confirms Don Quixote's textual liberation translated into both a modern style and concept.

Notes

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Thesis Completion

2010

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Garcia, Martha

Degree

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Degree Program

Spanish

Subjects

Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic;Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities

Format

Print

Identifier

DP0022495

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Document Type

Honors in the Major Thesis

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