"Moral Code" of Goya, Dali Paintings Examined in Lawrence University Lecture

APPLETON, WIS. -- The works of noted Spanish painters Francisco de Goya and Salvador Dalí and their efforts to provide society with a "moral code" will be compared in a Lawrence University Mortar Board Lecture.

Gustavo Fares, associate professor and chair of the Lawrence Spanish department, presents, "Spatial Metaphors of the Irrational in Spain: Goya and Dali," Tuesday, April 10 at 7 p.m. in Lawrence's Wriston Art Center auditorium. The slide illustrated lecture is free and open to the public.

Fares will examine the symbolization of "irrational" elements in the works of both artists. He will discuss the representations of Spanish moral codes of the late 18th and early 19th century, when the irrational was seen as a societal vice with tragic consequences in the political sphere, with the 1920s and 1930s, when the irrational was considered liberation from bourgeois society mores and rules and a way to attain self-knowledge.

A native of Argentina, Fares joined the Lawrence faculty last fall. A specialist in Latin American literature and culture, Fares earned a bachelor's degree and his law degree in Argentina, two master's degrees at the Unviversity of West Virginia and his Ph.D. in Latin American Literature at the Univeristy of Pittsburgh.