Though from a distance they may look very different, when you step inside the minds of Salvador Dali and Wilfredo Lam you will find them to be very alike in the way they create their masterworks. It is true that their overall styles and quantity of detail are quite contrasting, but in the way of their processes and features they are very similar. For instance, it is common in both artists to see repetition. They both have certain characters or objects that appear in many different works of each artist, such as the image of Dali as a boy or the strange round-headed devil-looking creatures in several of Lam's works. Another instance of similarity can be found in the fact that they both use double image work as well as an undeniable air of surrealism. I saw this most prevalent in Lam's later works of the late 40s to mid 50s.

Le Revѐ II, or The Dream II, was an oil on canvas piece that Lam did in 1947 that immediately gave a feeling of his true feelings. He moved around a lot in his life, sometimes to get away from turmoil and war, and in this painting, he shows what appears to be one of his nightmares. Using dark, earthy colors, which are common throughout Lam's works, he portrays a very surreal display of triangular shaped beings. They appear to be flying and weaving around a skeleton-like figure lying at the bottom of the painting. This piece struck me as very unique among his collection, because although he uses several darker colors, this was the only one I say that was fully black. It seemed that there was color beneath the black, but it was covered up by the darkness. I assume this to be symbolism possibly for his creative talents being disrupted by traumatic events of a sort. It seemed that in his time, he changed his style several times, because in the early 1940s and earlier, he used different shapes and colors in his work.

In his 1944 oil on canvas La Serra, or The Greenhouse, he uses explosive colors in an almost abstract forest scene. In complete contrast to Le Revѐ, Lam puts together a work that celebrates another common theme throughout his work, nature. This image of a multi-hued forest caught my interested because I noticed that although he uses a brighter array of colors, they are still earthy colors often found in jungles and such. So, the ever present idea of nature floods many of his later, more surreal works, but his earlier works were more straight-forward. Cabeza, or Head, which Lam did in 1939, and Femme aux cheveux longs I, or Woman with Long Hair, in 1938, along with several late 1930s works, showed people with full oval heads. The shape of the human head was constantly changing in his works because by the early 40s the oval head had transformed into a crescent shaped head, which eventually became a triangular head in the late 40s and 50s. I didn't see such changes in Salvador Dali's works, but I did see many other similarities.

Lam and Dali lived and worked in the same time period, and I think the times as well as their surroundings most definitely influenced their works, but I also think they found a lot of their surrealism in dreams. One dream sequential painting done by Dali has always intrigued me because of its symbolism and that is the oil on canvas Oeufs sur le Plat sans le Plat (1932). This can be compared with Lam's Le Revѐ because both of them are dream inspired works. Dali's work is filled with immense attention to detail and an array of symbolic images such as an egg yolk, which symbolizes a fetus or birth, and a phallic symbol of a carrot. While in Lam's work, he portrays what appear to be death and the afterlife through the images of a skeleton and demons. These ideas of life and death as well as religious subjects are common throughout both artists. Dali uses no background in this painting other than the sun setting colors of oranges and yellows. The absence of a background is also a similarity between the two paintings, although the use to colors is greatly dulled in Lam's compared to the vibrancy of Dali's works. Frankly, I can't think of a reason for such a contrast in color other than the fact of the artist's style being so. Personally, both paints are wonderful in their own ways.