Something I've been wondering about Dali

Yesterday, while throwing out the three hundred magazines that had accumulated in a pile on my desk and rediscovering South America, the map of which had been obscured by said pile of said magazines, I came across these rather gorgeous postcards from the Dali exhibition which, unconscionably, was literally the last thing I saw.

I'd barely begun wandering the exhibition when I saw this arresting number, painted in 1923.
Ages, and many wild paintings, later I saw this amazing item from 1939.
And then, by some miracle, they'd made both images into postcards. Serendipity.

Putting aside momentarily what these images says about one human's creative development within a 16-year span, I would like to draw your attention to the echoes of the first painting that exist in the second. The rocky outcrops extending from the paintings' left-hand sides. The languid ladies. The arms raised in carefree greeting. The woman touching her leg and the melting piano. The dog and the tuba.

We could try to assign these parallels to a lack of imagination on Dali's part, but I don't think that particular mud would stick in this case.

From the first time I saw these two images, so many implausible visions apart in the art gallery, I wondered if Dali had seen those parallels. Surely he did. I'm no artist. Maybe it has something to do with balance or something.

But I prefer to imagine that the correspondence between these two images reflects something of Dali's subconscious and, therefore, something of humanity.

Perhaps we all go through life according to a vision or pattern that exists innately within us, and which we cannot avoid. Perhaps life is simply about fitting the inexplicable into a form that we can grasp. Perhaps the world can only be interpreted in light of certain visions, certain necessities, so that whenever we perceive a rocky outcrop, we start looking for some kind of fluid female form and dog that doubles as a tuba.

Can we overcome our initial repertoire of forms and patterns? Or are they simply reinterpreted into different visions along essentially the same lines as we fit more and more experiences into those same frames? The Dali exhibition failed to answer either question.

On the other hand, it could be that these paintings are completely different and I'm seeing parallels that do not exist. Which says a whole lot less about Dali, but probably explains why I enjoy going to exhibitions so much.