Dali's Secret Masterpiece: The Vision Of Hell (Art History Documentary) | Perspective

paper was light gold in medieval times i want tobacco sugar [Music] that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong [Music] you were looking at a painting by salvador dali it is called the vision of hell only a handful of people have seen it is a religious painting one that this master of surrealism was hired to create dali was an exhibitionist his work in himself were always on display yet this painting was a secret no one saw him paint it it was never catalogued and he never talked about it yet it changed the direction of his work and his life this painting is dali's greatest secret [Music] salvador dali was never one to hide his light under a bushel perhaps the greatest artistic genius of the 20th century some feel he was even on par with the great leonardo da vinci and like all great artists he agreed to do commercial work paintings done on commission from organizations or individuals who wanted the master's touch and that's why author paul perry begins his book research at the fatima shrine in fatima portugal it is visions that took place here that led dali to paint the vision of hell not just any vision of hell the vision of hell the vision of hell was seen here at fatima on july 13th 1917 by three shepherd children innocently caring for their sheep it was a horrific vision so horrific that the children were petrified at the mere thought of what they had seen word of the vision leaked out and fatima became a pilgrimage site of a magnitude that continues to today the children had a total of six apparitions and three visions but it was the vision of hell that seared these visions into the minds of the believers it was the beginning of the hippie era and a young priest in training convinced the movement's leader john hafford that he could reach young people with a bold artistic statement and recommended salvador dali which is why hafert reached out to dali with an offer to paint a petrifying glimpse of hell it should have been an easy transaction just to work for higher commission for the master of the surreal but it turned into something much more it turned into dali's greatest secret [Music] it was 1959 and john hafford had a question for god how can i get more young people to join the organization the organization was the blue army also known as the world apostolate of fatima on the last day of the year he got his answer a letter from a catholic seminarian gave him the perfect answer have surrealist painter salvador dali paint the vision of hell one of the mystical visions seen by the three children the seminarian was a young man we will call matthew because even after all these years he is asked to remain anonymous matthew told hafford of his life as a merchant seaman and his conversion to catholicism after seeing the miracle of fatima at a dilapidated theater in monrovia liberia on the west african coast [Music] courage faith understanding these were their only weapons and they were forged in the simple hearts of three children who found in this quiet meadow in fatima portugal something so wonderful so inspiring so powerful that it made men with guns tremble before children with truth matthew said that he had wept through much of the film i could not explain this response he wrote to heffert i only knew that i had discovered something wonderfully strange and mysterious and yet very real i wanted to know even more about this miracle the miracle was the apparitions and visions the three children had in 1917 but the one that affected it most profoundly was the first vision the vision of hell the apparitions of fatima made matthew a believer there was no longer a question in his mind about hell it truly existed the movie drove matthew to the priesthood it also obsessed him with the notion of a living breathing hell he wanted to save souls from eternal damnation he wrote to hafert and there was only one way to do that he declared have salvador dali paint it dali a religious painting the vision of hell why not he had done religious paintings before the idea was perfect or so thought heifered it was john hafford's marketing talents that led pope pius xii to call him the greatest man in the world [Music] it was he unlike anyone else said the pope who had managed to bring the message of fatima to the four corners of the world most everything one sees at fatima the churches the devotion the hotels and the pilgrims pilgrims pilgrims was somehow touched by the determined john hafford which is why he was known to many as mr fatima heffert founded the world apostolate of fatima also known as the blue army at one time it had more than 80 million members worldwide john hafford was really the man who was the instrument that caused this organization to expand from a small seed and mushroom to this organization that is over in over a hundred nations now salvador dali was so unique in his mind his thought process his life which was all expressed in his art form you know as the father of surrealism this this was a new art form um and it was an art form that was not representing the real world uh in a way that any other artist had done and i think he understood that hell is not something we could represent the way a typical artist would represent it in salvador dali with his unique mind his unique style was the best choice to represent this world that was immaterial yet extremely powerful as salvador dali's paintings were hafford saw a painting by dali as something shocking and provocative a way to attract a lot of attention especially from young people it was obvious that matthew saw it the same way our goal is to create a hell consciousness to accomplish this we need salvador dali as the painter because a picture any picture by dolly is news it attracts attention i think that the publishers of life magazine would publish a print of such a painting and thus carry it to some 12 or 14 million people 12 to 14 million viewers of the painting matthew was proposing more than a painting he was proposing a blue army recruitment poster the date was may 13 1917. and three children lucio dos santos and cousins jacinta and francisco marto were driving their family sheep to a grazing area near the town of fatima suddenly a bright flash from the sky brought them to attention then a second flash took place and with it came the apparition of a lady brighter than the sun floating above the home oak trees the lady introduced herself as being from heaven and asked the children if they were prepared to accept all the suffering that god was about to heap on them for the conversion of sinners the lady told the children to return to this place on the 13th of every month for the next five months at which point she would tell them who she was and what she wanted she promised a sign that everyone could see one that validated the apparitions and then the lady rose and flew eastward on a path of light word of the apparition spread and soon everyone in town was frightened by the attention it was attracting the communists were trying to erase religion from portugal and didn't need apparitions from the virgin mary the freemasons a powerful political party saw this as a catholic plot to restore the monarchy even the catholic church was concerned in these troubled times they were trying to play it safe and keep a low profile and then there was lucia's angry mother and doubtful family father andrew apostoli tells the family's story her family did not believe her the mother thought she was making the whole story up and so she was very angry with lucia her sisters were angry at her some of the neighbors made fun of her she suffered a great deal yes the mother was abusive um they say that she even slapped her daughter and she she kind of got a bit hysterical at times and then to top that off the mother was afraid that if they're making up this story the people are going to be furious at them you know for arousing everybody's interest in a vision of the blessed mother so she was uh i understand uh somewhat severe with um lucia and she she almost to the end did not believe almost still the miracle of the sun despite the fear and loathing that was heaped on the children the trio returned to the kova on june 13th 1917 as they promised the lady they would and when they arrived 50 faithful catholics from town were awaiting them the lady revealed to lucia that the other two children jacinta and francisco would die soon lucia she said would be left on earth to make the messages known and that was it for the lady's second appearance as lucia said she had gone back to heaven and the door had closed [Music] the children returned to the cove on july 13 and surrounded by three thousand spectators they were treated to the first of the three secrets that would be revealed to them by the virgin the vision of hell a ray of light seemed to come from the lady's hand and penetrate the earth and we saw a great sea of fire in that fire were souls like black embers floating in the wind there were great clouds of smoke and showering sparks everywhere with shrieks and groans of sorrow and despair that horrified us it made us tremble with fear the devils looked like strange animals terrible and disgusting the transparency of glowing coals frightened and begging for help we raised our eyes to the lady who said to us with sadness but also great kindness you saw hell where the poor sinners go to save the world god wants the world to turn to me if they do what i tell you many souls will be saved and there will be peace john hafford read the letter from matthew the seminarian and then he read it again the words of matthew told him that this young seminarian was a kindred spirit a man studying to be a priest who had big and unique ideas of his own and wasn't afraid to manifest them as hafer wrote his reply to matthew he began to wonder would sister lucia now a cloistered nun talk to salvador dali or for that matter would salvador dali even be interested in talking to her didn't the great delhi hate religion dolly liked a good challenge too in these photos from a never completed film we see dali challenging an unbeatable foe at the paris suit and then applying his newfound knowledge of rhino horns to paint a copy of the lace maker by dutch painter vermeer as a young man dali studied the new psychology of sigmund freud and learned to explore his dreams for images the dreamscapes he puts on canvas made him the most famous surrealist in the world especially the painting known as persistence of memory the melting clocks the persistence of memory put salvador dali at the very top of the surrealistic game where other artists of his time like picasso painted about the interaction between men and women salvador dali's paintings looked at the interaction in the human mind his paintings helped people interrogate their own subconscious delhi's work provided a visual explanation of surrealism that a written manifestos could not attain but still dali was drummed out by the surrealist movement in 1934 by its founder andre briton he felt that dali's work was too thought out and therefore too commercial to be truly surreal that was fine with dolly he went solo and created his own school of art the paranoia critical method the paranoia critical method was like guided surrealism rather than wait for inspiration dali would make it by combining things that had no rational link to one another a rock in a human head for example or a rhino horn you get the picture dully was trying to systemize irrational thought in the same way a person with paranoia does dully was perfectly suited for the task [Music] the art world loved his new philosophy and over the next two decades dali grew to become the most famous flamboyant and wealthiest artist in the world he had mastery over his universe he was loved by celebrities and was a celebrity himself yet as he aged he found himself slipping slowly into a spiritual crisis [Music] but soon world events took place that shook dali's spiritual life the explosion of the atom bomb on 6 august 1945 sent a seismic shock through me mysticism that is to say the profound intuitive knowledge of what is direct communications with the all absolute vision by the grace of truth by the grace of god [Music] it was the power of the atom bomb a greater understanding of science a deeper need for spirituality that drew dolly to create another school of painting a form of religion that combined god science and mysticism he called this new school nuclear mysticism [Music] it seems to me that he wanted to believe in mysticism but not religion that's exactly it absolutely he wanted he was mystical but religious to him seems something for for the people the people this is a mandolier writer musician artist and dully's close friend for nearly two decades she remembers much of dali's mystical views during this period he spent a lot of private time with dolly and i'm curious to know if he ever talked to you about immortality heaven and hell about immortality yes quite a lot he was he was desperate to to become immortal uh strangely enough he in those days what 40 years or so ago they they had discovered a cryochlorogenic that that you can be frozen when you die and he said i'm going to be frozen i i i want to sign the the agreement that as soon as i die they'll freeze me like i think they did that towards this name and then they'll wake me up in a hundred years and you know i'd be reanimated so he wanted to live forever he believed probably in a god but not the way we see it not the the iconic god that we see in churches i think it was very it was very strange because one day we spoke about the stanley fabric uh movie 2001 space odyssey he liked very much stanley fabric and he said to me you see the way stanley kubrick imagined god was his black monolith that's that piece of black thing and he said god in fact is like this i think god is about that big this is you can't measure god i say you can't you say yeah yeah i'm sure god is about that big that long that and it's a concentrate of of some kind of cosmic energy or some kind of spirit there it exists but it is not an old man with a white beard it's definitely some some spirit who up there direct everything that's the way so god of course it's a different vision the nuclear mystical period combined dali's passion for science and mysticism which he referred to as being religious and hallucinogenic but as much as he loved the work that came from this period the critics despised it they seemed to me to be blatant expressions of morbid eroticism in which the artist had abused the right of sanctuary to the point of sacrilege complete rubbish and the purest catch most stinging of all came from dolly's old friend andre breton who intimated that dolly had become nothing but a hack for the pope the effect of all this harsh criticism on dali there was no effect like the saints of old delhi had been blinded by the light of spiritual revelation in fact dolly loved his strange mix of science religion and mysticism and as a result his work became far more religious and unabashedly so what was going on in dali's mind this is nicholas descharns who along with his father robert makes the team of descharns and desharns the most renowned of dolly experts robero was dali's photographer and confidant for almost 40 years he was appointed by dali himself as the lifetime trustee and delegate of foreign affairs for the salvador dali foundation they maintain their important dali archive in the secret limestone cave in the loire valley of france paul went to their archive to discuss the painting and most specifically to ask nicholas one burning question did daley have a religious conversion in 1959 he was 55 and he had lived the loss of his mother than his father and my feeling is that he had a conversion i really believe that he did this conversion now the question is is why did it so late maybe it's because he didn't have the opportunity and the opportunity was reading the message of fatima and working on the subject and do you think he concealed it because it wasn't good for his career i think he concealed the his conversion because it was bad for marketing yeah that could be that could be because he had to stay with his text and his uh his declaration that he had before saying that a religion is a spiritual architecture but also he say that in his opinion the catholic religion is the best architecture spiritual architecture he must have believed that in 1958 dalian gala had an audience with the pope who granted them a church wedding after the death of her first husband the poet paul eulard and soon this fallen catholic declared himself reborn and promised to modernize the ancient icons of the faith little did dolly know that he was about to get a chance to provide that link to the metaphysical and do it for an apostolate of the catholic church the letter that introduced salvador dali to the vision of hell was delivered to him in the lobby at the saint regis hotel in new york city it was from matthew the seminarian and quoted large portions of sister lucia's memoir what dolly read must have flipped his mystical switches he realized that his canvas had been chosen to be the window between heaven and hell [Music] one thing was sure dali wanted to meet mr fatima himself john hafford to discuss what happened next dolly expert nicholas descharns was brought to the castle of aram in portugal to meet with carlos evaristo hafford's friend and successor in the orianna historical foundation this is the heart of the castle of rain very medieval that's the character of delhi absolutely it's very surrealist evaristo proved to be a wealth of information about the dali painting and his mysterious meeting over lunch at the saint regis hotel in new york with john hafford it was a meeting that would change dali's life it's interesting that what salvador dali ordered was escargot and picking up the escargot fork he explained to hafert his concept of what he was going to do for the painting he said mr hafford many of the ancient painters dante and other people used devils with pitchforks pronging at the at prying at the souls in hell we will use escargo forks and he explained why he took a snail and he said the man who is a sinner cowers in shame and curls up in the shell like the snail and so the sinner's soul can only be retracted with escargot forks snail forks john had asked salvador dali how much the painting would cost dolly had this cane and and heffert said he twisted his mustache and he raised the cane and he said senor haffert the size of my cane 25 000 and then he lowered the cane he said half the size of the cane 15 000 and he sent him the check with this letter and uh in the check uh with the check uh he wrote and and i'm going to quote now he said herewith is included the 15 000 for the painting the vision of hell which i would appreciate you make the size of your cane and he said he was a good chap he did it it was now 1959 and a secret was coming the third secret of fatima the first secret was the horrific vision of hell the second another world war and the rise of communism [Music] and then there was a third secret one so prophetic that the vatican kept it locked in a box in the office of the pope but now the vatican promised that they would release the long-awaited third secret in 1960 and hafer wanted to be ready the revelation would be used by this marketing genius as a way of selling fatima to the world to do this he started an interview show for catholic television called countdown 1960 in which he hosted interviews with catholic leaders including future president john f kennedy a militant member of the blue army but it's because our concept of government fits the basic nature of man and man desires to be independent and therefore in my opinion ultimately he is not going to accept the soviet system which denies the existence of god which most people believe in around the world as well as in the united states and uh which seeks to put an overlord over him from abroad now that in my opinion is the achilles heel as it has been of napoleon and every other leader in history who seeks to expand his power beyond his national boundary john hafford was a man of tremendous talent and huge ideas ideas that just kept ballooning one after the other after the other it was as if he had a vision and then he would attempt to accomplish that a vision and that vision would just expand and expand into one greater and greater vision and just kept going and going so most of us you know have a vision and we spend so much time trying to achieve it he achieved his vision so quickly and then it just expanded and expanded and expanded so he was able to achieve so much in a short period of time the plan john hafford had for the salvador dali painting of the vision of hell was to help people understand not only that hell exists but to get a truer feeling of what hell would be like a national television show two large jets to fly pilgrims to portugal a hotel to house them and now a salvador dali painting to illustrate hell hafford's campaign for fatima was in place for the big bang of catholicism the revelation of the third secret [Music] salvador dali's world was surreal everywhere he settled for any period of time whether home or abroad was graced with an air of surreality created by the master his home in port lagot on spain's costa brava was like living in one of his paintings so too was his magnificent castle in pubol another monument to surreality even the hotels where dali and gala spent much of the year found themselves a subject for the canvas of his subconscious to this day the hotel maurice that five-star jewel in paris contains artistic artifacts from the days of dali's habitation including a vision box of mirrors chairs too heavy to lift and a magnificent carpet inspired by a litho with the unglamorous name of the donkey carcass so one of the real reasons we came to the hotel maurice is this this is a nouveau altar designed by salvador dali so you can come here to the bar have a drink and light a candle for your good fortunes dolly was always looking for new subject matter vigorous new shoots of creativity if you will and wherever he was he performed the magic that was his art dalia was so good that he could paint anywhere even on stage which is why what happened next was so strange try as he might dali could not execute the vision of hell there was only one solution he told haford he needed to talk to sister lucia [Music] it was 1959 and sister lucia was the only fatima visionary left alive since moving to queen portugal she had been forbidden to speak to anyone about the visions now at age 42 she was frustrated the world needed to know about the vision she told hafert but as a cloistered nun she was forbidden to speak haffert wrote in one of his memoirs lucia felt completely helpless to propagate the message of fatima one by one the prophecies were coming true the second world war had come and gone russia had become a superpower the nuclear bomb had been developed and already the atheists were brandishing it in the face of a terrified world what our lady had warned of in her message was not heated yet despite lucia's frustrations she refused to speak to dolly it pained her too much to speak of hell she told hafford the account in her memoir was all she could offer the great artist dully's response to the news was almost flippant there is no problem said dali he would study her words and put together his own vision but there was a problem something seemed to have a hold on dolly no matter how much he tried salvador dali the master of surrealism the king of self-confidence could not paint the vision of hell he took the problem home with him to port lagat it was here in the comfort and solitude of his home that dali did his best work yet despite being in his creative center dali could not complete the vision of hell he had destroyed four sketches and a painting and still couldn't get it right he told heffert oh yes there is one other thing the vision of hell was a secret painting even his closest friends knew nothing about it it's as though this painting became a private act of faith a mission from god paul perry first learned this painting was dali's secret when he showed it to roberta charns dali's photographer and confidant for nearly 40 years robert took more than 50 000 photos of dali he even helped the master complete his last painting he is a man who knows most everything about dali's personal and public life when paul showed in the painting the man who had chronicled daley's last 40 years just shook his head have you ever seen this painting i don't remember for me it's a it's a very interesting mystical painting made by dali include if it well anyway it's it's a little commercial for me it's a little commercial but dali he was an honest center and and the subject is perfectly well but i remember now the connection with the blue army at the moment when he painted in 62. i remember and i'm sure repenting poorly got okay okay but i have no more information about this [Music] canvas and then there's a mandolier who has already appeared briefly certainly she had seen dolly working on the vision of hell okay so this is a reproduction of the original painting real size but this is a vision of fatima right of hell seeing the painting brought back more memories of dali and his conflicts about god and religion he painted a lot of religious scene and it's very strange that one of his most famous painting is the christ famous christ which is in in the museum of edinburgh the saint john de la croix and he made i think he painted three or four crucifixion plus some madonna he was always putting on his wife gala dressed up as a madonna and people imagine that he was always preoccupied with mystical questions uh immortality death is does god exist and so on but i think in when i was with him at least i never saw he never gave me the image of a man being obsessed with religion i don't think he was did he ever talk to you about religion yes but i think it was a it was an attitude it was very ambiguous the relationship that dali had with religion i never saw him going to church or to assist to service or pray and he was so impressed but on the other hand his wife gala was very religious gala always had in her room a small icon which came from russia and it represented the black virgin of kazan and the dali was gala was very religious so he obviously couldn't live all these years with a religious wife and not himself believe you know is there anything amanda recognized in this painting i never saw that painting never i think was spent at 162. as a mandolier left for another appointment nicholas and paul found themselves completely puzzled how could dali a very public man keep the painting so secret that's a good question why would dolly keep this painting secret and for that matter why did the blue army keep it secret now it was 1960 and hafford believed the vatican was zeroing in on a release date for the long-awaited third secret he expected the public reaction to be explosive all eyes would be on fatima and hafert wanted to make sure they saw a shocking and provocative dolly painting then heffert received a call from dali i cannot create the horror of hell he told haford when hefford heard that dali had destroyed some early attempts he insisted that dali come to portugal it was time to meet sister lucia uh salvador dali arrived in fatima in 1960. he was picked up at the airport by canon jose galamba doliveda who was the author of some of the earliest books on fatima uh canon galambado levita was the person that wrote to sister lucia the person actually on behalf of the bishop had asked sister lucia to commit the secret to writing and the whole story so he was the person that was best informed on the fatima message because he had written the first authoritative books on fatima so he brought uh dolly to meet sister lucia so she could tell the details of of the the vision of hell uh in in 1960 dully asked few questions and was in sister lucia's presence for maybe 15 minutes but it was a meeting that struck dolly deeply said evaristo the painter spoke enthusiastically about breathing the same air as the visionary he also made a special request of the surprised priest he was moved and he asked canon galamba to hear his confession and canon galamba had the heard his confession at the fatima shrine in the confessionals of the fatima shrine and of course the the secrecy of confession wouldn't allow canon galamba to speak the nature of the confession but what he said was and very interesting that it was the most sincere the most true confession that he had ever experienced in his many years as a priest and he was he was completely moved at dolly's sincerity and and precision probably of the description of the yes of his suffering and his yes yes yes and and of his faults and of his you know his transgressions at this point dali began to see this as a serious work of spiritual art just how syria soon became obvious and so he believed that his visit to fatima and his commission to paint this painting of the vision of hell converted dolly that it moved dali from a very secular person to a much more interior much more uh religious meditating person and he believed this till his until his last day canon galamba that it was the person that he believed in all of his career as a priest and involved with fatima had been most touched by the fatima message for dolly the story of fatima now became a reality how real on a walk with canon galumba dolly stopped at the scene of the vision and he said imagine the earth opened up right here and showed hell salvador dali was now hooked finally dulli went to hafford's hilltop residence in the castle of uram there the two masters of their art discussed a symbology important to the painting hafford tuned dolly into fatima that if dali in the beginning was the catholic and had you know normal devotion let's say to our lady in the end hafert tuned him in fine-tuned him to the specifics of fatima as john hafford alone depicted portrayed symbolized propagated in addition to all the elements seen by the children during their vision hafert recommended adding the castle of aram named for orianna the legendary muslim princess who converted to christianity hafford felt the castle symbolized an eternal message of religious conversion dali agreed to use it before leaving fatima he also gave canon galumba an envelope with fifteen thousand dollars in american express travelers checks the same amount he had been paid for the painting of the vision of hell it appeared to all at fatima that dali's visit had led to a conversion one that took dali back to catholicism but when he left fatima and returned to dali land the conversion still remained dali's secret why he kept it a secret baffled dishones well delhi was a very public man he used his panting for his marketing and this painting was done in secret my father never saw it in the studio neither a mandalia so why he did it in secret why he did it and for who i don't know yet but we should inquire nicholas and paul returned to jose france to speak to robert deschars as one of the few remaining members of dali's inner circle they hoped robert could shine light on why the vision of hell was done in utmost secrecy [Music] i don't remember seeing this in the workshop of the league it was my duty to capture all of dali's work i could see even if it was unfinished if i had seen the painting in creation i would have photographed it but he may have hid this work he obviously did there were often journalists in the house and because of that i believe he hid the painting so none of them would see [Music] being a dolly expert and a family member nicholas added his own opinion so i believe and robert agree on that that probably he i depend to be sure that nobody will see it and more of that one of his best friends a guys that he trusts and uh with who we have intellectual discussion so it's not from in my opinion it's not a simple commissioned artwork there is something so why did dali keep the painting in his supposed conversion secret there are a few people around fatima who think they know and i know that salvador dali basically did this painting not only secret secretly as far as john haffert was concerned but he didn't reveal this to anybody because this was such a personal painting for salvador dali himself the painting that he had been commissioned to do it was only one of two or three paintings that had ever been commissioned officially by an organization as powerful as the blue army connected to the message of adam and the hierarchy of the church and the pope and he felt the weight of this commission as if perhaps he had been commissioned to paint this painting by our lady herself dolly also felt that this commission was so important that it had nothing to do with any of the paintings he had ever done in his life and so it had to be something personal between him and god and so i i would my take on it would be that it was it touched him so profoundly uh that he uh kept it to himself being touched so profoundly may have blocked his artistic talents dully had promised john hafford that he would have the painting done before the end of the year but 1960 was rapidly passing and dali had only a vague concept of the painting and was still unable to complete it other artists of the fatima story had the luxury of having drawings and notes from sister lucia she had even modeled mary's hand movements for the sculptor the dim who went on to achieve painful inspiration by carving part of his work on his knees dali would have none of that for inspiration he may have cruised the sen on his annual trip to paris there if passed were prologue he would have taken a voyage through his own subconscious relying on the dream state the sleep of truth to take him to the realm of the surreal world for divine inspiration [Music] from the deck of a riverboat with the city lights passing effortlessly by it was the perfect place for him to put his mind in neutral and let the images and memories of the fatima story build in his mind [Music] and finally in late 1961 the vision of hell was completed salvador dali's painting was now ready to be unveiled to the world [Music] john haffert was on a treasure hunt in the caribbean when his office told him that the dolly painting had been completed it was october of 1961 and heifer was no longer in a rush for the painting on february the 8th of 1960 the a i news agency released a comment that the vatican had decided not to disclose the secret at all because fatima was a private revelation they weren't going to give tremendous emphasis to this third part of the secret anyway that's what was disclosed and a lot of people were saddened some people felt cheated felt deceived because they had told their children for a whole generation you wait until 1960 when the secret of fatima is going to be revealed so when 1960 came and it wasn't revealed and the vatican decided not to reveal it officially a lot of people had egg on their face and john was one of them because he had had the program countdown 1960 preparing people for this big revelation and the the painting in that sense became a uh it wasn't a success the big showing the big thing that haffert had envisioned uh was totally gone heffert needed a break from the spotlight he asked monsignor kogan to take a check to dali and receive the painting kogan had a weak heart so weak that it once stopped now colgan must have thought his heart would stop again as dali opened the box and revealed his holy horror [Music] and when the unveiling takes place it was in a wooden case and dolly opens it up and john hafford takes a picture and you can see the horrified look almost of monsignor harold colgan as he looks upon this creation for the first time because it's not his cup of tea in traditional catholic art and dolly of course in the in the photograph has one of his traditional poses where he has his raised eyebrow and his uh bulging eyes looking at very very insane i would say because that was his uh trademark you know but the painting did not go over very well with the uh catholic uh audience and it wasn't until after the second vatican council that finally the dolly came to be accepted by the majority of the catholics as one of the great catholic works of art of the 20th century a few weeks after the interviews in portugal carlos and paul went to the vatican in rome where they visited the modern art museum they have three dahle paintings on display there but one in particular caught the eye of carlos this work is particularly important because it was made in 1960 and it depicts the enunciation but it has our lady without a face it dates precisely from the year when according to tradition the secret the third secret of fatima was going to be revealed by the pope and it is in the same year 1960 that dolly was supposed to have delivered to the blue army of our lady of fatima the painting of the miracle of the apparition division of hell had found this tiny painting is as intense as the vision of hell yet it hangs in the vatican art galleries how might the vatican view the vision of hell now to answer that question paul and carlos spoke with father mark haydu international director for vatican museum patrons now when this finally came out in 1962 the vatican didn't like it they didn't like this i don't think many people liked it john heffer didn't even like it and as a result it ended up being uh boxing copy of course of the painting but it ended up being put underneath the nun's bed for almost 40 years in the blue iron in the blue army in in new jerusalem okay certainly our sensitivity to the modern art and to the modern expressions of the spiritual turmoil that has marked our age we've learned to appreciate it much more there's it was paul vi himself who founded the modern contemporary art where did he place it but in his own apartments so i think also that's really our hope for all those artists who communicate that spiritual turmoil then it'd be the first step as it was evidently in dali's life towards rediscovering hope and love and serenity as we can see serenity exactly what is lacking here except god bless the virgin mary when this painting was unveiled the first time i think the reaction to it by the blue army by john hafford and monsignor colgan was one of uh boy they were just taken aback and it was sort of you know just surprise and i guess that's what it would have to be i mean how could you envision you know what salvador dali would create when he's creating a vision of hell and especially if it doesn't resemble at all the description that sister lucia put out there but that's what they wanted they wanted something different than sister lucia had described or they would have hired any painter in the world and you know any painter could simply take what she had written and reproduce that on canvas so it was surprise it was shock but all of that was good at first haffert was shocked by what he saw he wanted a hell that was well a little less hellish then he started to analyze it he looked at it for a few days and he realized that this painting was exactly what he wanted when you read the account of the vision of hell that sister lucia has in her writings you get a feeling of hell but not to the same degree i think as when you really study this painting and i don't mean study it academically but i mean put your mind into it and let it spend some time there you sort of get you know this horrific feeling as you spend your time and let it go into the depths of this painting in a way that you wouldn't uh in any other way and he he just seemed to have the insight to know that salvador dali could touch that element in a way that no other artist could with a fresh understanding of the dali work hafert wrote to matthew the priest in training who had come up with the idea of the dolly painting to begin with dear matthew dali's handling of the subject is quite unique and while it was different than i expected the more i have considered the painting the more it has appeared to me that it will serve the purpose intended the horror portrayed in the painting surprised matthew but he shrugged it off i was thinking of something for the ordinary people the masses but i am convinced that our blessed mother wants it this way and has produced what she needed hafford hired a public relations firm in hopes of getting a museum show for daley's unique work it didn't happen he wrote letters to magazine editors trying to get them to publish the story of the painting matthew was pushing hard too he decided to write a dramatic letter to claire booth luce the congresswoman wife of henry luce owner of both time and life magazines matthew begged mrs lewis to have the editors publish a story about the painting in life magazine she never responded finally heffert reached out to the only audience he could control the members of the blue army against the wishes of the local bishop he ran a photo of the painting on the cover of soul the magazine for blue army members then john hafford gave up for a brief period of time the vision of hell was hung in the fatima travel agency but when somebody placed a coffee cup on the painting john hafford devised an unorthodox means of protection the security of the dolly was one of the concerns of the blue army for many years because how do you protect a multi-million dollar painting and keep it from being a stolen well you pretend it doesn't exist and you hide it under the bed of a religious sister and that's exactly what was done so this is the room where the painting was held for many years under a bed the better part of 30 years in the hands of the sisters who lived in this building which was a convent at the time the sisters were almost certainly the most trusted members of this apostolate and of the shrine and there's always someone at a convent so it's not a place that's that's abandoned like a private home during the day so all out of the world this may have seemed like a like a rather poor choice of a place to store is probably very prudent so we didn't know exactly what to do with it and you know we do so many things that it just sort of got lost in the shuffle and by lost in the shuffle i mean it really got lost we flat out almost didn't know where it was and it was basically missing for years the vision of hell spent more than 30 years underneath this bed coming out only twice a nun rediscovered it in 1997 the nearly 30 years since painting the vision of hell were the most bizarre yet pious of dali's life his fame grew and it was his inherent strangeness which made him memorable and marketable but much of it was a show for the cameras really [Music] in the years following the painting of vision of hell salvador dali did hundreds of sculptures graphics and paintings all dealing with the subject of religion here's a few of them right here in fact dali longed for immortality and salvation dreamed of it and for much of his adult life he searched for the pathway to eternal life he even produced a book with robert de charns called ten recipes for immortality that spoke of dna hibernation and religion as means to well life with no end the book by the way is dedicated to god [Music] at the end of this documentary is a story about salvador dali that seems too ironic to be true dali experienced his own vision of hell in a fire at publ castle it was 1984 gala had died two years earlier and now the great master was bedridden with parkinson's disease on august 30th dali pressed the call button on his bed to summon his nurse the button shorted out and ali's bed caught fire he's very intelligent because he go on the floor because the only place it's possible to stay and to have air and i came immediately and i see dali on the floor robert pulled dali from the burning room and then photographed the horrible event on the way to the hospital delhi said he was ready to die with serious burns over eighteen percent of his body dully insisted that he'd be taken to his museum in fueres to be surrounded by his greatest work but he didn't die dully was taken to a hospital for treatment and then lived for five more years it was parkinson's disease that finally took him on january 23 1989. for the 80th anniversary of fatima the vision of hell was retrieved from under the nun's bed and brought to portugal it was at her convent that sister lucia saw the painting for the first time her verdict it was the best representation ever painted of the vision the comments by the visionary were a confirmation of the spiritual value of dali's painting [Music] it sparked a great interest in many people that had never even come to fatima and actually came to fatim after they read one of the articles i wrote or one of the interviews we gave and they came to fatima for the first time drawn by the painting of the great salvador dali to see what it was all about so i think that in that essence the painting has served its purpose because lucia had always said if an instrument is successful in bringing at least one soul back to god then it has been successful and i think that even if the painting had not brought anybody else to fatima or to convert to god it brought the great salvador dali [Music] himself [Music] you

Channel: Perspective

Views: 23,573

Rating: 4.6461539 out of 5

Keywords: Arts, The Arts, Theatre, Music, Full EPisode, Full documentary, documentary, performing arts, Dali's greatest secret, dalis greatest secret, salvador dali, vision of hell fatima, vision of hell dali, vision of hell salvador dali, dalis vision of hell, fatima miracles, fatima miracle documentary

Id: ezRGuuxUho8

Length: 66min 20sec (3980 seconds)

Published: Mon May 24 2021