Biography

Birth Date

May 11, 1904

Birth Place

Figueres, Spain

Spouse

Elena Dmitrievna Diakonova

  • 1904 - Dalí had an older brother, but died of gastroenteritis. Dalí is his brother's reincarnation
  • 1910s - Dalí had talent in drawing at a young age, and both his parents supported him by building him an art studio
  • 1919 - Dalí had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theatre of Figueres
  • 1922 - He entrolled at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid
  • 1923 - He was suspended for criticizing teachers and starting a riot
  • 1926 - He was expelled for declaring no teacher can protor his exam
  • 1926-1929 - Dalí went to Paris and interacted with Picasso, Magritte, and Miro
    • - Met Paul Éluard and painter René Magritte that introduced Dalí to Surrealism
    • - Before Surrealism, he studied Impressionism, Futurism, and Cubism
  • 1934 - Dalí married Elena or Gala, who was Paul Éluard's wife
    • - Dalí could only paint, so Gala takes care of his financial matters
  • 1934 - He got expelled from the Surrealist group due to 2 reasons:
    • - His feud with Surrealist leader André Breton
    • - He was a pro-Hitler and have public antics
  • 1950s - Dalí painted a series of 19 artworks that focus on scientific, historical, or religious themes called "nuclear mysticism"
  • 1960-1974 - Dalí created the Meatro-Museo Dalí(Museum) in Figeres
    • - World's largest Surrealist structure
    • - Houses Dalí's earliest to latest works
  • 1980 - Dalí retired because of motor disorder
  • 1982 - His wife, Gala, passed away
  • 1984 - He got severely burned in a fire in the Pubol castle
  • 1989 - Dalí died of heart failture. His funeral was held at the Teatro-Museo(the church where he was bapitilzed)

Surrealism

“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting vision.”

Surrealism is an art movement during WWI and WWII that grew principally out of the Dada movement. It became popular due to the The Surrealist Manifesto published by André Breton in 1924. He defnied Surrealism as "psychic automatism in its pure state." He meant that artists bypass reason and rationlity in order to access the unconscious mind. Surrealism is reuniting the world of dream with reality.

Surrealism is heavily influenced by Sigmud Freud, particularly his book, The Inerepretation of Dreams (1899). Freud legitimized the importance of dreams and the unconscious as valid revelations of human emotions and desires. This is an important concept the Surrealist writers and artists focused on.

Influences

Salvador Dalí is considered one of the greatest Surrealist artist. His contribution to the art world can be simplified to this one phrase “paranoiac-critical method”. It is a method developed by Dalí to access the irrational knowledge and paranoid state, or dreams and the subconscious, to view the world in a new and different way. This concept of merging the two worlds changes reality to what he wanted to be and makes his fantasies and hallucinations seem real on the canvas. It became a major concept in Surrealism that mixes dreams and reality into one piece of art.

In addition to influencing Surrealism and how people perceive reality, Dalí had also contributed to the world of psychology. He was first influenced by Sigmund Freud, who is the founder of psychoanalysis, and then began using his paintings to change the world around him. His works have been used in psychology undergraduate textbooks to demonstrate figure-ground illusions, perceptual reconstruction, and surrealistic images. He also encouraged advertising, publicity, and self-promotion. By expressing what he dreamed about and believed in through his artwork, he promoted other young artists to spread their message through art and psychology.

Works

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The Great Masturbator

1929

This painting reflects the state of mind of the 25-year-old Dalí, when he first met Gala. The central image is the widely-seen rock at Cullero, on Cape Creus in Spain, where Dalí manipulated it to become an iconic self-portrait of himself that appears several times in his later works. The nose is touching the ground while a grasshopper is near his mouth. The grasshopper shows Dalí’s fear towards insects. A women, that may be Gala, also rises from the back of the head, resembling the title.

The Persistance of Memory

1931

The most famous surrealist piece that is about soft melting pocket watch or time. It epitomizes Dalí’s theory of “softness” and “hardness”, which is inspired by surrealist perception of a Camembert melting in the sun. The famous self-portrait of Dalí is present in this painting that represents monsters in dreams because people often cannot remember the details in one’s dream. It is a very abstract idea or symbol. The orange clock on the bottom that is covered by ants symbolizes decay as time passes and dreams are only the subconscious part of human beings.

The Burning Giraffe

1937

Dalí painted this before his exile in the United States. The painting is heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical method and that certain characteristics can only be opened through psychoanalysis. Dali described the female figure as “Femme-coccyx”, which is tail bone woman. Women often suppress their true self due to societal pressure and by opening the secret drawers, one is opening the inner, subconscious part of man. The burning giraffe in the background is seen as a premonition of war and the fire represents dangerous death.

Swans Reflecting Elephants

1937

This is one of Dalí’s famous double images, and it is created during the Paranoiac-critical period. He use the paranoia-critical method to bring the hallucinatory form into this painting. The lake is seen as a mirror that reflects the leafless tree and swans into elephants below the water. The background setting is a Catalonian landscape that has fiery colors, which contrasts with the stillness of the water.

Galatea of the Spheres

1952

This stunning painting features Dalí’s wife, Gala. Dalí values Gala very much and dedicated multiple artworks to her. This particular painting is part of the "nuclear mysticism" and shows the disintegration of atom, which Dalí found fascinating in nuclear physics and the atomic bomb. The spheres are replicated and disappear into infinity. Gala eyes are closed in the painting and the vanishing point for the spheres is the mouth of Gala. The portrait is basically made out of spheres that represent atoms within a human being.

Rose Meditative

1958

Straying away from the nightmares, abstraction, and exaggeration, this painting displays the raw skills of Dalí. The painting reaches a wider audience other than surrealists because of the common object. The rose is the focal point and represents the strong relationship and love of the couple below the rose. The red symbolizes passion and the flower shows female sexuality.

Citations

"The Burning Giraffe." Salvador Dali. SalvadorDaliPrints.org, n.d. Web. 26 May 2017.

"The Burning Giraffe, 1937 by Salvador Dali." Salvador Dali Paintings, Biography, and Quotes. Www.DaliPaintings.com, n.d. Web. 26 May 2017.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Surrealism." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 01 Dec. 2016. Web. 23 May 2017.

"Galatea of the Spheres" Salvador Dali. SalvadorDaliPrints.org, n.d. Web. 26 May 2017.

"The Great Masturbator, 1929 by Salvador Dali." Salvador Dali Paintings, Biography, and Quotes. Www.DaliPaintings.com, n.d. Web. 26 May 2017.

Griffiths, Mark. "Art in the Right Place: Salvador Dali, Surrealism and Psychology." Drmarkgriffiths. N.p., 04 Apr. 2013. Web. 23 May 2017.

"Persistence of Memory, 1931 by Salvador Dali." Salvador Dali Paintings, Biography, and Quotes. Www.DaliPaintings.com, n.d. Web. 26 May 2017.

"Rose Meditative" Salvador Dali. SalvadorDaliPrints.org, n.d. Web. 26 May 2017.

"Salvador Dalí." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 28 Apr. 2017. Web. 23 May 2017.

"Swans Reflecting Elephants, 1937 by Salvador Dali." Salvador Dali Paintings, Biography, and Quotes. Www.DaliPaintings.com, n.d. Web. 26 May 2017.