For my artist report I chose Salvador Dali, the Spanish surrealist painter. Salvador Felipe Jacinto
Dali was born in the small town of Figueras, Spain on May 11, 1904. He came from a
middle-class family and seemed to express a great interest in art from the very beginning. He read
many books about art as a young child and had a completed his first oil paintings at the age of
eight. At this point he was sent by his parents to live with the Pitchots, an artistically gifted family
who lived in the country not far from Dali's hometown of Figueras.
As Dali went into his teen years he began to paint constantly. Most of his works were of the local
landscapes and scenes of Spanish domestic life. In 1921 Dali enrolled in the School of Fine Arts
in Madrid hoping to expand on the base of Impressionism that he had gained as a young man
living with the Pitchots. At the school Dali toiled in the newest styles including Cubism, Futurism,
and Purism. It was while he was at the school that Dali would establish a reputation for
eccentricity that would define him for the rest of his life. In 1923 Dali was suspended for one year
due to insubordination, and subsequently expelled not long after he returned to the school.
In 1925 Dali had his first public show, at the Daulmau Gallery in Barcelona, displaying paintings
done in traditional as well as Cubist and Purist styles. The next spring Dali made his first trip to
Paris where he met Picasso and was given a private tour of his studio. It was a year or so later
when Dali would make his first contact with Surrealism. A major influence in Dali's exploration of
Surrealism was his friendship with filmmaker Luis Bunuel and poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
Another critical influence to all of Surrealism was Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams.
The main goal of Surrealism was to tap into the artistic capabilities of the unconscious mind, to
realize all of the possibilities that exist deep within. The "technique" that Surrealists used to
conjure up these images was to induce a sort of trance-like state as to fully expel all of the
creativity in all parts of the mind. Dali became a master at this and his paintings rapidly matured
into the form that would make him the world's best -known Surrealistic artist.
In the period from 1929 to 1937 Dali produced his best-known purely Surrealistic paintings. The
most famous of these was "The Persistence of Memory" (1931) that depicted melting clocks
distributed throughout a calm beach-like scene. Dali's trademark background was an eerily calm,
bleak desert-like landscape that resembled the landscape of his home in Spain.
Dali's work never seemed to be affected by the events going on in the world at the time. For
example World War 2 was raging as Dali was coming into prominence as a painter, yet we never
see any paintings reflecting these events. Perhaps this is because the style calls for a trip deep into
the painter's mind where the problems of society would not lurk. After he painted the most famous
of his Surrealistic pieces he was in essence "kicked out" of the movement as he favored less purely
artistic and more self-promotion based projects.
Dali moved to the United States in 1939 and stayed in the states until 1948. Here he exhibited his
eccentric behavior freely and dabbled in theatre set and costume design. His paintings at the time
that he was living in the U.S. were a kind of a renewal of old concepts with a Surrealistic, abstract
twist.
Dali moved back to Spain in 1949 where he would start a series of religious paintings that had
been, "modified", per say, by him, to express a certain vision, or just a modernization of an old
subject. In 1958 Dali married Gala, who would become a frequent subject in his works from that
point onwards.
In 1965 Dali began to move into sculpture, recreating scenes from his paintings, most of them
recurring subjects, such as elephants with spiders legs and the famous melting clocks. Dali crafted
these works, for the most part, out of bronze or crystal. Dali also worked in lithographs in
reproducing images from his previous paintings. The motive for this move was financial, as the
unlimited print runs and "authentic" signatures greatly boosted sales in the art market of the
1960's.
In 1974 Dali performed the most self-promoting act of his life when he himself opened the
Salvador Dali Museum in his hometown of Figueras, Spain. This was rather unusual, considering
that Dali was still alive and painting. The museum was very successful and to this day remains a
major part of Dali history and lore.
Dali continued to paint into the late 70's and 80's, although his later works, while technically
sound, still are not as highly regarded as the paintings he did in the 30's and 40's. His later works
included his wife Gala in many different lights and "roles" in the painting. Some were simply
portraits of her and others had her as an onlooker to some significant event. When Gala passed
away in 1982, much of Dali's inspiration disappeared. By 1984 when Dali was rescued from a fire
in his home weighing a mere 100 pounds his production of paintings had stopped. Dali died
January 23, 1989 in his hometown of Figueras.
In my opinion Dali was a very, very talented artist. His works are very interesting to look at, as
you will see new things each time. The vast creativity that Dali displays is rivaled by no one in the
20th century. Some times Dali repeated themes (such as the clocks and the elephants) but for the
shear number of paintings that he did a few repetitions should be allowed.
The titles of Dali's paintings often had long names (ex: "Skull with it's Lyric Appendage Leaning
on a Night Table Which Should Have the Exact Temperature of a Cardinal Bird's Nest"). These
titles, in my opinion have absolutely no meaning at all other than to provoke thought. Freud, I
think, would agree when I say that I don't understand the titles of many of these paintings, simply
because the title is either just a wordy description of the painting or an unrelated rambling.
Overall I like Salvador Dali's work because I enjoy the kind of fantastic images that he paints. I'm
sure there are metaphors in his paintings, but they are not as easily noticed because of the amount
going on in the painting. That is my opinion of the work of Salvador Dali.