Salvador Dali - The master of surrealism

salvadore Felipe Jacinto Dali was born at 8:45 on the morning of May 11th 1904 in the village of figueres in northern Catalonia Spain Dali had a brother three years older who had died at the age of seven months it was in his brother's memory that his distraught parents baptized him with the same first name Dali was an active and curious child and already very convinced of his own grandiose destiny he decided to become a painter the Catalan countryside became the source of his first artistic inspirations in 1917 at the age of 13 he enrolled in a drawing course at the local municipal art school Dolly's mother Filipa died in 1921 so it was his father and his sister Anna Maria who accompanied him to Madrid where he attended the san fernando academy to study painting this period of university studies was a determining factor in the blooming of Dolly's genius his stay in Madrid allowed him to take in all the developments in painting that followed Impressionism but the lack of innovation of his teachers at the san fernando academy left him disappointed and led him to follow a solitary path inspired by the work of the italian metaphysical school and futurism there was a radical change Dali changed from timid to eccentric from a hard-working student to a rebel during the period 1926 to 1928 Dali painted a series of realist paintings influenced by Vermeer and mastered the technique that he was to use later in his surrealist compositions in 1929 Dali discovered his love and muse from then on gala was associated with Dali they became a mystical couple similar to Dante and Beatrice Dali constantly associated her with his work he signed many of his paintings gala Dali he sang her praises in his poems and dedicated all his writings to her portrait of Lucia 1918 this is one of the first portraits Dali painted it depicts his nurse Buchi among Kanu as an old woman she was hired by Dolly's family to look after him and his sister when this picture was painted Lucia was taking care of their maternal grandmother Anna dolly says that he painted Lucia's portrait while he had tonsillitis and she was hovering around him as she used to do when he was a child in order to tell him stories the painting is a good example of Dolly's impressionistic style as in old man at Twilight and numerous landscapes of the same period the mastery of his touch the precision with which he has rendered the half blind eyes of the old woman and the richness of color show what a keen eye the young painter had even at the age of 14 self-portrait in the studio kaduk a 1919 self portrait with the neck of Raphael 1920 1921 here we see him at about the age of 17 at the top of the road that dominates all cadaques and leads to the cove of savoia the village appears in the background sparkling in the morning sunshine behind dolly we see what is nearly an island sort o the estate of the pea show all Dolly's interest is turned to the atmosphere of the picture for the sake of accuracy he had to return to the scene every day at the exact hour when the Sun hit the village leaving the cliff in the foreground in the shadow where he placed himself then he worked on the likeness of himself in front of a mirror in his studio during the long hot hours of the day lonna beach in caracas 1921 here the artist has painted the lana beach in front of the family home during the bathing hour in the foreground his family his aunt Lottie Etta and his sister Ana Maria with some friends the sierras one of the family boats is still pulled up on the beach awaiting the afternoon boat ride this canvas should be classed in the period when Dali was using the point holistic technique of sua back view of Caracas 1921 self portrait 1921 portrait of my father 1921 portrait of my first cousin 1923 port al ghul 1924 still-life 1924 portrait of the artist father 1925 the imposing presence in this portrait reveals the strong personality of the notary Salvador Dali koosy the artist's father dolly has superbly portrayed the paternal Authority against which less than five years later he was destined to revolt he recounts that his father always intimidated him more than anyone else this feeling is clearly shown by the pose of the sitter the construction of the picture the lighting and the neorealistic technique inspired by aunt lady ha the exactness of detail in this painting has the merit of bringing back memories from the time Dali was painting the work for example the pipe held by his father in his left hand girl standing at the window 1925 as a youth Dali did numerous portraits of his sister on a Maria often painted on copper and very small in size many were simple studies of hair and a bear shoulder this one larger and on canvas is considered one of the most beautiful salvador always painted her near a window in girls standing at the window annamaria poses in the room on the first floor of the paternal home in cadaqués which salvador used as a studio reclining woman 1926 this kind of composition first appeared in the middle of 1926 when Dolly was painting landscapes portraits still likes and cubist compositions at the same time there are no more than six canvas is done in this manner in which one sees this type of ample female stretched out on the sand or on the rocks these figures visibly show the influence of the works of Picasso from the period called neorealistic between 1920 and 1922 at the time Dali was intrigued with geometry with regulative diagrams and everything that related to the golden section the complete structure of the subject radiates from the exact point of the intersection of the diagonals found slightly below the navel which is the optical centre of the picture basket of bread 1926 Barcelona's mannequin 1927 in this large painting painted in figueres the influence of the Masters of cubism is perfectly visible the female figure was inspired by a young girl of Figueres Ramon Etta Mon Salvucci who was very pretty and personified elegance evoking for Dali the memory of the mannequins and women of the world in barcelona and madrid this is evident in the treatment of the feet and the shoes especially the one in front attention must also be called to the appearance of the fish sex a theme used frequently later on by Surrealists Harlequin 1927 still life by the light of the moon 1927 apparatus at hand 1927 bird 19:28 dollies bestiary broke loose from reality at the end of 1926 to become all together fantastic during 1928 which marked a very important period of transition in the painters work dolly was trying to transcribe his dreams and he made use of the Mediterranean sand and gravel that he glued to the surfaces of the picture the interesting thing in this bird is that with its side already monstrous it carries in its entrails a thing which is a fetus and instead of the fetus being that of a bird it's a cat the moon is there as in many other canvases of this period unsatisfied desires 1928 this picture was painted in Caracas during the summer of 1928 it is one of the first pictures from the period when Dali used the gravel from the beach of la neige as collage these pictures with the gravel and the cork floats were the beginning of a series which Dali considered the most important before servile ISM canvases which were practically white with only a few audio graphic signs and feathers glued on them inaugural gooseflesh in 1928 Dali gave this picture its title in 1964 here the diagonal construction is again used the visible material in the picture would seem to place it with the works painted in 1927 such as blood is sweeter than honey the composition is already the product of a hypnagogic image similar to that which Dali repeated often in his surrealist works little rod-like cells and suspension above an oblong object the numbering in the picture probably corresponds to Dolly's unconscious interest in the metric system the Ram 1928 menus 1928 the Enigma of desire my mother my mother my mother 1929 this great composition among the first of the surrealist period is one of the most important Dali painted the Enigma of desire in figueres just as he was finishing the lugubrious game in the baroque appendage that along gates the visit we understand the geological structures of the rocks of the region near Cape cruise eroded by the wind mixed with fantastic architecture of Antonio Gaudi the second part of the title my mother my mother my mother was inspired by one of Tristan Sarah's poems the great lament of my darkness Dali himself considered the Enigma of desire to be one of his ten most important paintings the little group on the Left depicts dali himself embracing his father with a fish a grasshopper a dagger and a lion's head the great master baiter 1929 The Invisible Man 1929 portrait of Paul Alwar 1929 accommodations of desire 1929 illumined pleasures 1929 Imperial monument to the child woman 1929 profanation of the host 1929 invisible sleeping woman horse lion 1930 this canvas is one of the early experiments with double images the double image can be prolonged continuing the paranoiac process the existence of another obsessive idea being then sufficient to make a third image appear and so forth until the concurrence of a number of images limited only by the degree of the capacity for paranoid thought the violently erotic character of the group of four laterz metamorphosed into the four legs and the head of the ensemble is obtained with the help of an absence of dense shadows and violent colors as well as by the geological character of the forms shades of night descending 1931 the obsessive character of this work is made evident by one of the less important elements and the least noticed by the viewer the measureless shadow which is spread out in the bottom part of the canvas it's obsessional power is obtained by having in the center a rock whose shadow is much less dense than that of the one in the foreground the shadow in the foreground is that of a concert grand piano an instrument that holds a predominant place in many of dollies surrealist compositions the persistence of memory 1931 the old age of William Tell 1931 the dream 1931 portraits of gala 1931 these two little portraits show gala shortly after her meeting with dolly they were painted in oil with an interval of a year between them this one on an olive panel from life in portly a the other on a postcard with iridescent background gala is Dolly's one and only inspiration her importance equals that of the most celebrated mistresses of the greatest men the average fine and invisible harp 1932 portrait of the vicus Murray law in Hawaii 1932 diurnal fantasies 1932 The Invisible Man 1932 memory of the child woman 1932 Galla and the angels of malay immediately preceding the arrival of the Konak anamorphosis 1933 in the background gala smiling contemplates the scene she is dressed in a richly embroidered jacket and is wearing a white cap with a transparent yellow-green visor which was then in style the seated figure facing her one hand placed on the table near a ball and a precariously balanced cube is easily recognizable it is Lenin on the left the indiscreet mustachioed man eavesdropping behind the doors Maxim Gorky on his head there is a lobster a crustacean that the painter often places in equally anachronistic spots the angelus jean-francois Malay is reproduced in this painting hung over the door soft watches 1933 the Enigma of William Tell 1933 average atmosphere of cephalic bureaucrat in the act of milking a cranial harp 1933 myself at the age of 10 when I was the grasshopper child 1933 enigmatic elements in the landscape 1934 this composition is entirely imaginary painted in Dolly's apartment in Paris the artist at work pictured in the foreground seated in the front of his easel is Vermeer of Delft contemplating the wide plain of a pardon farther back one sees dolly as a child in his sailor suit holding his hoop and standing beside his nurse the type that he called Hitlerian nurses much to the fury of the Surrealists still further back to soft forms are coupled they constitute part of that series of forms erotic in character used by dolly in his surrealist period which he called symbols morphological subcutaneous concretion symbolic of hierarchies atavism at twilight 1933-34 the weaning of furniture nutrition detail 1934 you the weaning of furniture nutrition 1934 skull with its lyric appendage leaning on a night table which should have the exact temperature of a Cardinals nest 1934 the specter of sex appeal 1934 the javanese mannequin 19:34 meditation on the harp 1934 persistence of fair weather 1934 surrealist poster 1934 the angelus of gala 1935 puzzle of autumn 1935 geological justice 1936 geological justice was painted on a wooden panel in Port lega this painting is a wonderful mixture of Earth Beach sea waves wind Gulf and familiar coasts all of this inspired by a fleeting and limited vision from the accumulation of moments lived but with an exceptional change of size it depicts a sort of landscape figure stretched out on the ground two arms crushed and opened placed in surroundings like the immense beach at roses very obvious on an infinite stretch of shore the rocks in the background are probably those near begorrah with the little mid s islands it's the sea but everything blends with the earth sun table 1936 when Dali painted this composition he did not know why he put a camel in with all the other elements which belonged to Quetta kids later he explained the premonition character of this image by pointing out the package of Camel cigarettes placed at the feet of the silhouette of the young boy the table in the middle of the picture is a table from the cafe Lucas Eno in cadaqués on which are placed one duro and three glasses in which today is still served Tala the Catalonian coffee with cream the tiled floor is what was being put in Dolly's kitchen at the time that he was painting this picture night and day clothes 1936 the interesting part of this creation stems from the idea that Dali imagined during winter sports with snow plainly visible an outfit that suggests sunbathing since one can easily discover four openings by rolling up a sort of shade in order to expose the body here we don't know it exactly what moment the outfit becomes skin covering coat indeed even a closet a cupboard or a window since this tunic dress has a front zipper and can at the same time be opened wide by turning the cream on bolt which is pictured on it the great paranoiac 1936 soft construction with boiled beans premonition of Civil War 1936 autumn cannibalism 1936 three young surrealist women holding in their arms the skins of an orchestra 1936 the man with the head of blue hortensio's 1936 morphological echo 1936 morphological echo 1934 36 spain 1936 38 the figure of the woman leaning her elbow on a nightstand symbolizes the Spanish Civil War the torso and the face of the female figure are made up of groups of Renaissance warriors of condottieri inspired by a combat of horsemen done by Leonardo da Vinci the other very remarkable works of this series are the great paranoiac paranoia perspectives and head of a woman having the form of a battle all exhibited together in a one-man show in February 1939 metamorphosis of narcissus 1937 perspectives 1937 Palladio's Valley a corridor 1938 in this painting named for the Italian architect Palladio the Mannerist and baroque influences are obvious mannerism in the figures with elongated shapes baroque in the postures the movements the light treated in the style of Magnus Co the proportions of the top lui architectural scenery of the Olympic theater at Vincenza have been adopted by Dali for the scenery he has substituted rows of human figures which by the shortened perspectives suggest great depth the little girl who is seen running in the Sun at the end of the corridor formed by the figures appears several times in the pictures of the surrealist period the endless enigma 1938 in this composition dolly is not satisfied with pursuing a double image but succeeds in accumulating and making rise simultaneously or one after another according to the particular capacity of the viewer six different subjects thus justifying the title the endless enigma the subjects are in succession a reclining philosopher a greyhound lying down a mythological beast the face of the great cyclopean a mandolin a company of fruits and figs on a table and finally a woman seen from the back mending a sail one can perceive here besides appearing in the corner at the right the upper part of Gala's face with a turban on her head and at the bottom-left balanced on a stick the skeletal remains of a grilled sardine impressions of Africa 1938 enchanted beach with three fluid graces 1938 philosopher illuminated by the light of the moon and the Setting Sun 1939 the figure in this painting is the result as much of Dolly's being fed up with the Surrealists as of his regrets at not being able to return to port lega because of the Spanish Civil War which was not yet over the reclining man is inspired by all the fishermen of portly got all the ancestral Mediterranean wisdom contained in the figures painted in this canvas show that at the bottom Dali was never profoundly influenced or completely assimilated by the Parisian surrealist group by placing the painting in juxtaposition with a passage from the secret life one may better understand its meaning mad Tristan 1939 two pieces of bread expressing the sentiment of love 1940 this beautiful still life depicting three slices of bread a few crumbs and a chess paw is a remarkable example of the way in which dolly succeeds in adding an epic dimension to the most ordinary of everyday things one day after playing chess with gala one of the pawns remain placed in the middle of the model of dollies still life here it is depicted in the center of the composition flanked by two pieces of bread his aim was to retrieve the lost technique of the painters of the past to succeed in depicting the immobility of the pre explosive object the village of war 1940 this painting was done in California at the end of the year in 1940 the horrible face of war its eyes filled with infinite death was much more reminiscence of the Spanish Civil War than of the Second World War which at the time had not yet provided a cortege of frightful images capable of impressing dolly the horror of this picture is further increased by the brown tonalities which dominate its atmosphere this is the only work where one can see the true imprint of Dolly's hand on the canvas at the lower right slave market with the disappearing bust of Voltaire 1940 slave market with the disappearing bust of Voltaire detail 1940 family of marsupial centaurs 1940 daddy longlegs of the evening hope 1940 old age adolescence infancy the three ages 1940 invisible bust of Voltaire 1941 the concept of a still life placed in front of an architectural structure through which one glimpses a fragment of the landscape is one that Dali has made use of frequently to show advantage the bust of Voltaire by the sculptor who don't which disappears to give place to a group of people this work was done in the United States subsequent to another picture called slave market with disappearing bust of Voltaire dollies double image of the bust of full tear biodome has been used many times in various works and publications to illustrate the time-space concept design of interior decoration for a stable library 1942 the poetry of America 1943 here the de Linnaean doctrine has been successfully applied to transcribe obsessive images fruit of the years of Exile Dali and gala spent in America during World War two American dynamism is represented by the two principal figures football players and by the little character posed on the appendage in the back of the one of the left he is balancing a ball on his finger and symbolizes the physical vitality of Negroes in this work Dali has expressed his premonition of the difficulties which would arise between black and white citizens after the war by painting a soft map of Africa hanging from the clock in the back as far as he is concerned the coca-cola bottle is also premonitory he painted the bottle with photographic meticulousness nearly twenty years before Andy Warhol and the American pop artists started to do the same thing geopolitical watching the birth of the new man 1943 giant flying demitasse with incomprehensible appendage five meters long 1944-45 in this landscape because of Dolly's years of exile the atmosphere and the light of Caracas have become indistinct and replaced by lighting that gives an almost abstract and very imaginary character to the rock la rata the rat which rises from the sea off Cape cruise the entire construction of the picture hinges on the development of a rigorous logarithmic spiral whose starting point is placed on the handle of the cup Tristan and his old 1944 the figures of Tristan and Isolde depicted on this canvas were painted by Dali in 1944 as a backdrop for the ballet bacchanal performed two vogner's music and presented for the first time in 1944 on the stage of the international theater of new york the tail of this ballet for which Dali wrote the new brett-o began before the war the ballet is favorable ground for Dali to put his paranoiac critical method into practice with good results one second before awakening from a dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate 1944 gallerina 1944-45 this portrait belongs to the artists classical period he named this painting gallerina because gala was for him what lafawn arena was to Raphael and without premeditation here is the bread again a rigorous and precipitation alysus brings to light the resemblance of galas crossed arms with the sides of the basket of bread her breasts seeming to be the extremity of the crust in 1945 Dolly wrote about this portrait today now the gala has risen in the heraldic hierarchy of my nobility she has become my basket of bread the bracelet she is wearing on her wrist was a Faberge creation of mogul inspiration that Dali liked immensely three apparitions on the village of gala 1945 basket of bread 1945 the path iosys of homer diurnal dream of gala 1945 the broken bridge of the dream 1945 the temptation of st. Anthony 1946 in this picture temptation appears to st. Anthony successively in the form of a horse in the foreground representing strength sometimes also the symbol of voluptuousness and in the form of the elephant which follows it carrying on its back the golden cup of lust in which a nude woman is standing precariously balanced on the fragile pedestal a figure which emphasizes the erotic character of the composition the other elephants are carrying buildings on their backs the first of these is an obelisk inspired by that of Bernini in Rome the second and third are burdened with Venetian edifices in the style of Pilate Oh in the background another elephant carries a tall tower which is not without phallic overtones and in the clouds one can glimpse a few fragments of the escorial symbol of temporal and spiritual order portrait of Picasso 1947 Dali painted the portrait of his genial compatriot in California dolly has assembled here all the folkloric elements that anecdotally depict the origins of the Andalusian painter his renown is affirmed by his bust mounted on a pedestal symbol of official consecration the breasts depict Picasso's nutritious aspect while he carries on his head the heavy rock of the responsibility for the influence of his work on contemporary painting the face itself is a mixture of a goat hoof and the headdress of the Greco Iberian marble bust the Lady of belch which brings to mind the Andalusian and Malaga and origins of Picasso the Iberian folklore is finished off with a carnation a jasmine flower and the guitar study of the Lita atomic ax 1948 the Madonna of portly gaw 1950 this immense canvas one of Dolly's most famous marks the beginning of a new period in his work at the same time it is the first picture so large it is the first of the religious paintings and it heralds the corpuscular epoch the whole composition is arranged around the Eucharistic bread visible through a hole in the center of Jesus's body the point of intersection of the diagonal lines indicating the middle of the painting gala is depicted as the Virgin and also as the cuttlefish angels on the right side of the canvas a little boy of Caracas named Juan Figueres was used as the model for the infant Jesus Christ of st. John of the Cross 1951 by far the most popular of all of Dolly's religious works is without a doubt his Christ of st. John of the Cross whose figure dominates the Bay of Port Liga the painting was inspired by a drawing done by Saint John of the Cross himself after he had seen this vision of Christ during an ecstasy when he saw the Christ drawn by Saint John of the Cross Dali worked out geometrically a triangle and a circle which aesthetically summarized all his previous experiments and he inscribed his christ in this triangle the people beside the boat are derived from a picture by Luna and from a drawing by Velazquez for the surrender of Breda Raphael esc' head exploding 1951 a Sumpter corpus goal area lapis lazuli nough 1952 Renault Seurat ik figure of phidias --is alesis 1954 painted during Dolly's corpuscular period this is one of the pictures in which the artists use rhinoceroses horns in suspension to form a part or the entire figure of his subject the mythological figure is depicted in suspension in the middle of the Bay of Caracas where one glimpse is in the background the rock called kuru kuru which stands at the entrance of the bay the under part of the water is treated the same as in two other paintings the first from 1950 and the second from 1963 dali managed to overcome his fear of undertaking certain services of this canvas by attacking two completely different things the torso and the testicles of Alesis landscape of portly gun with homely angels and fishermen crucifixion corpus hypercube Asst 1954 this painting may be regarded as one of the most significant of his religious oils in the classical style metaphysical transcendent cubism is the way that Dali defines his picture the cross is formed by an octahedral hypercube the extremely noble figure of Galla is the perfect union of the development of the hyper cubic octahedron on the human level of the cube she is depicted in front of the Bay of Port Liga noone barracks at portly gun 1954 young virgin otto sodomized by her own chastity 1954 paranoiac critical study of Vermeer's lacemaker 1955 the last supper 1955 st. surrounded by three pie mesons 1956 not to melt vivant 1956 st. Helena of port Liga 1956 eggs on the plate without the plate 19:32 st. John 1957 Santiago El Grande detail 1957 portrait of Chester Dale and his dog Coco 1958 Velasquez painting the Infanta margarita with the lights and shadows of his own glory 1958 discovery of America by Christopher Columbus 1959 the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus was a major step in Dolly's painting of that period here one finds for the first time brought together and intimately mixed with previous styles the technique of his corpuscular period in this canvas the figure on the banner is galih and the monk kneeling and holding the crucifix is Dolly he employed a process utilizing the lines of the photo engraver which greatly enlarged would allow the image taken from the Christ of Glasgow to reappear so that it would seem to mingle with the glorious halberds of the Spanish warriors san salvador and antonio gaudi fighting for the crown of the virgin 1960 Hyper's i illogical sky 1960 the apocalypse of saint john 1960 the servant of the disciples at Emmaus 1960 gala nude from behind 1960 the ecumenical council 1960 the hallucinogenic toreador 1968-70 the double image appearing in the center of this work is that of the venus of milo repeated several times from different angles in such a way that the shadows form the features of a toreador whose coat of lights is made up of corpuscles obtained through the multiplication of dots and of flies mingled with the corpuscular image of the dying bull it was in the venus of milo reproduced on the cover of a pencil box the dolly saw the face of a toreador appear the architecture of the arena lighted by the shadows of the Sun at five o'clock in the afternoon the hour of the bullfight is a mixture of classical Spanish arenas with Palladian structures seen in Italy and the porticos in the old ruined theaters in figueres before it was transformed in the teatre-museu dalí daughter of the west wind to the east wind was Wed when to see her returned crying to his bed 1972 dollie from the back painting gala from the back he turn eyes by 6 virtual corneas provisionally reflected by 6 real mirrors unfinished 1972-73 experimenting with stereoscopy dali started with stereoscopic documents he painted two canvases one for the left eye the other for the right eye these appear to be in three dimensions with the help of a system of mirrors this color plate shows the painting for the right eye faithfully copied by dolly from the stereoscopic photograph in black and white all the painters work turned toward the study of the variations of colors values and the rendering of the lights and shadows from one canvas to the other in order to achieve a 3-dimensional effect and to offer a new stereoscopic binocular vision thanks to the optical superimposing of his two paintings On June 10th 1982 gala died and with her disappeared the so realistically extravagant dolly in the month of May 1983 dolly painted his last canvas the swallows tale a work inspired by the theory of catastrophes

Channel: All Things Art

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Keywords: Salvador dali, Surrealism (Art Period/Movement), Art, 20th century artist, Catalan artists, Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Figueres

Id: Wvfebv7qF70

Length: 47min 11sec (2831 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 04 2014