We can say with confidence that people who have not heard of Dali simply do not exist. Some know him for his creativity, which reflected an entire era in the life of mankind, others for the shockingness with which he lived and painted.
All of Salvador Dali's works are worth millions these days, and there are always connoisseurs of creativity who are willing to pay the required amount for a canvas.
Dali and his childhood
The first thing that should be said about the great artist is that he is Spanish. By the way, Dali was incredibly proud of his nationality and was a true patriot of his country. The family he was born into determined him in many ways life path, features of the position. The mother of the great creator was a deeply religious person, while his father was a convinced atheist. From childhood, Salvador Dali was immersed in an atmosphere of ambiguity and some ambivalence.
The author of paintings valued at millions was a rather weak student. A restless character, an uncontrollable desire to express his own opinion, and an overly active imagination did not allow him to achieve great success in his studies, but Dali showed himself as an artist quite early. Ramon Pichot was the first to notice his ability to draw, and directed the talent of the fourteen-year-old creator in the right direction. So, already at the age of fourteen, the young artist presented his works at an exhibition held in Figueres.
Youth
The works of Salvador Dali allowed him to enter the Madrid Academy fine arts, however, the young and already shocking artist did not stay there for long. Convinced of his exclusivity, he was soon expelled from the academy. Later, in 1926, Dali decided to continue his studies, but was expelled again, without the right to reinstatement.
A huge role in the life of the young artist was played by his acquaintance with Luis Bonuel, who later became one of the most famous directors working in the genre of surrealism, and Federico, who went down in history as one of the most prominent poets in Spain.
Expelled from the Academy of Arts, the young artist did not hide his feelings, which allowed him to organize his own exhibition in his youth, which was visited by the great Pablo Picasso.
Muse of Salvador Dali
Of course, any creator needs a muse. For Dali, she was Gala Eluard, who was at
The moment of meeting the great surrealist married. A deep, all-consuming passion became the impetus for Gala to leave her husband and for Salvador Dali himself to actively create. The beloved became not only an inspiration for the surrealist, but also a kind of manager. Thanks to her efforts, the works of Salvador Dali became known in London, New York and Barcelona. The artist's fame acquired completely different dimensions.
Avalanche of glory
As befits any creative person, the artist Dali constantly developed, strived forward, improved and transformed his technique. Of course, this led to significant changes in his life, the least of which was his exclusion from the list of surrealists. However, this did not affect his career in any way. Multi-thousand and then multi-million dollar exhibitions gained momentum. The realization of greatness came to the artist after the publication of his autobiography, the circulation of which sold out in record time.
The most famous works
A person who does not know a single work of Salvador Dali simply does not exist, but few can name at least a few works of the great artist. All over the world, the creations of the outrageous artist are preserved like the apple of an eye and are shown to millions of visitors to museums and exhibitions.
Salvador Dali's most famous paintings I almost always painted in some kind of impulse of feelings, as a result of a certain emotional outburst. For example, “Self-Portrait with Raphael’s Neck” was painted after the death of the artist’s mother, which became a real emotional trauma for Dali, which he repeatedly admitted.
“The Persistence of Memory” is one of Dali’s most famous works. This particular painting has several different names that coexist equally in art circles. On canvas in in this case The place where the artist lived and worked - Port Lligat - is depicted. Many creativity researchers argue that deserted shore This painting reflects the inner emptiness of the creator himself. Salvador Dali painted “Time” (as this painting is also called) under the impression of the melting of Camembert cheese, from which, perhaps, the key images of the masterpiece emerged. The clock, which takes on completely unimaginable forms on the canvas, symbolizes human perception time and memory. The Persistence of Memory is definitely one of Salvador Dali's most profound and thoughtful works.
Variety of creativity
It's no secret that Salvador Dali's paintings are very different from each other. A certain period in an artist’s life is characterized by one or another manner, style, or certain direction. By the time when the creator publicly declared: “Surrealism is me!” - refers to works written from 1929 to 1934. Such paintings as “William Tell”, “The Evening Ghost”, “Bleeding Roses” and many others belong to this period.
The listed works differ significantly from the paintings of the period limited to 1914 and 1926, when Salvador Dali kept his work within certain limits. Early works The master of shocking is characterized by greater uniformity, measuredness, greater calm, and to some extent greater realism. Among such paintings are “Holiday in Figueres”, “Portrait of my father”, painted in 1920-1921, “View of Cadaqués from Mount Pani”.
Salvador Dali painted his most famous paintings after 1934. From that time on, the artist’s method became “paranoid-critical.” The creator worked in this vein until 1937. Among Dali's works at this time, the most famous were the paintings "Pliable Structure with Boiled Beans (Premonition of the Civil War)" and "Atavistic Remains of Rain"
The “paranoid-critical” period was followed by the so-called American period. It was at this time that Dali wrote his famous “Dream”, “Galarine” and “Dream inspired by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate, a moment before awakening.”
The works of Salvador Dali become increasingly tense over time. The American period is followed by a period of nuclear mysticism. The painting “Sodom Self-satisfaction of an Innocent Maiden” was painted precisely at this time. During the same period, in 1963, the “Ecumenical Council” was written.
Dali calms down
Art historians call the period from 1963 to 1983 the period of the “last role.” The works of these years are calmer than previous ones. They exhibit clear geometry, very confident graphics, and not smooth, melting lines predominate, but clear and fairly strict lines. Here we can highlight the famous “Warrior”, written in 1982, or “The Appearance of a Face in the Background of a Landscape”.
The Less Known Dali
Few people know, but Salvador Dali created his greatest works not only on canvas and wood and not only with the help of paints. The artist’s acquaintance with Luis Bonuel not only largely determined the further direction of Dali’s work, but was also reflected in the painting “Un Chien Andalusian,” which shocked the audience at the time. It was this film that became a kind of slap in the face of the bourgeoisie.
Soon, Dali and Bonuel parted ways, but their joint work went down in history.
Dali and shocking
Even the artist’s appearance suggests that this is a deeply creative, extraordinary nature, striving for something new and unknown.
Dali was never distinguished by his desire for a calm, traditional appearance. On the contrary, he was proud of his unusual antics and used them in every possible way to his advantage. For example, the artist wrote a book about his own mustache, calling it “antennas for the perception of art.”
In an effort to impress, Dali decided to spend one of his own meetings in a diving suit, as a result of which he almost suffocated.
Dali Salvador put his creativity above all else. The artist gained fame in the most unexpected, strangest ways imaginable. He bought dollar bills for $2, then sold a book about this action for a lot of money. The artist defended the right of his installations to exist by destroying them and bringing them to the police.
Salvador Dali left his most famous paintings in a huge number. However, as well as memories of his strange, incomprehensible character and worldview.
On May 11, 1904 at 8:45 a.m. in Spain, in Catalonia (northeast Spain), Figueres, little Dali was born. Full name Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali y Domenech. His parents are Don Salvador Dali y Cusi and Dona Felipa Domenech. Salvador means "Savior" in Spanish. They named Salvador after his deceased brother. He died of meningitis a year before Dali was born in 1903. Dali also had a younger sister, Anna-Maria, who in the future would be the image of many of his paintings. Little Dali's parents raised him differently. Since since childhood he had been distinguished by his impulsive and eccentric character, his father was literally infuriated by his antics. Mom, on the contrary, allowed him absolutely everything. 
I'm pi He got into bed almost until he was eight years old - just for his own pleasure. In the house I reigned and commanded. Nothing was impossible for me. Didn't my father and mother pray for me ( Secret life Salvador Dali, told by himself)
Dali's desire for creativity manifested itself from early childhood. At the age of 4, he began to draw with a zeal unprecedented for a child. At the age of six, Dali was attracted to the image of Napoleon and, identifying himself with him, he felt the need for power. Having put on the king's fancy dress, he took great pleasure in his appearance. Well, he painted his first picture when he was 10 years old. It was a small landscape in the impressionist style, painted oil paints on a wooden plank. Then Salvador began taking drawing lessons from Professor Joao Nunez. Thus, at the age of 14 one could confidently see the talent of Salvador Dali incarnate.
When he was almost 15 years old, Dali was expelled from the monastic school for bad behavior. But this was not a failure for him; he passed his exams with flying colors and entered college. In Spain, schools of secondary education were called institutes. And in 1921 he graduated from the institute with excellent grades.
Afterwards he entered the Madrid Art Academy. When Dali was 16 years old, he began to get involved along with painting and literature, and began to write. He publishes his essays in the self-made publication “Studio”. And in general it leads enough active life. Managed to serve a day in prison for participating in student unrest.
Salvador Dali dreamed of creating own style in painting. In the early 20s he admired the work of the futurists. At the same time, he made acquaintances with famous poets of that time (Garcia Lorca, Luis Bonuel). The relationship between Dali and Lorca was very close. In 1926, Lorca's poem "Ode to Salvador Dalí" was published, and in 1927, Dalí designed the sets and costumes for the production of Lorca's "Mariana Pineda".
In 1921, Dali's mother dies. The father later marries another woman. For Dali, this looks like a betrayal. Later in his works he portrays the image of a father who wants to destroy his son. This event left its mark on the artist’s work.
In 1923, Dali became very interested in the works of Pablo Picasso. At the same time, problems began at the academy. He was suspended for a year for disciplinary violations.
In 1925, Dali held his first personal exhibition at the Dalmau Gallery. He presented 27 paintings and 5 drawings.
In 1926, Dali completely stopped making efforts to study, because... disappointed in school. And they kicked him out after the incident. He did not agree with the teachers’ decision regarding one of the painting teachers, then stood up and left the hall. A brawl immediately broke out in the hall. Of course, Dali was considered guilty, although he didn’t even know about what happened, and he ends up in prison, although not for long. But he soon returned to the academy. Ultimately, his behavior led to his expulsion from the academy for his refusal to take an oral examination. As soon as he learns that his last question is a question about Raphael, Dali declared: “... I do not know less than three professors combined, and I refuse to answer them because I am better informed on this matter.”
In 1927, Dali traveled to Italy to become familiar with Renaissance painting. While he was not yet part of the surrealist group led by Andre Breton and Max Ernst, he later joined them in 1929. Breton deeply studied the works of Freud. He said that by discovering unexpressed thoughts and desires hidden in the subconscious, surrealism could create new image life and the way of perceiving it.
In 1928, he left for Paris to find himself.
At the beginning of 1929, Dali tried himself as a director. The first film based on his script by Luis Bonuel was released. The film was called "Un Chien Andalou". Surprisingly, the film script was written in 6 days! The premiere was a sensation, as the film itself was very extravagant. Considered a classic of surrealism. Consisted of a set of frames and scenes. It was a small short film, designed to touch the heart of the bourgeoisie and ridicule the principles of the avant-garde.
Before 1929, Dali had nothing bright or significant in his personal life. Of course, he walked around, had numerous relationships with girls, but they never went far. And just in 1929, Dali truly fell in love. HER name was Elena Dyakonova or Gala. Russian by origin, she was 10 years older than him. She was married to the writer Paul Eluard, but their relationship was already falling apart. Her fleeting movements, gestures, her expressiveness are like the second New Symphony: they reveal the architectonic contours of a perfect soul, crystallizing in the grace of the body itself, in the aroma of the skin, in the sparkling sea foam of her life. Expressing an exquisite breath of feelings, plasticity and expressiveness materialize in impeccable architecture made of flesh and blood .
(The Secret Life of Salvador Dali) 
They met when Dali returned to Cadaques to work on an exhibition of his paintings. Among the guests of the exhibition was Paul Eluard with his then-wife Gala. Gala became Dali's inspiration in many of his works. He painted all kinds of portraits of her, as well as various images based on their relationship and passion." First kiss - Dali wrote later, - when our teeth collided and our tongues intertwined, was only the beginning of that hunger that made us bite and gnaw each other to the very essence of our being." Such images often appeared in Dali's subsequent works: chops on the human body, fried eggs, cannibalism - all these images recall the frantic sexual liberation of a young man.
Dali wrote in an absolutely unique style. It seems that he drew images known to everyone: animals, objects. But he arranged them and connected them in a completely unimaginable way. Could connect the torso of a woman with a rhinoceros, for example, or a melted watch. Dali himself would call this the “paranoid-critical method.”
1929 Dali had his first personal exhibition in Paris at the Geman Gallery, after which he began his path to the pinnacle of fame.
In 1930, Dali's paintings began to bring him fame. His work was influenced by the works of Freud. In his paintings he reflected human sexual experiences, as well as destruction and death. His masterpieces such as “The Persistence of Memory” were created. Dali also creates numerous models from various objects.
In 1932, the second film based on Dali’s script, “The Golden Age,” premiered in London.
Gala divorces her husband in 1934 and marries Dali. This woman was Dali’s muse and deity throughout his life.
Between 1936 and 1937, Dali worked on one of his most famous paintings, “Metamorphoses of Narcissus,” and a book of the same name immediately appeared.
In 1939, Dali had a serious quarrel with his father. The father was dissatisfied with his son’s relationship with Gala and forbade Dali to appear in the house.
After the occupation in 1940, Dalí moved from France to the USA to California. There he opens his workshop. There he wrote his most famous book, “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.” After his marriage to Gala, Dali left the surrealist group because... His and the group's views begin to diverge. “I don’t care at all about the gossip that Andre Breton might spread about me, he simply doesn’t want to forgive me for the fact that I remain the last and only surrealist, but it is still necessary that one fine day the whole world will read these lines , found out how everything really happened." ("The Diary of a Genius").
In 1948, Dali returned to his homeland. Begins to get involved in religious and fantastic themes.
In 1953, a large-scale exhibition took place in Rome. He exhibits 24 paintings, 27 drawings, 102 watercolors.
In 1956, Dali began a period when the inspiration for his second work was the idea of the Angel. For him, God is an elusive concept that cannot be specified in any way. God for him is not a cosmic concept either, because this would impose certain restrictions on him. Dali sees God as a collection of contradictory thoughts that cannot be reduced to any structured idea. But Dali really believed in the existence of angels. He spoke about this this way: “Whatever dreams fall to my lot, they are capable of giving me pleasure only if they have complete reliability. Therefore, if I already experience such pleasure when angelic images approach, then I have every reason believe that angels really exist."
Meanwhile, in 1959, since his father no longer wanted to let Dali in, he and Gala settled down to live in Port Lligat. Dali's paintings were already extremely popular, sold for a lot of money, and he himself was famous. He often communicates with William Tell. Under the influence, he creates such works as “The Riddle of William Tell” and “William Tell”.
Basically, Dali worked on several topics: the paranoid-critical method, the Freudian-sexual theme, the theory of modern physics and sometimes religious motives. 
In the 60s, the relationship between Gala and Dali began to crack. Gala asked to buy another house in order to move out. After this, their relationship was already just the remnants of a past bright life, but the image of Gala never left Dali and continued to be an inspiration.
In 1973, the Dali Museum opened in Figueras, incredible in its content. Until now, he amazes viewers with his surreal appearance.
In 1980, Dali began to have health problems. The death of Franco, head of state of Spain, shocked and frightened Dalí. Doctors suspect he has Parkinson's disease. Dali's father died from this disease.
In 1982, Gala died on June 10. For Dali, this was a terrible blow. He did not participate in the funeral. They say that Dali entered the crypt only a few hours later. “Look, I’m not crying,” was all he said. The death of Gala for Dali was a huge blow in his life. What the artist lost with Gala’s departure was known only to him. He walked alone through the rooms of their house, saying something about happiness and the beauty of Gala. He stopped drawing and sat for hours in the dining room, where all the shutters were closed.
Last work"Swallowtail" was completed in 1983.
In 1983, Dali’s health seemed to improve, and he began to go out for walks. But these changes were short-lived.
On August 30, 1984, there was a fire in Dali’s house. The burns on his body covered 18% of the skin surface.
By February 1985, Dali’s health was improving again and he even gave an interview to the newspaper.
But in November 1988, Dali was admitted to the hospital. The diagnosis is heart failure. On January 23, 1989, Salvador Dali passed away. He was 84 years old.
At his request, the body was embalmed and was kept in his museum for a week. Dali was buried in the very center of his own museum under a simple slab without inscriptions. The life of Salvador Dali has always been bright and eventful; throughout his life he was distinguished by his extraordinary and extravagant behavior. He changed unusual costumes, the style of his mustache, and constantly praised his talent in the books he wrote (“The Diary of a Genius,” “Dali by Dali,” “ golden book Dali", "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali"). There was such a case when he gave lectures at the London Group Rooms in 1936. It was held as part of the International Surrealist Exhibition. Dali appeared in a deep-sea diver costume.
Salvador Domenech Felip Jacinth Dali and Domenech, Marquis de Pubol (1904 - 1989) - Spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer. One of the most famous representatives surrealism.
BIOGRAPHY OF SALVADOR DALI
Salvador Dali was born in the town of Figueres in Catalonia, in the family of a lawyer. Creativity appeared in him already in early childhood. At the age of seventeen he was admitted to the Madrid Academy fine arts San Fernando, where fate happily brought him together with G. Lorca, L. Buñuel, R. Alberti. While studying at the academy, Dali enthusiastically and obsessively studied the works of the old masters, the masterpieces of Velazquez, Zurbaran, El Greco, and Goya. He is influenced by the cubist paintings of H. Gris, the metaphysical painting of the Italians, and is seriously interested in the legacy of I. Bosch.
Studying at the Madrid Academy from 1921 to 1925 was a time of persistent comprehension for the artist professional culture, the beginning of a creative understanding of the traditions of masters of past eras and the discoveries of their older contemporaries.
During his first trip to Paris in 1926, he met P. Picasso. Under the impression of a meeting that changed the direction of the search for one’s own artistic language, corresponding to his worldview, Dali creates his first surreal work, “The Splendor of the Hand.” However, Paris inexorably attracts him, and in 1929 he makes a second trip to France. There he enters the circle of Parisian surrealists and gets the opportunity to see their personal exhibitions.
At the same time, together with Buñuel, Dali made two films that have already become classics - “Un Chien Andalou” and “The Golden Age”. His role in the creation of these works is not the main one, but he is always mentioned second, as a screenwriter and at the same time an actor.
In October 1929 he married Gala. Russian by birth, aristocrat Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova occupied the most important place in the life and work of the artist. The appearance of Gala gave his art a new meaning. In the master’s book “Dali by Dali” he gives the following periodization of his work: “Dali – Planetary, Dali – Molecular, Dali – Monarchical, Dali – Hallucinogenic, Dali – Future”! Of course, it is difficult to fit the work of this great improviser and mystifier into such a narrow framework. He himself admitted: “I don’t know when I start pretending or telling the truth.”
THE WORK OF SALVADOR DALI
Around 1923, Dalí began his experiments with Cubism, often even locking himself in his room to paint. In 1925, Dali painted another painting in the style of Picasso: Venus and the Sailor. She was one of the seventeen paintings exhibited at Dali’s first personal exhibition. The second exhibition of Dali's works, held in Barcelona at the Delmo Gallery at the end of 1926, was greeted with even greater enthusiasm than the first.
Venus and the Sailor The Great Masturbator Metamorphoses of Narcissus The Riddle of William Tell
In 1929, Dali painted The Great Masturbator, one of the most significant work that period. It shows a large, wax-like head with dark red cheeks and half-closed eyes with very long eyelashes. A huge nose rests on the ground, and instead of a mouth there is a rotting grasshopper with ants crawling on it. Similar themes were typical for Dali’s works in the 1930s: he had an extraordinary weakness for images of grasshoppers, ants, telephones, keys, crutches, bread, hair. Dali himself called his technique manual photography of concrete irrationality. It was based, as he said, on associations and interpretations of unrelated phenomena. Surprisingly, the artist himself noted that he did not understand all of his images. Although Dali's work was well received by critics, who predicted a great future for him, the success did not bring immediate benefit. And Dali spent days traveling through the streets of Paris in a vain search for buyers for his original images. For example, they included a woman's shoe with large steel springs, glasses with glasses the size of a fingernail, and even a plaster head of a roaring lion with fried chips.
In 1930, Dali's paintings began to bring him fame. His work was influenced by the works of Freud. In his paintings he reflected human sexual experiences, as well as destruction and death. His masterpieces such as “Soft Hours” and “The Persistence of Memory” were created. Dali also creates numerous models from various objects.
Between 1936 and 1937, Dali worked on one of his most famous paintings, “Metamorphoses of Narcissus,” and a book of the same name immediately appeared. In 1953, a large-scale exhibition took place in Rome. He exhibits 24 paintings, 27 drawings, 102 watercolors.
Meanwhile, in 1959, since his father no longer wanted to let Dali in, he and Gala settled down to live in Port Lligat. Dali's paintings were already extremely popular, sold for a lot of money, and he himself was famous. He often communicates with William Tell. Under the influence, he creates such works as “The Riddle of William Tell” and “William Tell.”
In 1973, the Dali Museum opened in Figueras, incredible in its content. Until now, he amazes viewers with his surreal appearance.
The last work, “Swallowtail,” was completed in 1983.
Salvador Dali often went to bed with a key in his hand. Sitting on a chair, he fell asleep with a heavy key clutched between his fingers. Gradually the grip weakened, the key fell and hit a plate lying on the floor. Thoughts that arose during naps could be new ideas or solutions to complex problems.
In 1961, Salvador Dali drew the “Chupa Chups” logo for Enrique Bernat, the founder of the Spanish lollipop company, which, in a slightly modified form, is today recognizable in all corners of the planet.
In 2003, the Walt Disney Company released animated film“Destino”, which Salvador Dahl and Walt Disney began to draw back in 1945, the painting lay in the archives for 58 years.
A crater on Mercury is named after Salvador Dali.
During his lifetime, the great artist bequeathed to be buried in such a way that people could walk on the grave, so his body was walled up in a wall at the Dali Museum in Figueres. Flash photography is not permitted in this room.
Arriving in New York in 1934, he carried a 2-meter-long loaf of bread in his hands as an accessory, and while visiting an exhibition of surrealist creativity in London, he dressed in a diver’s suit.
IN different times Dali declared himself either a monarchist, or an anarchist, or a communist, or a supporter of authoritarian power, or refused to associate himself with any political movement. After World War II and his return to Catalonia, Salvador supported Franco's authoritarian regime and even painted a portrait of his granddaughter.
Dali sent a telegram to the Romanian leader Nicolas Ceausescu, written in the manner characteristic of the artist: in words he supported the communist, but caustic irony was read between the lines. Without noticing the catch, the telegram was published in the daily newspaper Scînteia.
The now famous singer Cher and her husband Sonny Bono, while still young, attended Salvador Dali's party, which he threw at the New York Plaza Hotel. There, Cher accidentally sat on a strangely shaped sex toy placed on her chair by the host of the event.
In 2008, the film “Echoes of the Past” was made about El Salvador. The role of Dali was played by Robert Pattinson. For some time Dali worked together with Alfred Hitchcock.
In his life, Dali himself completed only one film, Impressions from Upper Mongolia (1975), in which he told the story of an expedition that went in search of huge hallucinogenic mushrooms. The video series “Impressions of Upper Mongolia” is largely based on enlarged microscopic stains of uric acid on a brass strip. As you can guess, the “author” of these spots was the maestro. Over the course of several weeks, he “painted” them on a piece of brass.
Together with Christian Dior in 1950, Dali created the “suit for 2045.”
Dali wrote the painting “The Persistence of Memory” (“Soft Hours”) under the impression of Einstein’s theory of relativity. The idea in Salvador's head took shape while he was looking at a piece of Camembert cheese one hot August day.
For the first time, the image of an elephant appears on the canvas “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Waking Up.” In addition to elephants, Dali often used images of other representatives of the animal kingdom in his paintings: ants (symbolized death, decay and, at the same time, great sexual desire), he associated a snail with a human head (see portraits of Sigmund Freud), locusts in his work is associated with waste and a sense of fear.
Eggs in Dali’s paintings symbolize prenatal, intrauterine development, if you look deeper - we're talking about about hope and love.
On December 7, 1959, the presentation of the ovocypede took place in Paris: a device that was invented by Salvador Dali and brought to life by engineer Laparra. Ovosiped is a transparent ball with a seat fixed inside for one person. This “transport” became one of the devices that Dali successfully used to shock the public with his appearance.
QUOTES GAVE
Art is a terrible disease, but it is impossible to live without it yet.
With art I straighten myself out and infect normal people.
The artist is not the one who is inspired, but the one who inspires.
Painting and Dali are not the same thing; as an artist, I do not overestimate myself. It's just that others are so bad that I turned out to be better.
I saw it and it sunk into my soul and spilled through my brush onto the canvas. This is painting. And the same thing is love.
For an artist, every touch of a brush to a canvas is a whole life drama.
My painting is life and food, flesh and blood. Don't look for any intelligence or feelings in her.
Through the centuries, Leonardo da Vinci and I stretch out our hands to each other.
I think that now we are in the Middle Ages, but someday the Renaissance will come.
I'm decadent. In art, I’m something like camembert cheese: just a little too much, and that’s it. I, the last echo of antiquity, stand on the very edge.
Landscape is a state of mind.
Painting is a hand-made color photograph of all possible, super-exquisite, unusual, super-aesthetic examples of specific irrationality.
My painting is life and food, flesh and blood. Don't look for any intelligence or feelings in her.
A work of art does not awaken any feelings in me. Looking at a masterpiece makes me ecstatic about what I can learn. It never even occurs to me to be overwhelmed with emotion.
The artist thinks with drawing.
It is good taste that is sterile - for an artist there is nothing more harmful than good taste. Take the French - because of their good taste, they have become completely lazy.
Do not try to cover up your mediocrity with deliberately careless painting - it will reveal itself in the very first stroke.
First, learn to draw and write like the old masters, and only then act at your own discretion - and you will be respected.
Surrealism is not a party, not a label, but a unique state of mind, not constrained by slogans or morality. Surrealism is the complete freedom of the human being and the right to dream. I am not a surrealist, I am surrealism.
I - the highest embodiment of surrealism - follow the tradition of the Spanish mystics.
The difference between the surrealists and me is that the surrealist is me.
I am not a surrealist, I am surrealism.
BIOGRAPHY AND FILMOGRAPHY OF SALVADOR DALI
Literature
"The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Told by Himself" (1942)
"The Diary of a Genius" (1952-1963)
Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1927-33)
"The tragic myth of Angelus Millet"
Working on films
"Andalusian dog"
"Golden age"
"Spellbound"
"Impressions from Upper Mongolia"
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Thousands of books and songs have been written about Salvador Dali, many films have been made, but it is not necessary to watch, read and listen to all this - after all, there are his paintings. The brilliant Spaniard proved by his own example that a whole universe lives in every person and immortalized himself in paintings that will be in the center of attention of all mankind for centuries to come. Dali has long been not just an artist, but something like a global cultural meme. How do you like the opportunity to feel like a tabloid newspaper reporter and delve into the dirty laundry of a genius?
1. Grandfather's suicide
In 1886, Gal Josep Salvador, Dali's paternal grandfather, took his own life. The grandfather of the great artist suffered from depression and mania of persecution, and in order to annoy everyone who was “watching” him, he decided to leave this mortal world.
One day he went out onto the balcony of his apartment on the third floor and began screaming that they had robbed him and tried to kill him. The arriving police were able to convince the unfortunate man not to jump from the balcony, but as it turned out, only for a while - six days later, Gal nevertheless threw himself from the balcony upside down and died suddenly.
For obvious reasons, the Dali family tried to avoid wide publicity, so the suicide was hushed up. In the death report there was not a word about suicide, only a note that Gal died “from a traumatic brain injury,” so the suicide was buried according to Catholic rites. For a long time, relatives hid the truth about the death of their grandfather from Gala’s grandchildren, but the artist eventually learned about this unpleasant story.
2. Masturbation Addiction
As a teenager, Salvador Dali loved, so to speak, to compare penises with his classmates, and he called his own “small, pathetic and soft.” The early erotic experiences of the future genius did not end with these harmless pranks: somehow a pornographic novel fell into his hands and what struck him most of all was the episode where main character boasted that he “could make a woman squeak like a watermelon.” The young man was so impressed by the strength artistic image, that remembering this, he reproached himself for his inability to do the same with women.
In his autobiography “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali” (originally “The Unspeakable Confessions of Salvador Dali") the artist admits: “For a long time it seemed to me that I was impotent.” Probably, in order to overcome this oppressive feeling, Dali, like many boys of his age, engaged in masturbation, to which he was so addicted that throughout the life of a genius, masturbation was his main, and sometimes even the only, way of sexual satisfaction. At that time, it was believed that masturbation could lead a person to madness, homosexuality and impotence, so the artist was constantly in fear, but could not help himself.
3. Dali associated sex with rotting
One of the genius complexes arose due to the fault of his father, who once (on purpose or not) left a book on the piano that was full of colorful photos male and female genitalia disfigured by gangrene and other diseases. Having studied the photographs that enchanted and at the same time horrified him, Dali Jr. lost interest in contacts with the opposite sex for a long time, and sex, as he later admitted, began to be associated with rotting, decomposition and decay.
Of course, the artist’s attitude towards sex is noticeably reflected in his canvases: fears and motifs of destruction and decay (most often depicted in the form of ants) are found in almost every work. For example, in “The Great Masturbator,” one of his most significant paintings, there is a human face looking down, from which a woman “grows,” most likely based on Dali’s wife and muse Gala. A locust sits on the face (the genius felt an inexplicable horror of this insect), along whose abdomen ants crawl - a symbol of decomposition. The woman's mouth is pressed against the groin of the man standing next to him, which hints at oral sex, while cuts on the man's legs are bleeding, indicating the artist's fear of castration, which he experienced as a child.
4. Love is evil
In his youth, one of Dali's closest friends was the famous Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. There were rumors that Lorca even tried to seduce the artist, but Dali himself denied this. Many contemporaries of the great Spaniards said that for Lorca, the love union of the painter and Elena Dyakonova, later known as Gala Dali, became an unpleasant surprise- allegedly the poet was convinced that the genius of surrealism could only be happy with him. It must be said that despite all the gossip, there is no exact information about the nature of the relationship between the two outstanding men.
Many researchers of the artist’s life agree that before meeting Gala, Dali remained a virgin, and although at that time Gala was married to someone else, had an extensive collection of lovers, and was, after all, ten years older than him, the artist was fascinated by this woman. Art critic John Richardson wrote of her: “One of the nastiest wives a successful modern artist could choose. It’s enough to get to know her to start hating her.” At one of the first meetings with Gala, he asked what she wanted from him. This, without a doubt, extraordinary woman replied: “I want you to kill me” - after this, Dali immediately fell in love with her, completely and irrevocably.
Dali's father couldn't stand his son's passion, mistakenly believing that she was using drugs and forcing the artist to sell them. The genius insisted on continuing the relationship, as a result of which he was left without his father’s inheritance and went to Paris to his beloved, but before that, as a sign of protest, he shaved his head bald and “buried” his hair on the beach.
5. Voyeur genius
It is believed that Salvador Dali received sexual satisfaction from watching others make love or masturbate. The brilliant Spaniard even spied on his own wife while she was taking a bath, admitted to the “exciting experience of a voyeur” and called one of his paintings “Voyeur”.
Contemporaries whispered that the artist organized orgies at his home every week, but if this is true, most likely he himself did not take part in them, content with the role of spectator. One way or another, Dali’s antics shocked and irritated even the depraved bohemia - art critic Brian Sewell, describing his acquaintance with the artist, said that Dali asked him to take off his pants and masturbate, lying in the fetal position under the statue of Jesus Christ in the painter’s garden. According to Sewell, Dali made similar strange requests to many of his guests.
Singer Cher recalls that she and her husband Sonny once went to visit the artist, and he looked like he had just participated in an orgy. When Cher began to twirl in her hands the beautifully painted rubber wand that interested her, the genius solemnly informed her that it was a vibrator.
6. George Orwell: “He is sick and his paintings are disgusting”
In 1944 famous writer dedicated an essay to the artist entitled “The Privilege of Spiritual Shepherds: Notes on Salvador Dali,” in which he expressed the opinion that the artist’s talent makes people consider him impeccable and perfect.
Orwell wrote: "If Shakespeare returned to the land tomorrow and found that his favorite leisure pastime was raping little girls in railway carriages, we should not tell him to go on like that just because he is capable of writing another one." King Lear." You need the ability to keep both facts in your head at the same time: the fact that Dali is a good draftsman, and the fact that he is a disgusting person.”
The writer also notes the pronounced necrophilia and coprophagia (craving for excrement) present in Dali’s paintings. One of the most famous works The “Gloomy Game”, painted in 1929, is considered to be of this kind - at the bottom of the masterpiece there is a picture of a man stained with feces. Similar details are present in the painter’s later works.
In his essay, Orwell concludes that “men like Dali are undesirable, and the society in which they can flourish is somehow flawed.” One might say that the writer himself admitted his unjustified idealism: after all, human world has never been and will never be perfect, and Dali’s impeccable paintings are one of the clearest evidence of this.
7. "Hidden Faces"
Mine the only novel Salvador Dali wrote in 1943, when he and his wife were in the United States. Among other things, in literary work, which came from the hand of the artist, there are descriptions of the antics of eccentric aristocrats in the Old World engulfed in fire and drenched in blood, while the artist himself called the novel “an epitaph for pre-war Europe.”
If the artist’s autobiography can be considered a fantasy disguised as the truth, then “Hidden Faces” is more likely the truth disguised as fiction. In the book, which was sensational in its time, there is such an episode - Adolf Hitler, who won the war, in his Eagle’s Nest residence, tries to brighten up his loneliness with priceless masterpieces of art from all over the world laid out around him, Wagner’s music plays, and the Fuhrer makes semi-delusional speeches about Jews and Jesus Christ.
Reviews of the novel were generally favorable, although a literary reviewer for The Times criticized the novel's whimsical style, excessive adjectives, and muddled plot. At the same time, for example, a critic from The Spectator magazine wrote about Dali’s literary experience: “It’s a psychotic mess, but I liked it.”
8. Beats, so... a genius?
The year 1980 became a turning point for the elderly Dali - the artist was paralyzed and, unable to hold a brush in his hands, he stopped painting. For a genius, this was akin to torture - he had not been balanced before, but now he began to lose his temper with or without reason, and besides, he was greatly irritated by the behavior of Gala, who spent the money she received from the sale of her brilliant husband’s paintings on young fans and lovers, and gave them gifts of her own. masterpieces, and also often disappeared from home for several days.
The artist began to beat his wife, so much so that one day he broke two of her ribs. To calm her husband down, Gala gave him Valium and other sedatives, and once gave Dali a large dose of a stimulant, which caused irreparable damage to the genius’s psyche.
The painter’s friends organized the so-called “Rescue Committee” and admitted him to the clinic, but by that time the great artist was a pitiful sight - a thin, shaking old man, constantly in fear that Gala would leave him for actor Jeffrey Fenholt, performer leading role in the Broadway production of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.
9. Instead of skeletons in the closet - the corpse of the wife in the car
On June 10, 1982, Gala left the artist, but not for the sake of another man - the 87-year-old muse of the genius died in a hospital in Barcelona. According to her will, Dali was going to bury his beloved in the Pubol castle in Catalonia, which he owned, but for this, her body had to be removed without legal red tape and without attracting unnecessary attention from the press and public.
The artist found a way out, creepy but witty - he ordered Gala to be dressed, “put” the corpse in the back seat of her Cadillac, and a nurse stood nearby supporting the body. The deceased was taken to Pubol, embalmed and dressed in her favorite red Dior dress, and then buried in the castle crypt. The inconsolable husband spent several nights kneeling in front of the grave and exhausted from horror - their relationship with Gala was complicated, but the artist could not imagine how he would live without her. Dali lived in the castle almost until his death, sobbed for hours and said that he saw various animals - he began to hallucinate.
10. Infernal invalid
Just over two years after the death of his wife, Dali again experienced a real nightmare - on August 30, the bed in which the 80-year-old artist was sleeping caught fire. The cause of the fire was a short circuit in the castle's electrical wiring, believed to have been caused by the old man constantly fiddling with the maid's bell button attached to his pajamas.
When a nurse came running at the sound of the fire, she found the paralyzed genius lying at the door in a semi-fainting state and immediately rushed to give him mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration, although he tried to fight back and called her “bitch” and “murderer.” The genius survived, but received second degree burns.
After the fire, Dali became completely unbearable, although he had not previously had an easy character. A publicist from Vanity Fair noted that the artist turned into a “disabled man from hell”: he deliberately soiled bed linen, scratched nurses’ faces and refused to eat or take medications.
After recovery, Salvador Dali moved his theater-museum to the neighboring town of Figueres, where he died on January 23, 1989. Great Artist he once said that he hoped to be resurrected, so he wanted his body to be frozen after death, but instead, according to his will, he was embalmed and walled up in the floor of one of the rooms of the theater-museum, where it remains to this day.
Date of birth: May 11, 1904.
Date of death: January 23, 1989.
Full name: Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali and Domenech, Marquis de Pubol.
Spanish artist, painter, sculptor, director.
“The difference between the surrealists and me is that the surrealist is me,” Salvador Dali.
“I’m walking, and scandals are following me in a crowd”
Nothing foreshadowed that a child would be born into the wealthy family of the notary Don Salvador Dali y Cusi, who would later turn everything upside down. classical concepts about drawing methods, greatest genius era of surrealism. But it happened - a boy was born, who was named Salvador Dali. This event took place near Barcelona in the Spanish town of Figueres in 1904.
At the age of 12, Dali graduated art school. Having persuaded his parents, at the age of 17 he entered the Madrid Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. He was “asked out” in 1926 for his inappropriate attitude towards the academic council and teachers. But by that time his exhibition had already taken place in Barcelona, and the artist’s works attracted close attention in artistic circles. In Paris, where Jean-Leon Jerome himself once worked, he meets Picasso, who had a huge influence on his work. Dali would pay tribute to his newfound friend with the painting “Flesh on the Stones” (1926).
The influence of Cubism is visible in the works of that period - “Young Women” (1923). An example of a completely different style was a painting painted in 1928 and exhibited at International Exhibition Carnegie in Pittsburgh - “Bread Basket” (1925).
Like all artists of that time, Dali worked in a wide variety of fashionable styles. In the works of the period from 1914 to 1927, the influence of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Cezanne, and Caravaggio is visible. But gradually notes of surrealism begin to appear in the paintings.
"Surrealism is me"
Salvador Dali began to realize that the era of Cubism was behind him, and while working in classic style, he will get lost among the rest of the same artists as himself. Therefore, he chose the most optimal path to realize his talent and ambition. The theory of surrealism corresponded very well to this. The first paintings in this style: “Venus and the Sailor” (1925), “Flying Woman”, “Honey” sweeter than blood"(1941), etc.
The year 1929 was a turning point for Salvador Dali - two events happened that radically influenced his life and work:
Firstly, the artist met with Gala Eluard, who later became his assistant, lover, muse, and wife. Since then they have not parted, despite the fact that the woman at that time was married to his friend Paul Eluard. From the very beginning of their acquaintance, Gala became a salvation for the artist from a mental crisis. Dali once said: “I love Gala more than my mother, more than father, more Picasso and even more money" The artist created a magnificent cult of Gala, which has since appeared in many of his works, including in divine guise.
Secondly, Dali officially joined the Parisian surrealist movement. And in 1929, his exhibition took place at the Hermann Gallery in Paris, after which fame came to the artist.
In the same year, Salvador Dali and his friend Luis Buñuel created the script for the film “Un Chien Andalou.” It was Dali who came up with the most shocking scene known to this day, where a human eye is cut in half by a razor.
Dali's father, angered by his connection with Gala, forbade his son to appear in his house. The artist worked hard to earn some money. It was at this time that the painting “The Persistence of Memory” was created, which became a symbol of the concept of the relativity of time.
Although the artist often expressed the idea that events in the world worried him little, he was still very worried about the fate of Spain. The result was the painting “Pliable Structure with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)” (1935).
In 1940, while in America, the master wrote his best book"The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Written by Himself." The artist’s ability to work is amazing, he can work as a painter, decorator, jeweler, portrait painter, illustrator, making sets for Alfred Hitchcock’s films, for example, “Spellbound” 1945. After the explosion over Hiroshima in 1945. Dali expresses his attitude to this with the painting “Splitting the Atom.”
In 1965, the artist met Amanda Lear, their strange relationship would last more than 20 years. She will tell her story many years later in the book “Dali Through the Eyes of Amanda.”
Beginning in 1970, Salvador Dali's health began to rapidly deteriorate, but his creative energy did not decrease. At this time, the painting “The Hallucinogenic Torrero” (1968-1970) was created. Dali's popularity was crazy. He painted pictures based on many masterpieces of world literature: the Bible, " Divine Comedy"Dante, "The Art of Love" by Ovid, "God and Monotheism" by Freud.
“My whole life has been theater”
In 1961 The mayor of Figueres asked the artist to present a painting to Dali’s hometown. The master decided to develop the idea in 1974. He erected his own museum on the site of the ancient city theater. A giant spherical dome was raised above the stage, and auditorium divided into sectors, each of which represents a certain era in Dali’s work. Confused interior spaces, nested floors, a courtyard with culture, where the visitor’s head is spinning - all this serves as a symbol of the artist’s creativity and invariably attracts tourists from all over the world.
After Gala's death in 1982, the artist's health deteriorated, and he threw himself into his work. Dali paints paintings inspired by the heads of Moses and Adam, Giuliano de' Medici. The last work, “Swallowtail,” was completed in 1983, and in 1989, at the age of 84, the artist died of heart attack. “My whole life has been a theater,” and during his lifetime he bequeathed to bury himself so that people could walk on his grave. His body is walled up in the floor of his museum-theater.
Salvador Dali, like a magician, juggled images in his paintings. His works amazed his contemporaries with the realism of fictitious images and plots; they were made in his characteristic grotesque manner: “Soft Hours”, “Burning Giraffe”, “A Dream Inspired by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate, a Moment Before Waking Up”, “ last supper" His works are controversial, and his artistic heritage is sold at auction with very controversial bids.
Dali with my own hands created a myth about himself, his image with a mustache a la Baron Munchausen is recognizable all over the world. Much is known about him, but even more will never be known.
