Thousands of books and songs have been written about Salvador Dali, many films have been shot, but it is not necessary to watch, read and listen to all this - after all, there are his paintings. The ingenious Spaniard proved by his own example that a whole universe lives in every person and immortalized himself in canvases that will be in the center of attention of all mankind for more than one century. 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 reporter for a yellow newspaper and delve into the dirty linen 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 persecution mania, and in order to annoy everyone who “follows” him, he decided to leave this mortal world.
Once he went out to the balcony of his apartment on the third floor and began to shout that he had been robbed 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 rushed from the balcony upside down and died suddenly.
The Dali family understandably tried to avoid publicity, so the suicide was hushed up. There was not a word about suicide in the death certificate, only a note that Gal died "from a traumatic brain injury", so the suicide was buried according to the Catholic rite. For a long time, relatives hid the truth about the death of their grandfather from Gal's grandchildren, but the artist eventually found out about this unpleasant story.
2. Addiction to masturbation
As a teenager, Salvador Dali loved, so to speak, to measure penises with classmates, and he called his "small, pathetic and soft." Early erotic experiences of a future genius by these harmless pranks did not end: somehow a pornographic novel fell into his hands and most of all he was struck by the episode where main character boasted that he "could make a woman squeak like a watermelon." The young man was so impressed with the power artistic image that, remembering this, he reproached himself for his inability to do the same with women.
In the autobiography secret life Salvador Dali "(in the original -" 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, was 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 insanity, homosexuality and impotence, so the artist was constantly in fear, but could not help himself.
3. Dali associated sex with putrefaction.
One of the complexes of a genius arose through the fault of his father, who once (on purpose or not) left a book on the piano, which was full of colorful pictures male and female genitalia disfigured by gangrene and other diseases. Having studied the pictures that fascinated and at the same time terrified him, Dali Jr. lost interest in contacts with the opposite sex for a long time, and sex, as he later admitted, became associated with decay, decay and decay.
Of course, the artist's attitude to sex was noticeably reflected in his canvases: fears and motives for 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 downward looking human face, from which a woman "grows", most likely written off from the wife and muse of Dali Gala. A locust sits on the face (the genius experienced an inexplicable horror of this insect), on the abdomen of which ants crawl - a symbol of decomposition. The woman's mouth is pressed against the groin standing next to men, which hints at oral sex, while cuts bleed on the man’s legs, indicating the artist’s fear of castration, which he experienced in childhood.
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, was an unpleasant surprise - supposedly the poet was convinced that the genius of surrealism could only be happy with him. I must say, despite all the gossip, there is no exact information about the nature of the relationship between the two prominent 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 another, had an extensive collection of lovers, in the end she was ten years older than him, the artist was fascinated by this woman. Art historian John Richardson wrote about her: “One of the most obnoxious wives that a modern successful artist could choose. It's enough to get to know her to start hating her." At one of the artist's first meetings with Gala, he asked what she wanted from him. This, no doubt, an outstanding woman replied: “I want you to kill me” - after such a Dali immediately fell in love with her, completely and irrevocably.
Dali's father could not stand his son's passion, mistakenly believing that she was using drugs and was 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, in protest, he shaved his head baldly and "buried" his hair on the beach.
5 Voyeur Genius
There is an opinion that Salvador Dali received sexual satisfaction from watching others make love or masturbate. The ingenious Spaniard even spied on his own wife when she took a bath, confessed to the "exhilarating experience of a voyeur" and called one of his paintings "Voyeur".
Contemporaries whispered that the artist arranges orgies at his home every week, but if this is true, most likely he himself did not take part in them, being content with the role of a spectator. One way or another, Dali's antics shocked and annoyed 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 a 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 once she and her husband Sonny went to visit the artist, and he looked like he had just participated in an orgy. When Cher began to twirl the beautifully painted rubber rod in her hands, the genius solemnly informed her that it was a vibrator.
6. George Orwell: "He's 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: "Tomorrow return to Shakespeare's land and find that his favorite pastime is in free time- to rape little girls in railroad cars, we shouldn't tell him to keep going just because he's capable of writing another King Lear. You need the ability to keep in mind both facts at the same time: the one that Dali is a good draftsman, and the one that he is a disgusting person.
The writer also notes the pronounced necrophilia and coprophagia (craving for excrement) present in Dali's canvases. One of the most famous works of this kind is considered the "Gloomy Game", written in 1929 - at the bottom of the masterpiece is a man stained with feces. Similar details are present in the later works of the painter.
In his essay, Orwell concludes that "people [like Dali] are undesirable, and the society in which they can flourish has some flaws." It can be said that the writer himself admitted his unjustified idealism: after all, the human world has never been and never will be perfect, and Dali's impeccable canvases are one of the clearest evidence of this.
7. Hidden Faces
Mine the only novel Salvador Dali wrote in 1943, when he was in the United States with his wife. Among other things, in literary work, which came out from under the hand of the painter, 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 to pre-war Europe."
If the artist's autobiography can be considered a fantasy disguised as truth, then "Hidden Faces" is more likely a truth pretending to be fiction. In the book, which was sensational at the time, there is such an episode - Adolf Hitler who won the war in his residence " Eagle Nest”is trying to brighten up his loneliness with priceless masterpieces of art from all over the world spread around, Wagner music plays, and the Fuhrer makes semi-delusional speeches about Jews and Jesus Christ.
Reviews for the novel were generally favorable, although The Times literary reviewer criticized the novel's whimsical style, excessive adjectives, and chaotic 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 was a turning point for the elderly Dali - the artist was paralyzed and, unable to hold a brush in his hands, he stopped writing. For a genius, this was akin to torture - he had not been balanced before, but now he began to break down with or without reason, besides, he was very annoyed by the behavior of Gala, who spent the money earned from the sale of her brilliant husband’s paintings on young fans and lovers, gave them themselves 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, Gala gave him Valium and other sedatives, and once Dali slipped a large dose of a stimulant, which caused irreparable damage to the psyche of a genius.
The painter's friends organized the so-called "Salvation Committee" and sent 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 the 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 his 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 a genius died in a hospital in Barcelona. According to her will, Dali was going to bury his beloved in his Pubol castle in Catalonia, but for this her body had to be taken out without legal red tape and without attracting too much attention from the press and the 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 supporting the body was located nearby. The deceased was taken to Pubol, embalmed and dressed in her favorite red Dior dress, and then buried in the crypt of the castle. The inconsolable husband spent several nights kneeling in front of the grave and exhausted with horror - their relationship with Gala was difficult, 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 told that he saw various animals - he began to hallucinate.
10. Infernal invalid
Two s later small year after the death of his wife, Dali again experienced a real nightmare - on August 30, the bed in which the 80-year-old artist slept in caught fire. The cause of the fire was a short circuit in the lock's electrical wiring, presumably caused by the old man's constant fiddling with the maid button attached to his pajamas.
When a nurse came running to the noise of the fire, she found the paralyzed genius lying at the door in a semi-conscious state and immediately rushed to give him artificial respiration from mouth to mouth, although he tried to fight back and called her "bitch" and "murderer". The genius survived, but suffered second-degree burns.
After the fire, Dali became completely unbearable, although he did not have an easy character before. A publicist from Vanity Fair noted that the artist turned into a "disabled person from hell": he deliberately stained bed linen, scratched the face of nurses and refused to eat and take medicine.
After recovering, Salvador Dali moved to the neighboring town of Figueres, his theater-museum, where he died on January 23, 1989. Great artist he once said that he hopes to be resurrected, therefore he wants his body to be frozen after death, but instead, according to his will, he was embalmed and immured in the floor of one of the rooms of the theater-museum, where it is located to this day.
Salvador Dali (full name - Salvador Domenech Felipe Jacinto Dali and Domenech, Marquis de Pubol; cat. Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí de Púbol; Spanish Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí y de Púbol ). Born May 11, 1904 in Figueres - died January 23, 1989 in Figueres. Spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer. One of the most well-known representatives surrealism.
Worked on films: "Andalusian Dog", "Golden Age", "Bewitched". Author of The Secret Life of Salvador Dali as Told by Himself (1942), The Diary of a Genius (1952-1963), Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1927-33) and the essay The Tragic Myth of Angelus Millet.
Salvador Dali was born in Spain on May 11, 1904 in the city of Figueres, province of Girona, in the family of a wealthy notary. He was a Catalan by nationality, perceived himself in this capacity and insisted on this peculiarity. Had a sister and an older brother (October 12, 1901 - August 1, 1903), who died of meningitis. Later, at the age of 5, at his grave, Salvador was told by his parents that he was the reincarnation of his older brother.
As a child, Dali was a quick-witted, but arrogant and uncontrollable child.
Once he even started a scandal on the marketplace for a candy, a crowd gathered around and the police asked the owner of the shop to open it during a siesta and give this sweet to the naughty boy. He achieved his whims and simulation, always sought to stand out and attract attention.
Numerous complexes and phobias prevented him from joining the usual school life, make with children the usual ties of friendship and sympathy.
But, like any person, experiencing sensory hunger, he was looking for emotional contact with children by any means, trying to get used to their team, if not in the role of a comrade, then in any other role, or rather the only one that he was capable of - in the role of shocking and a naughty child, strange, eccentric, always acting contrary to other people's opinions.
Losing in school gambling, he acted like he won and triumphed. Sometimes he got into fights for no reason.
Partially, the complexes that led to all this were caused by the classmates themselves: they were rather intolerant of the “strange” child, used his fear of grasshoppers, slipped these insects into his collar, which drove Salvador to hysteria, which he later told in his The Secret Life of Salvador Dali as Told by Himself.
learn fine arts started in municipal art school. From 1914 to 1918 he was educated at the Academy of the Brothers of the Marist Order in Figueres. One of his childhood friends was the future football player of FC Barcelona, Josep Samitier. In 1916, with the family of Ramon Picho, he went on vacation to the city of Cadaques, where he got acquainted with modern art.
In 1921 he entered the Academy of San Fernando. The drawing presented by him as an applicant was highly appreciated by the teachers, but was not accepted due to its small size. Salvador Dali was given 3 days to make a new drawing. However, the young man was in no hurry to work, which greatly worried his father, who was already behind long years suffered his quirks. In the end, young Dali said that the drawing was ready, but it was even smaller than the previous one, and this was a blow to his father. However, the teachers, due to their extremely high skill, made an exception and accepted the young eccentric into the academy.
In the same year, the mother of Salvador Dali dies, which becomes a tragedy for him.
In 1922, he moved to the "Residence" (Spanish: Residencia de Estudiantes) (a student hostel in Madrid for gifted young people) and began his studies. In those years, everyone celebrates his panache. At this time, he met Luis Bunuel, Federico Garcia Lorca, Pedro Garfias. Reads works with passion.
Acquaintance with new trends in painting is developing - Dali is experimenting with the methods of cubism and Dadaism. In 1926 he was expelled from the Academy for being arrogant and dismissive attitude to teachers. In the same year, he travels to Paris for the first time, where he meets. Trying to find own style, in the late 1920s creates a number of works under the influence of Picasso and Joan Miro. In 1929, together with Buñuel, he took part in the creation of the surrealistic film The Andalusian Dog.
Then he first meets his future wife Gala (Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova), who was then the wife of the poet Paul Eluard. Having become close to El Salvador, Gala, however, continues to meet with her husband, starts passing relationships with other poets and artists, which at that time seemed acceptable in those bohemian circles where Dali, Eluard and Gala revolved. Realizing that he actually stole his friend's wife, Salvador paints his portrait as "compensation".
Dali's works are shown at exhibitions, he is gaining popularity. In 1929, he joined the Surrealist group organized by Andre Breton. At the same time, there is a break with the father. The hostility of the artist’s family towards Gala, the conflicts, scandals associated with this, as well as the inscription made by Dali on one of the canvases - “Sometimes I spit on the portrait of my mother with pleasure” - led to the fact that the father cursed his son and put him out of the house.
Provocative, outrageous and, it would seem, terrible deeds the artist was by no means always worth taking literally and seriously: he probably did not want to offend his mother and did not even know what it would lead to, perhaps he longed to experience a series of feelings and experiences that he stimulated in himself with such a blasphemous, at first glance, act . But the father, grieved by the long-standing death of his wife, whom he loved and whose memory he carefully kept, could not stand the antics of his son, which became the last straw for him. In retaliation, the indignant Salvador Dali sent his father in an envelope his sperm with an angry letter: "This is all I owe you." Later, in the book “The Diary of a Genius,” the artist, already an elderly man, speaks well of his father, admits that he loved him very much and endured the suffering brought by his son.
In 1934, he unofficially marries Gala (the official wedding took place in 1958 in the Spanish town of Girona). In the same year, he visits the USA for the first time.
After Caudillo Franco came to power in 1936, Dali quarreled with the surrealists on the left, and he was expelled from the group.
In response, Dali, not without reason, states: "Surrealism is me".
El Salvador was practically apolitical, and even his monarchist views should be taken surrealistically, that is, not seriously, as well as his constantly advertised sexual passion for Hitler.
He lived surrealistically, his statements and works had a wider and deep meaning rather than the interests of specific political parties.
So, in 1933, he paints the picture The Riddle of William Tell, where he depicts a Swiss folk hero in the form of Lenin with a huge buttock.
Dali rethought the Swiss myth according to Freud: Tell became a cruel father who wants to kill his child. The personal memories of Dali, who broke with his father, were layered. Lenin, on the other hand, was perceived by communist-minded surrealists as a spiritual, ideological father. The painting depicts dissatisfaction with an overbearing parent, a step towards the formation of a mature personality. But the surrealists took the drawing literally, as a caricature of Lenin, and some of them even tried to destroy the canvas.
In 1937, the artist visits Italy and remains in awe of the works of the Renaissance. In his own works correctness begins to dominate human proportions and other features of academicism. Despite the departure from surrealism, his paintings are still filled with surrealistic fantasies. Later, Dali (in the best traditions of his conceit and outrageousness) ascribes to himself the salvation of art from modernist degradation, with which he connects his given name("Salvador" is Spanish for "Saviour").
In 1939, Andre Breton, mocking Dali and the commercial component of his work (which, however, Breton himself was not a stranger to), came up with an anagram nickname for him: “Avida Dollars” (which in Latin is not entirely accurate, but recognizably means “ greedy for dollars"). Breton's joke instantly gained immense popularity, but did not hurt Dalí's commercial success, which far surpassed Breton's.
With the outbreak of World War II, Dali, together with Gala, left for the United States, where they lived from 1940 to 1948. In 1942, he published a fictionalized autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali. His literary experiments, like works of art tend to be commercially successful. He collaborates with Walt Disney. He invites Dali to test his talent in cinema - an art that at that time was fanned with a halo of magic, miracles and wide possibilities. But the surrealist project proposed by Salvador Destino cartoon was deemed commercially unviable, and work on it was discontinued. Dali is working with director Alfred Hitchcock to design the scenery for the dream scene from the movie Spellbound. However, the scene entered the film very truncated - again for commercial reasons.
After returning to Spain, he lives mainly in his beloved Catalonia. In 1965 he comes to Paris and again, as almost 40 years ago, conquers it with his works, exhibitions and outrageous acts. He shoots whimsical short films, takes surreal photographs. In films, he mainly uses reverse-view effects, but skillfully selected subjects (flowing water, a ball bouncing on stairs), interesting commentary, a mysterious atmosphere created by acting artist, makes films unusual examples of art house. Dali starred in commercials, and even in such commercial activities, he does not miss the opportunity for self-expression. TV viewers will remember a chocolate commercial for a long time, in which the artist bites off a piece of a bar, after which his mustache twists with euphoric delight, and he exclaims that he has gone crazy from this chocolate.
His relationship with Gala is quite complicated. On the one hand, from the very beginning of their relationship, she promoted him, found buyers for his paintings, convinced him to write works that were more understandable to the mass audience (the change in his painting at the turn of the 20-30s was striking), shared luxury with him, and need. When there was no order for paintings, Gala forced her husband to develop product brands, costumes: her strong, resolute nature was very necessary for a weak-willed artist. Gala put things in order in his workshop, patiently folded canvases, paints, souvenirs, which Dali senselessly scattered, looking for the right thing. On the other hand, she constantly had relationships on the side, in later years the spouses often quarreled, Dali's love was rather a wild passion, and Gala's love was not without calculation, with which she "married a genius." In 1968, Dali bought for Gala a castle in the village of Pubol, in which she lived separately from her husband, and which he himself could visit only with the written permission of his wife. In 1981, Dalí developed Parkinson's disease. Gala dies in 1982.
After the death of his wife, Dali is experiencing a deep depression.
His paintings themselves are simplified, and on them for a long time the motive of grief prevails (variations on the theme "Pieta").
Parkinson's disease also prevents Dali from painting.
His most recent works (“Cockfights”) are simple squiggles in which the bodies of the characters are guessed - the last attempts at self-expression of an unfortunate sick person.
It was difficult to take care of a sick and distraught old man, he threw himself at the nurses with what was tucked under his arm, shouted, bit.
After the death of Gala, Salvador moved to Pubol, but in 1984 a fire broke out in the castle. The paralyzed old man rang the bell unsuccessfully, trying to call for help. In the end, he overcame the weakness, fell off the bed and crawled to the exit, but passed out at the door. With severe burns, Dali was taken to the hospital, but survived. Before this incident, Salvador may have planned to be buried next to Gala, and even prepared a place in the crypt in the castle. However, after the fire, he left the castle and moved to the theater-museum, where he remained until the end of his days.
The only legible phrase that he uttered during the years of illness was “My friend Lorca”: the artist remembered the years of a happy, healthy youth, when he was friends with the poet.
The artist bequeathed to bury him so that people could walk on the grave, so Dali's body was walled up in the floor in one of the rooms of the Dali Theater Museum in the city of Figueres.
Most famous works Salvador Dali:
Self portrait with Raphael neck (1920-1921)
Portrait of Luis Buñuel (1924)
Flesh on the Stones (1926)
Fixture and Hand (1927)
The Invisible Man (1929)
Enlightened Pleasures (1929)
Portrait of Paul Eluard (1929)
Riddles of Desire: "My Mother, My Mother, My Mother" (1929)
Great Masturbator (1929)
William Tell (1930)
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Partial hallucination. Six appearances of Lenin on the piano (1931)
Paranoid transformations of Gal's face (1932)
Retrospective bust of a woman (1933)
The Riddle of William Tell (1933)
Mae West's face (used as a surrealist room) (1934-1935)
Woman with a Head of Roses (1935)
A malleable structure with boiled beans: premonition civil war (1936)
Venus de Milo with boxes (1936)
Giraffe on fire (1936-1937)
Anthropomorphic Locker (1936)
Telephone - Lobster (1936)
Sun Table (1936)
Metamorphoses of Narcissus (1936-1937)
The Hitler Enigma (1937)
Swans reflected in elephants (1937)
The Apparition of a Face and a Bowl of Fruit by the Sea (1938)
Slave market with the appearance of the invisible bust of Voltaire (1938)
Poetry of America (1943)
Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before awakening (1944)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946)
Naked Dali, contemplating five ordered bodies, turning into corpuscles, from which Leda Leonardo is unexpectedly created, impregnated with the face of Gala (1950)
Raphael Head Explosion (1951)
Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951)
Galatea with Spheres (1952)
Crucifixion or Hypercubic Body (1954) Corpus hypercubus
Colossus of Rhodes (1954)
Sodomic Self-Patience of an Innocent Maid (1954)
The Last Supper (1955)
Our Lady of Guadalupe (1959)
Discovery of America by the sleep effort of Christopher Columbus (1958-1959)
Ecumenical Council (1960)
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (1976).
The child suffered from a mass of phobias and complexes, which prevented him from finding mutual language with peers. Classmates often teased and used phobias against him. Salvador behaved defiantly at the same time, tried to shock those around him. Although there were few childhood friends, one of them is Josep Samitier, a Barcelona footballer.
Already in childhood, Dali's talent for fine arts manifested itself. At the age of 6 he wrote interesting pictures. And at the age of 14, his first exhibition took place in Figueres. Dali got the opportunity to improve his skills at the municipal art school.
In 1914-1918, Salvador studied in Figueres at the Academy of the Order of the Marists. Education at the monastic school did not go smoothly, and at the age of 15, an eccentric student was expelled for indecent behavior.
In 1916, a landmark event occurred for Dali - a trip to Cadaques (Cadaqués) with the Pichot family. There he met contemporary painting. IN hometown the genius studied under Joan Nunez.
In 1921 future artist graduated from the institute (as secondary schools were called in Catalonia), which he managed to enter even despite the exclusion from the monastic school. Dali's grades were brilliant.
Dali's youth
A talented young man easily enters the San Fernando Academy in Madrid and moves to the "Residence" - a hostel for gifted students. Dali is noticed for his attractive appearance and panache. Together with study artistic craft, the young man begins to master literature. Although the first notes about great artists appeared as early as 1919, while studying at the Academy, he devoted more time to writing.
In 1921, Salvador's mother, whom he adored, died.
During his studies, Dali met Lorca, Garfias and Buñuel. Later, in his scandalous book "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, told by himself", written in 1942, the artist will write that only Lorca made an indelible impression on him. Fruitful cooperation will connect the artist with Buñuel.
Also during the years of study, Dali was read by Freud, whose ideas made an indelible impression on him. Under the influence of the father of psychoanalysis, a paranoid-critical method was born, which in 1935 will be described in the work "Conquest of the Irrational".
Contemporaries spoke of Salvador Dali as a very talented and hardworking person. It was said that he could spend hours writing in the studio, learning new techniques, and forgetting to come down to eat. Experimenting with Dadaism and Cubism, Dali is trying to find his own style. By the end of his studies, he was disappointed in the teachers, began to behave defiantly, for which he was expelled from the Academy in 1926. In the same year, in search of himself, the genius goes to Paris and meets Picasso. In the works of that period, the influence of the latter is noticeable, as well as Joan Miro.
Youth
In 1929, Dali, together with Buñuel, wrote the script for the film Andalusian Dog in just six days. The picture is a resounding success.
The success of The Andalusian Dog inspired Buñuel and Dali to make a second film, The Golden Age, which was released in 1931.
Quarrels begin with the surrealists. The last straw was the writing in 1933 of the painting "The Riddle of William Tell". Here the character is identified with Lenin as a severe ideological father. Surrealists understood Dali literally. Moreover, he had the audacity to say: "Surrealism is me." The conflict leads to a break with Breton society in 1936.
creative change
In 1934, one of the most famous paintings- Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Almost immediately, Dali published literary work Metamorphoses of Narcissus. paranoid topic.
Gradually, the artist moves away from surrealism, but still continues to shock the public, calling himself a savior (the meaning of the name Salvador is played up) from modernist degradation.
Life in the USA
With the outbreak of World War II, Dali and Gala went to the United States, where they would remain throughout the years 1940-1948. Here comes the scandalous autobiography mentioned earlier.
All activities in the States are commercially successful: paintings, advertising, photographs, exhibitions, eccentric acts. Gala's strong-willed character contributes a lot to this. She organizes her husband's activities, puts things in order in his workshop, pushes him in certain directions, stimulating him to earn money.
Return to Spain. mature years
Homesickness made itself felt, and in 1948 the couple returned to Spain, to their beloved Catalonia. In the paintings of that period, fantastic and religious themes begin to appear. In 1953, an exhibition was held, which brought together more than 150 works. In general, Dali was a very prolific artist.
Dali and Gala established their real first home in Port Lligat in 1959. By that time, the genius had become a very popular and bought author. Only very wealthy people could afford his canvases in the 60s.
In 1981, the artist was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, he practically stopped writing. The death of his wife also knocked him down. Recent works express all the longing of an old sick person.
The genius died on January 23, 1989 from heart failure and was buried in his homeland, in a museum under an unnamed slab, so that, as he wanted, people could walk on the grave.
Salvador Dali, 1939
1. Translated from Spanish, "Salvador" means "savior." Salvador Dali had an older brother who died of meningitis a few years before the birth of the future artist. Desperate parents found solace in the birth of Salvador, later telling him that he was the reincarnation of his older brother.
2. The full name of Salvador Dali is Salvador Domenech Felipe Jacinth Dali and Domenech, Marquis de Dali de Pubol.
3. The first exhibition of paintings by Salvador Dali was held in municipal theater Figueres when he was 14 years old.
4. As a child, Dali was an unbridled and capricious child. With his willfulness, he achieved literally everything that a small child could wish for.
5. Salvador Dali did his time short term in prison. He was arrested by the civil guards, but since the investigation did not find any reason to keep him for a long time, Salvador was released.
6. Entering the Academy of Fine Arts, Salvador had to pass an exam in painting. 6 days were given for everything - during this time Dali had to complete the drawing of the antique model in full sheet. On the third day, the examiner noted that his drawing was too small, and, violating the rules of the exam, he would not enter the academy. El Salvador erased the drawing and presented a new one on the last day of the exam. perfect option models, only he turned out to be less than the first drawing. Despite breaking the rules, the jury accepted his work because it was perfect.
Salvador and Gala, 1958
7. landmark event in the life of El Salvador was a meeting with Gala Eluar (Elna Ivanovna Dyakonova), who at that time was his wife French poet Fields of Eluard. Later, Gala became a muse, assistant, lover, and then the wife of El Salvador.
8. When Salvador was 7 years old, his father was forced to drag him to school. He made such a scandal that all the street vendors ran to the screams. Not only did little Dali learn nothing during his first year of study, he even forgot the alphabet. Salvador believed that he owed this to Mr. Traiter, who is mentioned in his biography "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, told by himself."
9. Salvador Dali is the author of the Chupa Chups packaging design. Chupa Chups founder Enric Bernat asked El Salvador to bring something new to the wrapper, as the candy's growing popularity required a recognizable design. In less than an hour, the artist sketched out a package design for him, which is now known as the Chupa-Chups logo, although in a slightly modified form.
Dali with his father, 1948
10. A desert in Bolivia and a crater on the planet Mercury are named after Salvador Dali.
11. Art dealers are wary of Salvador Dali's latest work, as it is believed that during his life the artist signed blank canvases and blank sheets of paper so that they could be used for fakes after his death.
12. In addition to visual puns, which were an integral part of the image of Dali, the artist also expressed surrealism in words, often building sentences on vague allusions and wordplay. Sometimes he spoke in a strange combination of French, Spanish, Catalan and English, which seemed like a fun, but at the same time incomprehensible game.
13. The artist's most famous painting, The Persistence of Memory, is quite small - 24×33 centimeters.
14. El Salvador was so afraid of grasshoppers that it sometimes drove him to nervous breakdown. As a child, his classmates often used it. “If I were on the edge of an abyss and a grasshopper jumped in my face, I would rather throw myself into the abyss than endure his touch. This horror has remained the mystery of my life.
Sources:
1 en.wikipedia.org
2 Biography "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, told by himself", 1942.
3en.wikipedia.org
4 en.wikipedia.org
Rate article:
Related Articles
25 interesting facts about Pablo Picasso 20 Curious Facts About Vincent van Gogh
Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in the Spanish city of Figueres (Catalonia). His real name is Salvador Jacinto Dali Domench Cusi Farres. His father called him Salvador, which means "Savior" in Spanish.
The first son who appeared in the family died, and the parents wanted the second to become their consolation, the savior of the ancient family. As Dali wrote in his shocking "Diary of a Genius": "At six years old I wanted to become a cook, at seven - Napoleon. Since then, my ambitions have been steadily growing. And today I long to become none other than Salvador Dali." Most of all, Dali loved himself, they say about such people - Narcissus. He talked a lot about himself, published personal diaries. He was confident in his uniqueness.
The only thing that separates me from a crazy person is that I'm normal.
Dali Salvador
Dali claimed to have been a genius already in the womb. he adored his mother, because she endured the Savior, that is, him, and when his mother died, he could not recover from the blow. But not much time passed, and Dali, for advertising purposes, inscribed on one of own paintings hanging at an exhibition in Paris, blasphemous words: "I spit on my mother." Salvador's father forbade his son to return home, but Dali did not care: painting became his family and home.
Whether Dali is a genius or not, we will not judge, he was always evaluated differently, but talent was always evident. An excellent landscape has been preserved, which he wrote at the age of 6, and at the age of 14 he took part in it. personal exhibition No. 1 at the Municipal Theater of Figueres. At the age of 17, he entered the Royal Academy of Arts (another name is graduate School fine arts).
The teachers appreciated his drawings quite highly. The poet Rafael Alberti recalled: “I have great love for Salvador Dali, a young man. His talent from God was supported by an amazing capacity for work. Very often, closing himself in his room and working furiously, he forgot to go down to the dining room. day attended the Academy of Arts and learned to draw there to the point of exhaustion. But in my head young talent always lived the thought: how to become famous? How to stand out from the huge circle of talent? How unusual is it to enter the world of art to be remembered? Vanity is a powerful lever for a gifted person. It leads someone to a feat, it forces someone to show the best sides character and soul, Dali decided to go in a completely different way: he decided to shock!
In 1926, Dali was expelled from the Academy for impudence, then he gets on a short time to jail. Well, these scandals only play into his hands! Having started an independent road in painting, Dali began to fight with common sense. In addition to the fact that he non-stop wrote his terrible fantasies, he behaved in a very original way. Here are some of his antics. Once in Rome, he appeared in the park of Princess Pallavicini, lit by torches, from a cubic egg and delivered a speech in Latin.
In Madrid, Dali once delivered a speech addressed to Picasso. Its purpose is to invite Picasso to Spain. "Picasso is Spaniard - and I am also Spaniard! Picasso is a genius - and I am also a genius! Picasso is a communist - and neither am I!". The audience groaned. In New York, Dali appeared, dressed in a golden space suit and being inside an outlandish machine of his own invention - a transparent sphere. In Nice, Dali announced his intention to start creating the film "Wheelbarrow in the Flesh" with the brilliant actress Anna Magnani in the title role. Moreover, he claimed that according to the plot, the heroine falls in love with a wheelbarrow.
Salvador Dali was a genius of self-promotion, so his following tirade is quite clear: "Our time is the era of cretins, the era of consumption, and I would be the last idiot if I didn't shake everything possible out of the cretins of this era." ... Dali, who adored everything unconventional, everything "on the contrary", was married to amazing woman, which was quite suitable for him. Her real name is Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova, although she went down in history under the name Gala. Gala means "holiday" in French. In fact, it was so: for Dali, Gala became a celebration of inspiration, the main model. They did not part for 53 years.
The marriage of Dali and Gala was rather strange, rather it was creative union. Dali could not live without his “half”: in everyday life he was a rather impractical, notorious person, he was afraid of everything: riding an elevator, and concluding contracts. Gala said: "In the morning, El Salvador makes mistakes, and in the afternoon I correct them, tearing up the agreements he signed lightly." They were an eternal couple - ice and fire.
News and publications related to Dali Salvador
