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Salvador Dalí

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Salvador Dalí
Dalí, photo by Carl Van Vechten, November 29, 1939
EducationSan Fernando School of Fine Arts, Madrid
Known forPainting, Drawing, Photography, Sculpture
MovementCubism, Dada, Surrealism

Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí Domènech or Salvador Felip Jacint Dalí Domènech (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), known popularly as Salvador Dalí, was a Catalan-Spanish artist who became one of the most important painters of the 20th century. A skilled draftsman, he is best known for his surrealist work identified by its striking, bizarre, dreamlike images. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. In addition to painting, his artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, photography, and an Academy Award-nominated short cartoon, "Destino," on which he collaborated with Walt Disney; it was released posthumously in 2003.

An artist of great imagination, Dalí had an affinity for doing unusual things to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork.






Endeavors outside painting

Dalí was a versatile artist, not limiting himself only to painting in his artistic endeavors. Some of his more popular artistic works are sculptures and other objects, and he is also noted for his contributions to theatre, fashion, and photography, among other areas.

File:Dali Atomicus2.jpg
A photograph from the Dalí Atomica series (1948) by Philippe Halsman

Two of the most popular objects of the surrealist movement were the Lobster Telephone and the Mae West Lips Sofa, completed by Dalí in 1936 and 1937, respectively. The Scottish patron Edward James commissioned both of these pieces from Dalí; James, an eccentric who had inherited a large English estate when he was five, was one of the foremost supporters of the surrealists in the 1930s. "Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for " according to the display caption for the Lobster Telephone at the Tate Gallery, "and he drew a close analogy between food and sex." The telephone was functional, and James purchased four of them from Dalí to replace the phones in his retreat home. One now appears at the Tate Gallery; the second can be found at the German Telephone Museum in Frankfurt; the third belongs to the Edward James Foundation; and the fourth is at the National Gallery of Australia. The wood and satin Mae West Lips Sofa was shaped after the lips of actress Mae West, who Dalí apparently found fascinating. West was previously the subject of Dalí's 1935 painting The Face of Mae West. The Mae West Lips Sofa currently resides at the Brighton and Hove Museum in England.

The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954) was Dalí's way of ushering in the new science.

In theatre, Dalí is remembered for constructing the scenery for García Lorca's 1927 romantic play Mariana Pineda. For Bacchanale (1939), a ballet based on and set to the music of Richard Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser, Dalí provided both the set design and the libretto. Bacchanale was followed by set designs for Labyrinth in 1941 and The Three-Cornered Hat in 1949.

Dalí also delved into the realms of filmmaking, most notably playing large roles in the production of Un Chien Andalou, a 17-minute French art film co-written with Luis Buñuel which is widely remembered for the graphic scene of the slicing open of a human eyeball with a razor. Dalí's other major film work is the Disney cartoon production Destino; clocking in at a mere six minutes, it contains dream-like images of strange figures flying and walking about. Dalí also designed the dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945 film) which heavily delves into themes of psychoanalysis.

Dalí built a repertoire in the fashion and photography industries as well. In fashion, his cooperation with the Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli is well-known, where Dalí was hired by Schiaparelli to produce a white dress with a lobster print. Other designs Dalí made for her include a shoe-shaped hat and a pink belt with lips for a buckle. He was also involved in creating textile designs and perfume bottles. With Christian Dior in 1950, Dalí created a special "costume for the year 2045." Photographers with whom he collaborated include Man Ray, Brassaï, Cecil Beaton, and Philippe Halsman. With Man Ray and Brassaï, Dalí photographed nature, while with the others he explored a range of obscure topics, including with Halsman the Dalí Atomica series (1948)—inspired by his painting Leda Atomica—which in one photograph depicts "a painter’s easel, three cats, a bucket of water and Dalí himself floating in the air."

References to Dalí in the context of science are made in terms of his fascination with the paradigm shift that accompanied the birth of quantum mechanics in the twentieth century. Inspired by Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle, in 1958 he wrote in his "Anti-Matter Manifesto": "In the Surrealist period I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today the exterior world and that of physics, has transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg." In this respect, The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, which appeared in 1954, in hearkening back to The Persistence of Memory and portraying that painting in fragmentation and disintegration, summarizes Dalí's acknowledgment of the new science.

Architectural achievements include his Port Lligat house near Cadaqués as well as the Dream of Venus surrealist pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair which contained within it a number of unusual sculptures and statues. His literary works include The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942), Diary of a Genius (1952–1963), and Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1927–1933).The artist worked extensively in the graphic arts producing many etchings and lithographs. While his early work in printmaking is equal in quality to his important paintings as he grew older he unfortunately looked at printmaking as a money making scheme only and would sell the rights to images and not even be involved to in the print production itself. In addition a large number of unauthorized fakes were produced in the eighties and ninties thus further confusing the Dalí print market.

Politics and personality

File:Dali Self-portrait.jpg
Self-portrait, 1921

The politics of Salvador Dalí played a significant role in his emergence as an artist. He has sometimes been portrayed as a fascist supporter. The reality is probably somewhat more complex; in any event, he was probably not an anti-semite, given that he was a friendly acquaintance of famed architect and designer Paul Laszlo, who was ethnically Jewish.

In his youth, Dalí embraced for a time both anarchism and communism. His writings account various anecdotes of making radical political statements more to shock listeners than from any deep conviction, which was in keeping with Dalí's allegiance to the Dada movement. When he fell into the circle of mostly Marxist surrealists who denounced as enemies the monarchists on one hand and the anarchists on the other, Dalí explained to them that he personally was an anarcho-monarchist.

File:Dali on the Rocky Steps.jpg
Dalí on the Rocky Steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Dalí fled from fighting and refused to align himself with any group. After his return to Catalonia after World War II, Dalí became closer to the Franco regime. Some of Dalí's statements supported the repression enacted under Franco's fascist regime, congratulating Franco for his actions aimed "at clearing Spain of destructive forces." Dalí sent telegrams to Franco, "praising him for signing death warrants for political prisoners." Dalí even painted a portrait of Franco's grand-daughter. It is impossible to determine whether his tributes to Franco were sincere or whimsical; he also once sent a telegram praising the Conducător, Romanian Communist leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, for his adoption of a sceptre as part of his regalia. The Romanian daily newspaper Scînteia published it, without suspecting its mocking aspect. Dalí's eccentricities were tolerated by the Franco regime, since not many world-famous artists would accept living in Spain. One of Dalí's few possible bits of open disobedience was his continued praise of Federico García Lorca even in the years when Lorca's works were banned.

In Carlos Lozano's biography, Sex, Surrealism, Dalí and Me, produced by the collaboration of Clifford Thurlow, Lozano makes it clear that Dalí never stopped being a surrealist. As Dalí said of himself: "the only difference between me and the surrealists is that I am a surrealist." Everything, including his support for Franco and telegrams to Ceauşescu, must be seen in this light. Dalí is famous for having said "every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí."

Listing of selected works

Gala in the window (1933), Marbella

Dalí produced over 1,500 paintings in his career, in addition to producing illustrations for books, lithographs, designs for theater sets and costumes, a great number of drawings, dozens of sculptures, and various other projects, including an animated cartoon for Disney. Below is a chronological sample of important and representative work, as well as some notes on what Dalí did in particular years:

  • 1910 Landscape Near Figueras
  • 1913 Vilabertin
  • 1916 Fiesta in Figueras (begun 1914)
  • 1917 View of Cadaqués with Shadow of Mount Pani
  • 1918 Crepuscular Old Man (begun 1917)
  • 1919 Port of Cadaqués (Night) (begun 1918) and Self-portrait in the Studio
  • 1920 The Artist’s Father at Llane Beach and View of Portdogué (Port Aluger)
  • 1921 The Garden of Llaner (Cadaqués) (begun 1920) and Self-portrait
  • 1922 Cabaret Scene and Night Walking Dreams
  • 1923 Self Portrait with L'Humanite and Cubist Self Portrait with La Publicitat
  • 1924 Still Life (Syphon and Bottle of Rum) (for García Lorca) and Portrait of Luis Buñuel
  • 1925 Large Harlequin and Small Bottle of Rum, and a series of fine portraits of his sister Anna Maria, most notably Figure At A Window
  • 1926 Basket of Bread and Girl from Figueres
  • 1927 Composition With Three Figures (Neo-Cubist Academy) and Honey is Sweeter Than Blood (his first important surrealist work)
  • 1929 Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog) film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel, The Lugubrious Game, The Great Masturbator and The First Days of Spring
  • 1930 L'Âge d'Or (The Golden Age) film in collaboration with Luis Buñuel
  • 1931 The Persistence of Memory (his most famous work, featuring the "melting clocks"), The Old Age of William Tell, and William Tell and Gradiva
  • 1932 The Spectre of Sex Appeal, The Birth of Liquid Desires, Anthropomorphic Bread, and Fried Eggs on the Plate without the Plate. The Invisible Man (begun 1929) completed (although not to Dalí's own satisfaction).
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936)
Rinoceronte vestido con puntillas (1956), Puerto José Banús

The largest collections of Dalí's work are at the Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, followed by the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades, California. Espace Salvador Dalí on Montmartre in Paris, France contains a large collection of his drawings and smaller sculptures.

The unlikeliest venue for Dalí's work was the Rikers Island jail in New York City; a sketch of the Crucifixion he donated to the jail hung in the inmate dining room for 16 years before it was moved to the prison lobby for safekeeping. The drawing was stolen in March 2003 by 4 prison guards and has not been recovered.

Notable students/disciples

References

  1. ^ Dalí, Salvador. (2000) Dalí: 16 Art Stickers, Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-41074-9.
  2. Saladyga, Stephen Francis. "The Mindset of Salvador Dalí". lamplighter (Niagara University). Vol. 1 No. 3, Summer 2006. Retrieved July 22, 2006.
  3. ^ Lobster telephone. National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved on August 4, 2006.
  4. Tate Collection | Lobster Telephone by Salvador Dalí. Tate Online. Retrieved on August 4, 2006.
  5. Cite error: The named reference unbound was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. Federico García Lorca. Pegásos. Retrieved on August 8, 2006.
  7. ^ Dalí Rotterdam Museum Boijmans. Paris Contemporary Designs. Retrieved on August 8, 2006.
  8. Past Exhibitions. Haggerty Museum of Art. Retrieved August 8, 2006.
  9. ^ Dalí: Explorations into the domain of science. The Triangle Online. Retrieved August 8, 2006.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference navarro was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. Cite error: The named reference coversations was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. Cite error: The named reference artcyclopedia was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. The Surreal World of Salvador Dalí. Smithsonian Magazine. 2005. Retrieved August 31, 2006.
  14. "The Salvador Dalí Online Exhibit". MicroVision. Retrieved 2006-06-13.
  15. ^ "Dalí picture sprung from jail". BBC. March 2, 2003. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

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