Dali (Salvador Dali)

His Life  He was born in May of 1904 in Figueras, Spain  When he was 12, he went to the art institute in Figueras, he was a daydreamer and very eccentric, wearing odd clothing and long hair  His first exhibition of paintings at the Municipal Theater in Figueras was in  In 1922 he began attending the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid where he was influenced by metaphysics and cubism.  He was suspended 3 years later for criticizing his teachers & supposedly starting a riot

His Life—Con’t.  He returned but was expelled in 1926 for declaring that none of the professors were competent enough to give him his exams.  He got into surrealism and film-making in 1929 & also met his wife Gala.  1934 was a big year for him:  He married Gala  Was invited to New York for a ball in his honor to which he wore a glass case around his chest with a brassiere in it  Was expelled from the surrealist group

His Life—Con’t.  He appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in 1936  He moved to America in 1940, wrote the Secret Life of Salvador Dali in 1942, made a dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Spellbound in 1945, then returned to Spain in  1980 brought the end to his painting due to a car accident & in 1982 Gala died  He was badly burned in a fire in 1984 and lived as a recluse until his death in January of 1989.

His Style  His art is best characterized by a mix of the following:  Surrealism: dreamlike, fantastic images & strange hallucinatory characters  Objects charged with sexual symbolism (influenced by Freud)  “paranoiac-critical method” which uses the subconscious to enhance creativity  Meticulous classical technique (influenced by Renaissance art)  The ability of the artist to subject time to his own will “Each morning when I awake, I experience a supreme pleasure--that of being Salvador Dali” (Dali)

Dali Persistance of Memory (1931) 1.Dali says “the soft watches were inspired by the surrealist perception of a Camembert cheese melting in the sun” 2.There is a human figure in the middle, a self- portrait which appears frequently in his work. 3.The figure has one closed eye with several eyelashes; suggesting that he is in a dream state

Salvador Dalí Persistence of Memory The orange clock at the bottom left of the painting is covered in ants, often used by Dali as a symbol for death 5. This represents a dream that Dali had experienced. 6. The clocks symbolize the passing of time that one experiences in a dream state.

The Burning Giraffe (Girraffe Aflame) (1937) 1.Shows his personal struggle with the battle in his come country during the Spanish civil war 2.Characteristic are the opened drawers in the blue female figure, which Dali described as “Femme-coccyx” (tail bone woman). 3.This points to Dali’s admiration for Freud who Dali says, “discovered that the human body is filled with secret drawers only to be opened through psychoanalysis”.

The Burning Giraffe (Girraffe Aflame) (1937) 4. The opened drawers refer to the inner subconscious. 5. There is a twilight atmosphere with deep blue sky. 6. Another female figure has drawers opening from her side like a chest. 7. One figure is holding a strip of meat. 8. Both are supported by crutches, a common image for Dali 9. There is a giraffe with its back on fire in the distance which Dali believed to be a premonition of war.

Dali Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) 1.Based on Greek myth where Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in a pool. Unable to embrace the watery image, he pined away, and the gods immortalized him as a flower 2.The painting shows Narcissus sitting in a pool, gazing down. 3.Not far away there is a decaying stone figure which corresponds closely to him but is perceived quite differently; as a hand holding up a bulb or egg from which a Narcissus flower is growing.

Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) 4.The egg has been used as a common symbol by Dali 5.In the background, a group of naked figures can be seen, while a third Narcissus like figure appears on the horizon. 6.Dali wrote a poem to accompany the painting

1. The painting depicts a slave market with a woman at a booth watching some people. 2. Other people seem to make up the face of Voltaire, a French philosopher, while the face seems to be positioned on an object to form a bust. 3. Dali describes his work on the painting ‘to make the abnormal look normal ad the normal look abnormal.” Dali—Slave Market (1940)