Art 1020
Bertha Midgley
Research Paper
Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali Spanish Painter, designer and Filmmaker was born on
May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain, Dali was a very eccentric and smart
kid that show his interest in art at early age and his parents Salvador
Dali y Cusi and Felipa Domenech Ferres encourage him to keep
developing his talent by sending him to drawing school at the Colegio
de hermanos Maristas and the Instituto in Figueres, Spain.
Dali has a great influence from Ramon Pichot good friend of Pablo
Picasso and mentor of Dali when he was only ten years old Pichot
painted in a impressionist style and Dali found that very interesting
another important part of Dali’s inspiration was the family trips to
Cadaques in Spain, Dali feel very connected with the nature an beauty
of the village that inspired him to start painting at the age of 15, he
was creating amazing paintings, years later Dali will keep being spired
for the same village to paint it in his own style.
When he was 18 we moved to Madrid to the art school, because of his
unique personality and style he was always standing out from all the
group of students, he was not a serious student, and looking and
expecting for more he move to Paris where he saw Andre Breton’s
surrealism art and felt intrigue for his paintings and the way of putting
together different concepts. Dali had also paintings that show strong
influence of Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Rene Magritte, all this
influence introduced Dali to the world of the Surrealism.
In 1929 Dali was very inspired for Sigmund Freud and his theory of the
Psychoanalysis, the fight between the unconscious and the conscious
mind he was fascinated how the mind has their own concepts and how
many thoughts are repressed because disturb the conscious mind. In
1930 Dali came up with his own surrealistic method “the Paranoid
Critical Method” used to access the subconscious through systematic
irrational thought and a self-induced paranoid state, which will help
the artist to enter to the surrealistic world. Using this method Dali was
able to relate objects that the conscious mind will not relate, this
method was the signature of his art that is why we find in his
paintings, as a result we have a lot of disturbance images and
concepts as a different way to interpret the word, Dali said that the
subconscious has a symbolic language and communicates the sexual
instincts, feelings of death physical notion of space, Dali had very clear
what he wanted to accomplish even when his paintings seems to not
make sense
While he was in Paris he meet Gala who will be his wife, companion
and manager, Gala was an artist who was key in Dali’s carrier, She
was 10 years older than him and with more experience she convince
him to move to New York where Dali was celebrity, he worked in a lot
of projects there, his surrealist way to see things open doors to the
world of fashion, furniture and jewelry design, he was also
participating in commercial and advertising, Dali worked on a project
for Walt Disney and making short films but after getting lots of fame in
United States, Gala and Dali decided to come back to Spain where Dali
was painting again and started working in a big project, the teatro
Museo of Dali in Figueres, the idea it was build a museum of
surrealism with all Dali’s art, he accomplish this project successfully
and in 1974 the museum was opened.
In 1980 Dali was forced to retired because of Parkinson’s disease and
in 1982 his wife Gala die and he went into a big depression and die in
1989 at the age of 84 he was buried in his museum where he reminds
surrender for all his art.
One of his most famous paintings is “The Persistence of Memory”
painted in 1931 oil in canvas; actually exhibit in the Museum of
Modern Art in New York City. The persistence of Memory describes a
scene with pocket watches melted, detached from their chains, a
branch of a tree holding in of the melted watches, some rocks and
having the ocean as a background creates negative space that isolates
objects from each other. This is one of my favorite paintings, great
composition the shading and the perspective are successfully
accomplish and of course being very surrealistic painting the intriguing
meaning of the painting catch the subconscious of the audience mind.
Dali never interpreted or explain his work, people how worked with
him said he will be very hard to understand, Dali was constantly trying
to create confusion his extravagant life style and personal life were
reflected on this work.
Dali had a brilliant mind he had a great passion for art, for him was
not enough to create art he was living art, he had dreams and talents
and toke advantage of them his hard work and unique way to see the
world will be always remembered. Dali is one of the biggest artist of
the human history, I was really happy I had the opportunity to do my
research on Dali’s life reading and watching documentaries was very
inspiring and help me to understand his complicate way to paint, I
admired his passion and discipline for art, his biggest legacy is the
inspiration for new artist.
Sources:
http://www.biography.com/people/salvador-dal%C3%AD-40389
http://www.tufts.edu/programs/mma/fah188/clifford/Subsections/Paranoid%20
Critical/paranoidcriticalmethod.html
http://totallyhistory.com/the-persistence-of-memory/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpLKa16kV2U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpU7pGIU5Z8