In full SALVADOR FELIPE JACINTO
DALI Y DOMENECH (b. May 11, 1904, Figueras, Spain--d. Jan. 23,
1989, Figueras), Spanish Surrealist painter and printmaker, influential
for his explorations of subconscious imagery.
As an art student in Madrid and Barcelona, Daliassimilated
a vast number of artistic styles and displayed unusual
technical facility as a painter. It was not until the late 1920s,
however, that two events brought about the
development of his mature artistic style: his discovery of Sigmund
Freud's writings on the erotic significance of
subconscious imagery, and his affiliation with the Paris Surrealists,
a group of artists and writers who sought to
establish the "greater reality" of man's subconscious over his reason.
To bring up images from his subconscious
mind, Dalibegan to induce hallucinatory states in himself by a process
he described as "paranoiac critical."
Once Dalihit on this method, his painting style
matured with extraordinary rapidity, and from 1929 to 1937 he
produced the paintings which made him the world's best-known Surrealist
artist. He depicted a dream world in
which commonplace objects are juxtaposed, deformed, or otherwise metamorphosed
in a bizarre and irrational
fashion. Daliportrayed these objects in meticulous, almost painfully
realistic detail and usually placed them within
bleak, sunlit landscapes that were reminiscent of his Catalonian homeland.
Perhaps the most famous of these
enigmatic images is "The Persistence of Memory" (1931), in which limp,
melting watches rest in an eerily calm
landscape. With the Spanish director Luis Buñuel, Dalialso
made two Surrealistic films-- Un Chien andalou (1928;
An Andalusian Dog) and L'Âge d'or (1930; The Golden Age)--that
are similarly filled with grotesque but highly
suggestive images.
In the late 1930s Daliswitched to painting in
a more academic style under the influence of the Renaissance painter
Raphael, and as a consequence he was expelled from the Surrealist
movement. Thereafter he spent much of his time
designing theater sets, interiors of fashionable shops, and jewelry,
as well as exhibiting his genius for flamboyant
self-promotional stunts in the United States, where he lived from
1940 to 1955. In the period from 1950 to 1970
Dalipainted many works with religious themes, though he continued
to explore erotic subjects, to represent
childhood memories, and to use themes centering on his wife, Gala.
Notwithstanding their technical
accomplishments, these later paintings are not as highly regarded
as the artist's earlier works. The most interesting
and revealing of Dali's books is The Secret Life of Salvador Dali
(1942-44).
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
