Salvador was given the last years of his life. Salvador Dali and his surreal paintings

Thousands of books and songs have been written about Salvador Dali, many films have been made, but it is not necessary to watch, read and listen to all this - after all, there are his paintings. The brilliant Spaniard by example proved that a whole universe lives in every person and immortalized himself in paintings that will be in the center of attention of all mankind for centuries to come. 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 tabloid newspaper reporter and delve into the dirty laundry 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 mania of persecution, and in order to annoy everyone who was “watching” him, he decided to leave this mortal world.

One day he went out onto the balcony of his apartment on the third floor and began screaming that they had robbed him 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 threw himself from the balcony headfirst and died suddenly.

For obvious reasons, the Dali family tried to avoid wide publicity, so the suicide was hushed up. In the death report there was not a word about suicide, only a note that Gal died “from a traumatic brain injury,” so the suicide was buried according to Catholic rites. For a long time relatives hid the truth about their grandfather’s death from Gala’s grandchildren, but the artist eventually learned about this unpleasant story.

2. Masturbation Addiction

As a teenager, Salvador Dali loved, so to speak, to compare penises with his classmates, and he called his own “small, pathetic and soft.” The early erotic experiences of the future genius did not end with these harmless pranks: somehow a pornographic novel fell into his hands and what struck him most was the episode where the main character boasted that he “could make a woman squeak like a watermelon.” The young man was so impressed by the strength artistic image, that remembering this, he reproached himself for his inability to do the same with women.

In his autobiography " Secret life Salvador Dali" (originally - "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, 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 madness, homosexuality and impotence, so the artist was constantly in fear, but could not help himself.

3. Dali associated sex with rotting

One of the genius’s complexes arose due to the fault of his father, who once (on purpose or not) left a book on the piano, which was full of colorful photographs of male and female genitalia, disfigured by gangrene and other diseases. Having studied the photographs that enchanted and at the same time horrified him, Dali Jr. lost interest in contacts with the opposite sex for a long time, and sex, as he later admitted, began to be associated with rotting, decomposition and decay.

Of course, the artist’s attitude towards sex is noticeably reflected in his canvases: fears and motifs of 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 human face looking down, from which a woman “grows,” most likely based on Dali’s wife and muse Gala. A locust sits on the face (the genius felt an inexplicable horror of this insect), along whose abdomen ants crawl - a symbol of decomposition. The woman's mouth is pressed against the groin of the man standing next to him, which hints at oral sex, while cuts on the man's legs are bleeding, indicating the artist's fear of castration, which he experienced as a child.

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 love union 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. It must be said that despite all the gossip, there is no exact information about the nature of the relationship between the two outstanding 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 someone else, had an extensive collection of lovers, and was, after all, ten years older than him, the artist was fascinated by this woman. Art critic John Richardson wrote of her: “One of the nastiest wives a successful modern 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, without a doubt, extraordinary woman replied: “I want you to kill me” - after this, Dali immediately fell in love with her, completely and irrevocably.

Dali's father couldn't stand his son's passion, mistakenly believing that she was using drugs and 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, as a sign of protest, he shaved his head bald and “buried” his hair on the beach.

5. Voyeur genius

It is believed that Salvador Dali received sexual satisfaction from watching others make love or masturbate. The brilliant Spaniard even spied on his own wife, while she was taking a bath, confessed to the “exciting experience of a voyeur” and called one of his paintings “Voyeur”.

Contemporaries whispered that the artist organized orgies at his home every week, but if this is true, most likely he himself did not take part in them, content with the role of spectator. One way or another, Dali’s antics shocked and irritated 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 the 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 she and her husband Sonny once went to visit the artist, and he looked like he had just participated in an orgy. When Cher began to twirl in her hands the beautifully painted rubber wand that interested her, the genius solemnly informed her that it was a vibrator.

6. George Orwell: “He is 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: “Return to Shakespeare's land tomorrow and find that his favorite pastime is free time- raping little girls in railroad cars, we shouldn't tell him to keep doing it just because he can write another King Lear. You need the ability to keep both facts in your head at the same time: the fact that Dali is a good draftsman, and the fact that he is a disgusting person.”

The writer also notes the pronounced necrophilia and coprophagia (craving for excrement) present in Dali’s paintings. One of the most famous works The “Gloomy Game”, painted in 1929, is considered to be of this kind - at the bottom of the masterpiece there is a picture of a man stained with feces. Similar details are present in the painter’s later works.

In his essay, Orwell concludes that “men like Dali are undesirable, and the society in which they can flourish is somehow flawed.” One might say that the writer himself admitted his unjustified idealism: after all, human world has never been and will never be perfect, and Dali’s impeccable paintings are one of the clearest evidence of this.

7. "Hidden Faces"

Mine the only novel Salvador Dali wrote in 1943, when he and his wife were in the United States. Among other things, in literary work, which came from the hand of the artist, 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 for pre-war Europe.”

If the artist’s autobiography can be considered a fantasy disguised as the truth, then “Hidden Faces” is more likely the truth disguised as fiction. In the book, which was sensational in its time, there is also such an episode - Adolf Hitler, who won the war, in his Eagle’s Nest residence, tries to brighten up his loneliness with priceless masterpieces of art from all over the world laid out around him, Wagner’s music plays, and the Fuhrer makes semi-delirious speeches about Jews and Jesus Christ.

Reviews of the novel were generally favorable, although a literary reviewer for The Times criticized the novel's whimsical style, excessive adjectives, and muddled plot. At the same time, for example, a critic from The Spectator magazine wrote about literary experience Dali: “It’s a psychotic mess, but I liked it.”

8. Beats, so... a genius?

The year 1980 became a turning point for the elderly Dali - the artist was paralyzed and, unable to hold a brush in his hands, he stopped painting. For a genius, this was akin to torture - he had not been balanced before, but now he began to lose his temper with or without reason, and besides, he was greatly irritated by the behavior of Gala, who spent the money she received from the sale of her brilliant husband’s paintings on young fans and lovers, and gave them gifts of her own. 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 down, Gala gave him Valium and other sedatives, and once gave Dali a large dose of a stimulant, which caused irreparable damage to the genius’s psyche.

The painter’s friends organized the so-called “Rescue Committee” and admitted 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 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 the genius died in a hospital in Barcelona. According to her will, Dali was going to bury his beloved in the Pubol castle in Catalonia, which he owned, but for this, her body had to be removed without legal red tape and without attracting unnecessary attention from the press and 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 stood nearby supporting the body. The deceased was taken to Pubol, embalmed and dressed in her favorite red Dior dress, and then buried in the castle crypt. The inconsolable husband spent several nights kneeling in front of the grave and exhausted from horror - their relationship with Gala was complicated, 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 said that he saw various animals - he began to hallucinate.

10. Infernal invalid

In two s 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 was sleeping caught fire. The cause of the fire was a short circuit in the castle's electrical wiring, believed to have been caused by the old man constantly fiddling with the maid's bell button attached to his pajamas.

When a nurse came running to the sound of the fire, she found the paralyzed genius lying at the door in a semi-fainting state and immediately rushed to do something for him. artificial respiration mouth to mouth, although he tried to fight back and called her “bitch” and “murderer.” The genius survived, but received second degree burns.

After the fire, Dali became completely unbearable, although he had not previously had an easy character. A publicist from Vanity Fair noted that the artist turned into a “disabled man from hell”: he deliberately soiled bed linen, scratched nurses’ faces and refused to eat or take medications.

After recovery, Salvador Dali moved his theater-museum to the neighboring town of Figueres, where he died on January 23, 1989. Great artist he once said that he hoped to be resurrected, so he wanted his body to be frozen after death, but instead, according to his will, he was embalmed and walled up in the floor of one of the rooms of the theater-museum, where it remains to this day.

Name: Salvador Dali

Age: 84 years old

Place of birth: Figueres, Spain

A place of death: Figueres, Spain

Activity: painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer

Family status: was married

Salvador Dali - biography

A dashingly curled mustache, a crazy look, eccentric antics - everyone saw him as a madman. But behind the outer shell of an eccentric there was a shy and complex person. This is Salvador Dali.

Salvador Dali - childhood

The family of Don Salvador Dali y Cusi was extremely happy about the appearance of their first child. They decided to name him after his father. However, the boy did not live long - he died of meningitis. The parents were overwhelmed with grief, and only the birth of another son brought them back to life. There was no doubt: this baby is the reincarnation of the first! Besides, he looks like him like two peas in a pod. The boy was also named Salvador.

When the child grew up a little, he was brought to his brother’s grave. He looked in fascination at given name on a marble slab...

Salvador Dali - enfant terrible

Residents of the Spanish town of Figueres surrounded the boy who was screaming heart-rendingly. A policeman intervened:

Yes, open your own shop and give the child a lollipop! - the law enforcement officer turned to the frightened shopkeeper, who simply asked the boy to wait until the siesta was over.

The children didn't like him. Having learned that Salvador was afraid of grasshoppers, they began to put them in his notebook and throw them down his collar. The unfortunate man cried and screamed, but there was no one willing to console him. The only outlet was drawing. At the age of six, he scratched his first sketch on a wooden table - a pair of swans, and at ten he already became an artist with his own, rather original vision of the surrounding reality.

Parents tried not to limit anything young genius. They gave him a separate room with a bathroom for his workshop. When it was hot, Salvador would fill the bathtub with cold water, sit in it and paint on canvas. The easel was a ribbed washing board.

Salvador Dali - career

In 1921, Salvador went to the Academy of San Fernando to hone his visual skills. He wrote an examination picture, but the commission said that the work was too small in size and gave him a chance to improve. However, a couple of days later Dali brought a drawing even smaller than the previous one. The academics gave in and accepted the gifted eccentric into the course. A few years later, he fully “repaid” his teachers for their kindness. During the exam, he told the commission: “I’m not going to demonstrate my skills to you, because none of you know as much as I know.” The arrogant know-it-all was expelled.

However, the years of study at the Academy were not in vain for Dali. He searched for himself, tried new movements - Cubism, Dadaism, wrote a lot, read Freud. But the most powerful surge of his talent happened when the artist arrived in Paris. There he met his idol - and there he joined the surrealists, whose canvases were full of allusions and bizarre forms.

Salvador Dali - biography of personal life

In a circle of surrealists, Dali first saw the woman who was destined to become the most important person in his life, the incomparable Gala.

Elena Dyakonova is 36, he is 25. Quite a youth, considering that Dali did not know women. Shortly before this, he became interested in his close friend, the poet Federico García Lorca, but the connection was not something serious.

Something trembled deep inside and made his legs give way when he saw Gala. Far from being a beauty, but what charisma! It’s no wonder that her husband, the poet Paul Eluard, kept his eyes open - as long as no one took her away. It didn’t help: she started affairs left and right. In the surrealist circle, she was mysteriously nicknamed “the muse.” Dali Gala noticed immediately. After looking at his work, I realized that she had real talent in front of her. And Salvador himself has already fallen recklessly in love.

The father did not like his son’s chosen one, but Dali was ready to quarrel with the whole world for the sake of his beloved. At first, he signed one of the paintings with the words: “Sometimes I spit with pleasure on the portrait of my mother,” although he always loved his mother dearly. Then he sent his father an envelope with his sperm and a note: “Here is everything I owe you.” He turned the whole world against himself, and in 1934 he married Gala, who left her husband and daughter for him.

Finally, the wind of change blew: it turned out that the artist was known and loved in America. It was decided to go overseas.

While World War II was raging in Europe. Dali and Gala enjoyed the artist's American triumph. Money flowed like a river. Walt Disney himself invited Dali to work with him on the cartoon. True, it turned out to be so strange that they decided not to release it on screens. Later, the artist was offered advertising contracts, and he readily agreed.

Outside observers saw Dali as a crazy eccentric who does whatever comes into his head. In fact, he did what Gala wanted. After the wedding, he signed even some of his paintings “Gala Salvador Dali.”

She enjoyed the gullibility of a genius. She had many young lovers, and Dali had to put up with this. Soon he, too, began to have affairs on the side. So, in 1965, Amanda Lear appeared in his life. A strange character: there were rumors that in the past she was a man... But who cares, because Salvador needed a loved one. He still painted, but his paintings were in such demand that the artist stopped creating and began to stamp. One day Gala saw Dali painting: he took paint, dipped the brush into a bath of water and splashed it on the canvas: “And so they will buy it!”

In 1968, Gala wished to be alone. Salvador bought her a castle in Pubol. He could come there only with the prior permission of his muse. The artist suffered, but this was only the beginning. A few years later, he learned that he had Parkinson's disease. Gala immediately gave up on Dali: what good is he now?

The disease progressed. The artist had difficulty drawing - he simply drew squiggles. Gala brought him empty sheets of paper and forced him to sign on them - so that she could then draw something on them herself and sell it, passing it off as a master’s drawing.

But he continued to love Gala. When she died in 1982. Dali locked himself in her castle and received virtually no visitors. He left his home only because of a fire. Partially paralyzed, Dali called for help, but no one came... The artist had 20% of his body burned, but he survived miraculously.

He did not want to return to Pubol. Settled in his native Figueres, in own museum, which he founded in 1974. Sick and weak, he dreamed of being buried here. When Salvador Dali died of a heart attack on January 23, 1989, the coffin with his body was placed under one of the slabs on the floor. Now every day hundreds of fans step on his grave, just as the artist himself wanted.

On May 11, 1904 at 8:45 a.m. in Spain, in Catalonia (northeast Spain), Figueres, little Dali was born. Full name Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali y Domenech. His parents are Don Salvador Dali y Cusi and Dona Felipa Domenech. Salvador means "Savior" in Spanish. They named Salvador after his deceased brother. He died of meningitis a year before Dali was born in 1903. Dali had the same younger sister Anna Maria, who in the future will be the image of many of his paintings. Little Dali's parents raised him differently. Since since childhood he had been distinguished by his impulsive and eccentric character, his father was literally infuriated by his antics. Mom, on the contrary, allowed him absolutely everything.

I'm pi He got into bed almost until he was eight years old - just for his own pleasure. In the house I reigned and commanded. Nothing was impossible for me. My father and mother didn’t pray for me (The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, as told by himself)

Dali's desire for creativity manifested itself from early childhood. At the age of 4, he began to draw with a zeal unprecedented for a child. At the age of six, Dali was attracted to the image of Napoleon and, identifying himself with him, he felt the need for power. Having put on the king's fancy dress, he took great pleasure in his appearance. Well, he painted his first picture when he was 10 years old. It was a small landscape in the impressionist style, painted oil paints on a wooden plank. Then Salvador began taking drawing lessons from Professor Joao Nunez. Thus, at the age of 14, one could confidently see the talent of Salvador Dali incarnate.

When he was almost 15 years old, Dali was expelled from the monastic school for bad behavior. But this was not a failure for him; he passed his exams with flying colors and entered college. In Spain, schools of secondary education were called institutes. And in 1921 he graduated from the institute with excellent grades.
Afterwards he entered the Madrid Academy of Art. When Dali was 16 years old, he began to get involved along with painting and literature, and began to write. He publishes his essays in the self-made publication “Studio”. And in general it leads enough active life. Managed to serve a day in prison for participating in student unrest.

Salvador Dali dreamed of creating own style in painting. In the early 20s he admired the work of the futurists. At the same time, he makes acquaintances with famous poets of that time (Garcia Lorca, Luis Bonuel). The relationship between Dali and Lorca was very close. In 1926, Lorca's poem "Ode to Salvador Dalí" was published, and in 1927, Dalí designed the sets and costumes for the production of Lorca's "Mariana Pineda".
In 1921, Dali's mother dies. The father later marries another woman. For Dali, this looks like a betrayal. Later in his works he portrays the image of a father who wants to destroy his son. This event left its mark on the artist’s work.

In 1923, Dali became very interested in the works of Pablo Picasso. At the same time, problems began at the academy. He was suspended for a year for disciplinary violations.

In 1925, Dali held his first personal exhibition at the Dalmau Gallery. He presented 27 paintings and 5 drawings.

In 1926, Dali completely stopped making efforts to study, because... disappointed in school. And they kicked him out after the incident. He did not agree with the teachers’ decision regarding one of the painting teachers, then stood up and left the hall. A brawl immediately broke out in the hall. Of course, Dali was considered guilty, although he didn’t even know about what happened, and he ends up in prison, although not for long. But he soon returned to the academy. Ultimately, his behavior led to his expulsion from the academy for his refusal to take an oral examination. As soon as he learns that his last question is a question about Raphael, Dali declared: “... I do not know less than three professors combined, and I refuse to answer them because I am better informed on this matter.”

In 1927, Dali traveled to Italy to become familiar with Renaissance painting. While he was not yet part of the surrealist group led by Andre Breton and Max Ernst, he later joined them in 1929. Breton deeply studied the works of Freud. He said that by discovering unexpressed thoughts and desires hidden in the subconscious, surrealism could create new image life and the way of perceiving it.

In 1928, he left for Paris to find himself.

At the beginning of 1929, Dali tried himself as a director. The first film based on his script by Luis Bonuel was released. The film was called "Un Chien Andalou". Surprisingly, the film script was written in 6 days! The premiere was a sensation, as the film itself was very extravagant. Considered a classic of surrealism. Consisted of a set of frames and scenes. It was a small short film, designed to touch the heart of the bourgeoisie and ridicule the principles of the avant-garde.

Before 1929, Dali had nothing bright or significant in his personal life. Of course, he walked around, had numerous relationships with girls, but they never went far. And just in 1929, Dali truly fell in love. HER name was Elena Dyakonova or Gala. Russian by origin, she was 10 years older than him. She was married to the writer Paul Eluard, but their relationship was already falling apart. Her fleeting movements, gestures, her expressiveness are like the second New Symphony: they reveal the architectonic contours of a perfect soul, crystallizing in the grace of the body itself, in the aroma of the skin, in the sparkling sea foam of her life. Expressing an exquisite breath of feelings, plasticity and expressiveness materialize in impeccable architecture made of flesh and blood . (The Secret Life of Salvador Dali)

They met when Dali returned to Cadaques to work on an exhibition of his paintings. Among the guests of the exhibition was Paul Eluard with his then-wife Gala. Gala became Dali's inspiration in many of his works. He painted all kinds of portraits of her, as well as various images based on their relationship and passion." First kiss, - Dali wrote later, - when our teeth collided and our tongues intertwined, was only the beginning of that hunger that made us bite and gnaw each other to the very essence of our being." Such images often appeared in Dali's subsequent works: chops on a human body, fried eggs, cannibalism - all these images recall the frenetic sexual liberation of a young man.

Dali wrote in an absolutely unique style. It seems that he drew images known to everyone: animals, objects. But he arranged them and connected them in a completely unimaginable way. Could connect the torso of a woman with a rhinoceros, for example, or a melted watch. Dali himself would call this the “paranoid-critical method.”

1929 Dali had his first personal exhibition in Paris at the Geman Gallery, after which he began his path to the pinnacle of fame.

In 1930, Dali's paintings began to bring him fame. His work was influenced by the works of Freud. In his paintings he reflected human sexual experiences, as well as destruction and death. His masterpieces such as “The Persistence of Memory” were created. Dali also creates numerous models from various objects.

In 1932, the second film based on Dali’s script, “The Golden Age,” premiered in London.

Gala divorces her husband in 1934 and marries Dali. This woman was Dali’s muse and deity throughout his life.

Between 1936 and 1937, Dali worked on one of his most famous paintings, “Metamorphoses of Narcissus,” and a book of the same name immediately appeared.
In 1939, Dali had a serious quarrel with his father. The father was dissatisfied with his son’s relationship with Gala and forbade Dali to appear in the house.

After the occupation in 1940, Dalí moved from France to the USA to California. There he opens his workshop. There he wrote his most famous book, “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.” After his marriage to Gala, Dali left the surrealist group because... His and the group's views begin to diverge. “I don’t care at all about the gossip that Andre Breton might spread about me, he simply doesn’t want to forgive me for the fact that I remain the last and only surrealist, but it is still necessary that one fine day the whole world will read these lines , found out how everything really happened." ("The Diary of a Genius").

In 1948, Dali returned to his homeland. Begins to get involved in religious and fantastic themes.

In 1953, a large-scale exhibition took place in Rome. He exhibits 24 paintings, 27 drawings, 102 watercolors.

In 1956, Dali began a period when the inspiration for his second work was the idea of ​​the Angel. For him, God is an elusive concept that cannot be specified in any way. God for him is not a cosmic concept either, because this would impose certain restrictions on him. Dali sees God as a collection of contradictory thoughts that cannot be reduced to any structured idea. But Dali really believed in the existence of angels. He spoke about this this way: “Whatever dreams fall to my lot, they are capable of giving me pleasure only if they have complete authenticity. Therefore, if I already experience such pleasure when angelic images approach, then I have every reason believe that angels really exist."

Meanwhile, in 1959, since his father no longer wanted to let Dali in, he and Gala settled down to live in Port Lligat. Dali's paintings were already extremely popular, sold for a lot of money, and he himself was famous. He often communicates with William Tell. Under the influence, he creates such works as “The Riddle of William Tell” and “William Tell”.

Basically, Dali worked on several topics: the paranoid-critical method, the Freudian-sexual theme, the theory of modern physics and sometimes religious motives.

In the 60s, the relationship between Gala and Dali began to crack. Gala asked to buy another house in order to move out. After that, their relationship was only the remnants of a past bright life, but the image of Gala never left Dali and continued to be an inspiration.
In 1973, the Dali Museum opened in Figueras, incredible in its content. Until now, he amazes viewers with his surreal appearance.
In 1980, Dali began to have health problems. The death of Franco, head of state of Spain, shocked and frightened Dalí. Doctors suspect he has Parkinson's disease. Dali's father died from this disease.

In 1982, Gala died on June 10. For Dali, this was a terrible blow. He did not participate in the funeral. They say that Dali entered the crypt only a few hours later. “Look, I’m not crying,” was all he said. The death of Gala for Dali was a huge blow in his life. What the artist lost with Gala’s departure was known only to him. He walked alone through the rooms of their house, saying something about happiness and the beauty of Gala. He stopped drawing and sat for hours in the dining room, where all the shutters were closed.
The last work, “Swallowtail,” was completed in 1983.

In 1983, Dali’s health seemed to improve, and he began to go out for walks. But these changes were short-lived.

On August 30, 1984, there was a fire in Dali’s house. The burns on his body covered 18% of the skin surface.
By February 1985, Dali’s health was improving again and he even gave an interview to the newspaper.
But in November 1988, Dali was admitted to the hospital. The diagnosis is heart failure. On January 23, 1989, Salvador Dali passed away. He was 84 years old.

At his request, the body was embalmed and was kept in his museum for a week. Dali was buried in the very center of his own museum under a simple slab without inscriptions. The life of Salvador Dali has always been bright and eventful; throughout his life he was distinguished by his extraordinary and extravagant behavior. He changed unusual costumes, the style of his mustache, and constantly praised his talent in the books he wrote (“The Diary of a Genius,” “Dali by Dali,” “ golden book Dali", "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali"). There was such a case when he gave lectures at the London Group Rooms in 1936. It was held as part of International exhibition surrealists. Dali appeared in the costume of a deep sea diver.

Salvador Domenech Felip Jacinth Dali and Domenech, Marquis de Pubol (1904 - 1989) - spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer. One of the most famous representatives surrealism.

BIOGRAPHY OF SALVADOR DALI

Salvador Dali was born in the town of Figueres in Catalonia, in the family of a lawyer. Creative skills appeared in him already in early childhood. At the age of seventeen he was admitted to the Madrid Academy fine arts San Fernando, where fate happily brought him together with G. Lorca, L. Buñuel, R. Alberti. While studying at the academy, Dali enthusiastically and obsessively studied the works of the old masters, the masterpieces of Velazquez, Zurbaran, El Greco, and Goya. He is influenced by the cubist paintings of H. Gris, metaphysical painting Italians, seriously interested in the legacy of I. Bosch.

Studying at the Madrid Academy from 1921 to 1925 was for the artist a time of persistent comprehension of professional culture, the beginning of a creative understanding of the traditions of masters of past eras and the discoveries of his older contemporaries.

During his first trip to Paris in 1926, he met P. Picasso. Under the impression of a meeting that changed the direction of the search for one’s own artistic language, corresponding to his worldview, Dali creates his first surreal work, “The Splendor of the Hand.” However, Paris inexorably attracts him, and in 1929 he makes a second trip to France. There he enters the circle of Parisian surrealists and gets the opportunity to see their personal exhibitions.

At the same time, together with Buñuel, Dali made two films that have already become classics - “Un Chien Andalou” and “The Golden Age”. His role in the creation of these works is not the main one, but he is always mentioned second, as a screenwriter and at the same time an actor.

In October 1929 he married Gala. Russian by birth, aristocrat Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova took the most important place in the life and work of the artist. The appearance of Gala gave his art new meaning. In the master’s book “Dali by Dali” he gives the following periodization of his work: “Dali – Planetary, Dali – Molecular, Dali – Monarchical, Dali – Hallucinogenic, Dali – Future”! Of course, it is difficult to fit the work of this great improviser and mystifier into such a narrow framework. He himself admitted: “I don’t know when I start pretending or telling the truth.”

THE WORK OF SALVADOR DALI

Around 1923, Dalí began his experiments with Cubism, often even locking himself in his room to paint. In 1925, Dali painted another painting in the style of Picasso: Venus and the Sailor. She was one of the seventeen paintings exhibited at the first personal exhibition Dali. The second exhibition of Dali's works, held in Barcelona at the Delmo Gallery at the end of 1926, was greeted with even greater enthusiasm than the first.

Venus and the Sailor The Great Masturbator Metamorphoses of Narcissus The Riddle of William Tell

In 1929, Dali painted The Great Masturbator, one of the most significant works of that period. It shows a large, wax-like head with dark red cheeks and half-closed eyes with very long eyelashes. A huge nose rests on the ground, and instead of a mouth there is a rotting grasshopper with ants crawling on it. Similar themes were typical for Dali’s works in the 1930s: he had an extraordinary weakness for images of grasshoppers, ants, telephones, keys, crutches, bread, hair. Dali himself called his technique manual photography of concrete irrationality. It was based, as he said, on associations and interpretations of unrelated phenomena. Surprisingly, the artist himself noted that he did not understand all of his images. Although Dali's work was well received by critics, who predicted a great future for him, the success did not bring immediate benefits. And Dali spent days traveling through the streets of Paris in a vain search for buyers for his original images. For example, they included a woman’s shoe with large steel springs, glasses with glasses the size of a fingernail, and even gypsum head roaring lion with fried chips.

In 1930, Dali's paintings began to bring him fame. His work was influenced by the works of Freud. In his paintings he reflected human sexual experiences, as well as destruction and death. His masterpieces such as “Soft Hours” and “The Persistence of Memory” were created. Dali also creates numerous models from various objects.

Between 1936 and 1937, Dali worked on one of his most famous paintings, “Metamorphoses of Narcissus,” and a book of the same name immediately appeared. In 1953, a large-scale exhibition took place in Rome. He exhibits 24 paintings, 27 drawings, 102 watercolors.

Meanwhile, in 1959, since his father no longer wanted to let Dali in, he and Gala settled down to live in Port Lligat. Dali's paintings were already extremely popular, sold for a lot of money, and he himself was famous. He often communicates with William Tell. Under the influence, he creates such works as “The Riddle of William Tell” and “William Tell.”

In 1973, the Dali Museum opened in Figueras, incredible in its content. Until now, he amazes viewers with his surreal appearance.

The last work, “Swallowtail,” was completed in 1983.

Salvador Dali often went to bed with a key in his hand. Sitting on a chair, he fell asleep with a heavy key clutched between his fingers. Gradually the grip weakened, the key fell and hit a plate lying on the floor. Thoughts that arose during naps could be new ideas or solutions to complex problems.

In 1961, Salvador Dali drew the “Chupa Chups” logo for Enrique Bernat, the founder of the Spanish lollipop company, which, in a slightly modified form, is today recognizable in all corners of the planet.

In 2003, the Walt Disney Company released the animated film “Destino,” which Salvador Dahl and Walt Disney began to draw back in 1945; the picture lay in the archives for 58 years.

A crater on Mercury is named after Salvador Dali.

During his lifetime, the great artist bequeathed to be buried in such a way that people could walk on the grave, so his body was walled up in a wall at the Dali Museum in Figueres. Flash photography is not permitted in this room.

Arriving in New York in 1934, he carried a 2-meter-long loaf of bread in his hands as an accessory, and while visiting an exhibition of surrealist creativity in London, he dressed in a diver’s suit.

IN different time Dali declared himself either a monarchist, or an anarchist, or a communist, or a supporter of authoritarian power, or refused to associate himself with any political movement. After World War II and his return to Catalonia, Salvador supported Franco's authoritarian regime and even painted a portrait of his granddaughter.

Dali sent a telegram to the Romanian leader Nicolas Ceausescu, written in the manner characteristic of the artist: in words he supported the communist, but caustic irony was read between the lines. Without noticing the catch, the telegram was published in the daily newspaper Scînteia.

The now famous singer Cher and her husband Sonny Bono, while still young, attended Salvador Dali's party, which he threw at the New York Plaza Hotel. There, Cher accidentally sat on a strangely shaped sex toy placed on her chair by the host of the event.

In 2008, the film “Echoes of the Past” was made about El Salvador. The role of Dali was played by Robert Pattinson. For some time Dali worked together with Alfred Hitchcock.

In his life, Dali himself completed only one film, Impressions from Upper Mongolia (1975), in which he told the story of an expedition that went in search of huge hallucinogenic mushrooms. The video series “Impressions of Upper Mongolia” is largely based on enlarged microscopic stains of uric acid on a brass strip. As you can guess, the “author” of these spots was the maestro. Over the course of several weeks, he “painted” them on a piece of brass.

Together with Christian Dior in 1950, Dali created the “suit for 2045.”

Dali wrote the painting “The Persistence of Memory” (“Soft Hours”) under the impression of Einstein’s theory of relativity. The idea in Salvador's head took shape while he was looking at a piece of Camembert cheese one hot August day.

For the first time, the image of an elephant appears on the canvas “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Waking Up.” In addition to elephants, Dali often used images of other representatives of the animal kingdom in his paintings: ants (symbolizing death, decay and, at the same time, great sexual desire), he associated the snail with human head(see portraits of Sigmund Freud), locusts in his works are associated with waste and a sense of fear.

Eggs in Dali’s paintings symbolize prenatal, intrauterine development, if you look deeper - we're talking about about hope and love.

On December 7, 1959, the presentation of the ovocypede took place in Paris: a device that was invented by Salvador Dali and brought to life by engineer Laparra. Ovosiped is a transparent ball with a seat fixed inside for one person. This “transport” became one of the devices that Dali successfully used to shock the public with his appearance.

QUOTES GAVE

Art is a terrible disease, but it is impossible to live without it yet.

With art I straighten myself out and infect normal people.

The artist is not the one who is inspired, but the one who inspires.

Painting and Dali are not the same thing; as an artist, I do not overestimate myself. It's just that others are so bad that I turned out to be better.

I saw it and it sunk into my soul and spilled through my brush onto the canvas. This is painting. And the same thing is love.

For an artist, every touch of a brush to a canvas is a whole life drama.

My painting is life and food, flesh and blood. Don't look for any intelligence or feelings in her.

Through the centuries, Leonardo da Vinci and I stretch out our hands to each other.

I think that now we are in the Middle Ages, but someday the Renaissance will come.

I'm decadent. In art, I’m something like camembert cheese: just a little too much, and that’s it. I, the last echo of antiquity, stand on the very edge.

Landscape is a state of mind.

Painting is a hand-made color photograph of all possible, super-exquisite, unusual, super-aesthetic examples of specific irrationality.

My painting is life and food, flesh and blood. Don't look for any intelligence or feelings in her.

A work of art does not awaken any feelings in me. Looking at a masterpiece makes me ecstatic about what I can learn. It doesn’t even occur to me to be overwhelmed with emotion.

The artist thinks with drawing.

It is good taste that is sterile - for an artist there is nothing more harmful good taste. Take the French - because of their good taste, they have become completely lazy.

Do not try to cover up your mediocrity with deliberately careless painting - it will reveal itself in the very first stroke.

First, learn to draw and write like the old masters, and only then act at your own discretion - and you will be respected.

Surrealism is not a party, not a label, but a unique state of mind, not constrained by slogans or morality. Surrealism is the complete freedom of the human being and the right to dream. I am not a surrealist, I am surrealism.

I - the highest embodiment of surrealism - follow the tradition of the Spanish mystics.

The difference between the surrealists and me is that the surrealist is me.

I am not a surrealist, I am surrealism.

BIOGRAPHY AND FILMOGRAPHY OF SALVADOR DALI

Literature

"The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Told by Himself" (1942)

"The Diary of a Genius" (1952-1963)

Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1927-33)

"The tragic myth of Angelus Millet"

Working on films

"Andalusian dog"

"Golden age"

"Spellbound"

"Impressions from Upper Mongolia"

When writing this article, materials from the following sites were used:kinofilms.tv , .

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The article contains paintings by Salvador Dali with titles, as well as the work of Salvador Dali, his path as an artist and how he came to surrealism. Below are links to more complete collections paintings of El Salvador.

Yes, I understand, the paragraph above looks like it would make your eyes bleed, but Google and Yandex have somewhat specific tastes (if you know what I mean) and it worked well for them, so I’m scared to change anything. Don't be afraid, it's not much further down there, but it's better.

The works of Salvador Dali.

Judgments, actions, paintings by Salvador Dali, everything had a slight touch of madness. This man was not just a surrealist artist, he himself was the embodiment surrealism.

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However, Dali did not come to surrealism right away. The work of Salvador Dali began primarily with a passion for impressionism and studying the techniques of classical academic painting. Dali's first paintings were landscapes of Figueres, where there were still no traces of a surreal vision of the world.

His passion for impressionism gradually faded away and Dali began to try his hand at cubism, drawing inspiration from the paintings of Pablo Picasso. Even in some of the master’s surreal works, elements of cubism can be traced. The work of Salvador Dali was also greatly influenced by Renaissance painting. He said many times that contemporary artists nothing compared to the titans of the past (and even earlier, vodka was sweeter and the grass was greener, a familiar song).

First learn to draw and write like the old masters, and only then do what you want - and they will respect you. Salvador Dali

The formation of the actual surrealistic style in the paintings of Salvador Dali began around the same time with his expulsion from the academy and his first exhibition in Barcelona. Only at the end of your life Dali will move away somewhat from surrealism and return to more realistic painting.

Despite the tense relationship between Salvador Dali and the actual surrealist crowd of that time, his image became the personification of surrealism and everything surreal in the minds of the masses. Dali's expression “surrealism is me” in modern world became true in the eyes of millions. Ask any person on the street who he associates with the word surrealism - almost everyone will answer without hesitation: “Salvador Dali.” His name is familiar even to those who do not quite understand the meaning and philosophy of surrealism and those who are not interested in painting. I would say that Dali has become a kind of mainstream in painting, despite the fact that the philosophy of his work is incomprehensible to many.

The secret of success of Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali had a rare ability to shock others; he was the hero of the lion's share of small talk of his era. Everyone spoke about the artist, from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. Salvador was probably best actor from artists. Dali could easily be called a PR genius, both black and white. Salvador had an excellent ability to sell and promote himself as a brand. Salvador Dali's paintings were the embodiment of an extravagant personality, strange and extravagant, representing an uncontrolled flow of the subconscious and possessing a unique, recognizable style.

Paintings by Salvador Dali

Paintings by Salvador Dali are one of the brightest examples of the embodiment of the manifesto of surrealism, that very freedom of spirit bordering on madness. Uncertainty, chaotic forms, the combination of reality with dreams, the combination of thoughtful images with crazy ideas from the very depths of the subconscious, the combination of the impossible with the possible - that’s what Dali’s paintings are.

For all the monstrosity of Salvador Dali’s work, it has an inexplicable appeal; the emotions that arise when viewing the artist’s works, it would seem, are simply unable to exist together.

The master's canvases can be divided into three types: impressionism, cubism (early Dali), surrealism. Sometimes hyperrealism comes through, as in the painting “Basket of Bread.” El Salvador, of course, is known to the general public specifically for its surrealist paintings. Because the works posted here relate specifically to surrealism. For the sake of interest and comparison, perhaps I’ll add a couple more paintings of other styles, but that’s it for now.

The most famous paintings with descriptions.

Each picture is a link to an article with an analysis and description of the paintings. I tried not to pour too much water, but when it comes to descriptions of paintings, not only everyone can do this, few people can do it. In general, I tried to be factual and factual, without lofty nonsense; how it turned out - judge for yourself.

Paintings by Salvador Dali with titles

A small note.
My acquaintance with surrealism started with Salvador Dali. I remember when, as a child, I was given an album with reproductions of Dali for my birthday - it was a real holiday, because at that time there was not such a variety of free pictures on the Internet. Actually, classical surrealism in my understanding is Salvador. The paintings of other surrealists of that time do not evoke any feelings in me, except for Rene Magritte, of course, and, perhaps, Yves Tanguy.

UPDATE 2018. Guys, don’t read this idiot, he was young and green then and didn’t know that besides Dali and Magritte there was also

By the way, early works Dali is very similar to Yves Tanguy’s paintings, I couldn’t tell the difference. It is not clear who borrowed from whom; one woman said that it was Dali who borrowed the style from Tanguy (but this is inaccurate). So - steal, kill, borrow wisely and success awaits you. However, it is not so important who was the first (and the first in a similar style was Max Ernst - it was he who came up with the idea of ​​carefully writing out schizoid images). It was Salvador, thanks to his artistic skill, who developed and fully embodied the ideas of surrealism.