Salvador gave the paintings and the history of their painting. Salvador Dali and his surreal paintings

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 of Fine Arts of 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, the metaphysical painting of the Italians, and is 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 occupied 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 Dali’s first personal exhibition. 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, waxy 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 benefit. And Dali spent days traveling through the streets of Paris in a vain search for buyers for his original images. For example, they served women's shoe with large steel springs, glasses with glasses the size of fingernails and even a plaster head of a 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 cartoon“Destino”, which Salvador Dahl and Walt Disney began to draw back in 1945, the painting 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 in 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.

At different times, Dali declared himself either a monarchist, or an anarchist, or a communist, or an adherent 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 at the Plaza Hotel in New York. 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 (symbolized death, decay and, at the same time, great sexual desire), he associated a snail with a human head (see portraits of Sigmund Freud), locusts in his work is 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 done by hand color photography all possible, super-refined, unusual, super-aesthetic examples of concrete 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"

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Salvador Dali is one of the most famous people of the 20th century, who became a celebrity not just during his lifetime, but at a fairly young age. Dali is known as a graphic artist, sculptor, director and writer, but primarily as a painter. Only one of his teachers, Pablo Picasso, could compare with him in fame. And without exaggeration we can say that Salvador Dali is the only surrealist whose name every person has heard, no matter how far he is from art. It was he who coined the phrase “surrealism is me,” which he said on the day he was expelled from the group of surrealists.

The works of Salvador Dali amaze the imagination with the paradoxical nature of their figurative worldview and their ingenious unsurpassability. You can spend hours describing the paintings of Salvador Dali, but it is better to see them with your own eyes and form your own opinion about them. Below are some of the most famous paintings with titles and brief descriptions.

One of the first works of Salvador Dali. Made in an impressionist style.

The painting was created while the artist was searching for his own manner and style of execution. The atmosphere is reminiscent of De Chirico's paintings.

The canvas was made in a cubist manner unusual for Dali, in imitation of one of El Salvador’s teachers, Pablo Picasso.

Experiments with geometric forms already make one feel the mystical desert that is characteristic of Dali in the later “surreal” period of creativity.

Another name is “The Invisible Man”, the painting demonstrates one of the main techniques of Dali’s painting - metamorphosis, hidden meanings and contours of objects.

It is believed that the painting reveals the obsessions and childhood fears of Salvador Dali.

Like “Enlightened Pleasures,” the painting is a popular field of study among art historians for the artist’s personality.

The author's most famous and most discussed work among artists. Here ideas from a number of previous works are used: a self-portrait and ants, a soft clock and the coast of Cadaqués, the birthplace of El Salvador.

Gala is the artist’s beloved wife and is often present in his paintings. This painting reflects Dali's paranoid-critical method.

This is not a painting, but a sculpture in the style of surrealism. Despite the symbols of fertility - bread and ears of corn, Dali seems to emphasize the price that has to be paid for this: the woman’s face is full of ants eating her up.

One of Dali's outright mockeries of communism. The main character, according to Dali himself, is Lenin in a cap. This is not the only work on this topic. For example, in 1931 the artist wrote.

This is not just a picture. This work was written on paper and realized in the form of a real life-size room.

The head of roses is believed to be a tribute to Arcimboldo, famous artist, who used vegetables and fruits in his work to create portraits (eggplant nose, wheat hair, etc.).

This painting reflects the horror of the Spaniard, who understands that his country is moving towards a terrible civil war.

Statue. The most famous Dalian item. The idea of ​​boxes is also present in the artist’s paintings.

Another name is "The Metamorphosis of Narcissus". Deeply psychological work...

It is known that Dali spoke differently about Hitler. By at least in the year the picture was painted, the main emotion towards Hitler was sympathy rather than anything else.

One of Salvador Dali's most famous "optical" paintings, in which he plays with color associations and angles of view. Look at the picture at different distances - you will see different scenes.

The brightness, lightness and illusory nature of what is happening. The long-legged elephant in the background is one of Dali's popular characters.

One of the paintings from the period of El Salvador’s passion for physics. Images, objects and faces are broken down into spherical corpuscles.

Crucifixion or Hypercubic Body (1954)

The original name “Corpus hypercubus” is often used in Russian-language literature without translation. The canvas depicts the crucifixion of Christ. Dali turns to religion, but writes biblical stories in his own style, introducing a significant amount of mysticism into his paintings. And the artist’s wife, Gala, is often present in “religious” paintings.

One of the most famous paintings written in the genre of surrealism is “The Persistence of Memory.” Salvador Dali, the author of this painting, created it in just a few hours. The canvas is now in New York, in the Museum contemporary art. This small painting, measuring only 24 by 33 centimeters, is the artist’s most discussed work.

Explanation of the name

Salvador Dali's painting "The Persistence of Memory" was painted in 1931 on a tapestry canvas self made. The idea of ​​​​creating this painting was related to the fact that one day, while waiting for his wife Gala to return from the cinema, Salvador Dali painted an absolutely deserted landscape of the sea coast. Suddenly he saw on the table a piece of cheese, which he had eaten in the evening with friends, melting in the sun. The cheese melted and became softer and softer. Having thought about it and connecting the long passage of time with a melting piece of cheese, Dali began to fill the canvas with spreading hours. Salvador Dali called his work “The Persistence of Memory,” explaining the title by the fact that once you look at a painting, you will never forget it. Another name of the painting is “Flowing Clock”. This name is associated with the content of the canvas itself, which Salvador Dali put into it.

“Persistence of Memory”: description of the painting

When you look at this canvas, your eye is immediately struck by the unusual placement and structure of the depicted objects. The picture shows the self-sufficiency of each of them and the general feeling of emptiness. There are many seemingly unrelated items here, but they all create a general impression. What did Salvador Dali depict in the painting “The Persistence of Memory”? The description of all items takes up quite a lot of space.

The atmosphere of the painting “The Persistence of Memory”

Salvador Dali painted the painting in brown tones. The general shadow lies on the left side and middle of the picture, the sun falls on the back and right side canvases. The picture seems to be filled with quiet horror and fear of such calm, and at the same time, a strange atmosphere fills “The Persistence of Memory.” Salvador Dali with this painting makes you think about the meaning of time in the life of every person. About whether time can stop? Can it adapt to each of us? Probably everyone should give themselves answers to these questions.

It is a known fact that the artist always left notes about his paintings in his diary. However, Salvador Dali did not say anything about the most famous painting “The Persistence of Memory”. The great artist initially understood that by painting this picture, he would make people think about the frailty of existence in this world.

The influence of canvas on a person

Salvador Dali's painting “The Persistence of Memory” was examined by American psychologists, who came to the conclusion that this painting has a strong psychological impact on certain types of people. human personalities. Many people, looking at this painting by Salvador Dali, described their feelings. Most of people were immersed in nostalgia, others were trying to sort out the mixed emotions of general horror and thoughtfulness caused by the composition of the picture. The canvas conveys the feelings, thoughts, experiences and attitude towards the “softness and hardness” of the artist himself.

Of course, this picture is small in size, but it can be considered one of the greatest and most powerful psychological paintings by Salvador Dali. The painting “The Persistence of Memory” carries the greatness of the classics of surrealist painting.

, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer

School of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid

Salvador Dali(full name Salvador Felipe Jacinto Fares Dalí and Domenech Marquis de Dalí de Pubol, Spanish Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí de Púbol ; May 11 - January 23) - spanish artist, painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director. One of the most famous representatives of surrealism. Marquis de Dali de Pubol (). Films: “Un Chien Andalusian”, “The Golden Age”, “Spellbound”.

Biography

Dali's works are shown at exhibitions, he is gaining popularity. In 1929 he joined the group of surrealists organized by Andre Breton.

After Caudillo Franco came to power in 1936, Dalí quarreled with the surrealists on the left and was expelled from the group. In response, Dali, not without reason, declares: “Surrealism is me.”

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Dali and Gala left for the United States, where they lived from 2000 to 2000. In 2008 he released his fictionalized autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali. His literary experiences, like works of art, as a rule, turn out to be commercially successful.

After returning to Spain, he lives mainly in his beloved Catalonia. In 1981, he develops Parkinson's disease. Gala dies in the city.

Dali died on January 23, 1989 from a heart attack. The artist's body is walled up in the floor of the Dali Museum in Figueres. During his lifetime, the great artist bequeathed that he should be buried so that people could walk on the grave. Flash photography is not permitted in this room.

Plaque on the wall in the room where Dali is buried

• Chupa Chups design (1961) Enrique Bernat called his caramel "Chups", and at first it came in only seven flavors: strawberry, lemon, mint, orange, chocolate, coffee with cream and strawberry with cream. The popularity of “Chups” grew, the amount of caramel produced increased, and new flavors appeared. Caramel could no longer remain in its original modest wrapper; it was necessary to come up with something original so that “Chups” would be recognized by everyone. In 1961, Enrique Bernat turned to his fellow countryman, famous artist Salvador Dali with a request to draw something memorable. Brilliant artist I didn’t think long and in less than an hour I sketched out a picture for him that depicted the Chupa Chups daisy, which in a slightly modified form is today recognizable as the Chupa Chups logo in all corners of the planet. The difference between the new logo was its location: it is located not on the side, but on top of the candy
• A crater on Mercury is named after Salvador Dali.

• In 2003, the Walt Disney Company released the animated film “Destino”. Development of the film began with Dali's collaboration with American animator Walt Disney back in 1945, but was delayed due to the company's financial problems.

The most famous and significant works

• Portrait of Luis Buñuel (1924) Like "Still Life" (1924) or "Puristic Still Life" (1924), this picture created during Dali’s search for his manner and style of execution, the atmosphere is reminiscent of the paintings of De Chirico.

• Flesh on the Stones (1926) Dali called Picasso his second father. This canvas is made in a cubist manner unusual for El Salvador, like the previously painted “Cubist Self-Portrait” (1923). In addition, Salvador painted several portraits of Picasso.

• The Gizmo and the Hand (1927) Experiments with geometric shapes continue. You can already feel that mystical desert, the manner of painting landscapes characteristic of Dali of the “surrealist” period, as well as some other artists (in particular, Yves Tanguy).

• The Invisible Man (1929) Also called "The Invisible Man", the painting demonstrates the metamorphoses, hidden meanings and contours of objects. Salvador often returned to this technique, making it one of the main features of his painting. This applies to a number of more late paintings, such as, for example, “Swans Reflected in Elephants” (1937) and “The Appearance of a Face and a Bowl of Fruit on the Seashore” (1938).

• Enlightened Pleasures (1929) It is interesting because it reveals the obsessions and childhood fears of El Salvador. He also uses images borrowed from his own “Portrait of Paul Eluard” (1929), “Riddles of Desire: “My Mother, My Mother, My Mother” (1929) and some others.

• The Great Masturbator (1929) Much loved by researchers, the painting, like “Enlightened Pleasures,” is a field of study for the artist’s personality.

Painting “The Persistence of Memory”, 1931

• The Persistence of Memory (1931) Perhaps the most famous and discussed in artistic circles is the work of Salvador Dali. Like many others, it uses ideas from previous works. In particular, this is a self-portrait and ants, a soft clock and the shore of Cadaqués, the birthplace of El Salvador.

• The Mystery of William Tell (1933) One of Dali's outright mockeries of Andre Breton's communist love and his leftist views. The main character, according to Dali himself, is Lenin in a cap with a huge visor. In The Diary of a Genius, Salvador writes that the baby is himself, screaming “He wants to eat me!” There are also crutches here - an indispensable attribute of Dali’s work, which retained its relevance throughout the artist’s life. With these two crutches the artist props up the visor and one of the leader’s thighs. This is not the only known work on this topic. Back in 1931, Dali wrote “Partial Hallucination. Six apparitions of Lenin on the piano."

• The Riddle of Hitler (1937) Dali himself spoke differently about Hitler. He wrote that he was attracted to the Fuhrer’s soft, plump back. His mania did not cause much enthusiasm among the surrealists, who had leftist sympathies. On the other hand, Salvador subsequently spoke of Hitler as a complete masochist who started the war with only one goal - to lose it. According to the artist, he was once asked for an autograph for Hitler and he made a straight cross - “the complete opposite of the broken fascist swastika.”

• Telephone - Lobster (1936) A so-called surrealistic object is an object that has lost its essence and traditional function. Most often it was intended to evoke resonance and new associations. Dali and Giacometti were the first to create what Salvador himself called “objects with a symbolic function.”

• Mae West's face (used as a surreal room) (1934-1935) The work was realized both on paper and in the form of a real room with furniture in the form of a lip-sofa and other things.

• Metamorphoses of Narcissus (1936-1937) Or "The Metamorphosis of Narcissus". Deeply psychological work. The motif was used as the cover of one of Pink Floyd's CDs.

• Paranoid Transformations of Gala's Face (1932) It’s like a picture-instruction for Dali’s paranoiac-critical method.

• Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933) Surreal item. Despite the huge bread and cobs - symbols of fertility, Salvador seems to emphasize the price at which all this is given: the woman’s face is full of ants eating her up.

• Woman with a Head of Roses (1935) Head of roses is more like a tribute Arcimboldo, an artist beloved by the surrealists. Arcimboldo, long before the advent of the avant-garde as such, painted portraits of court men, using vegetables and fruits to compose them (eggplant nose, wheat hair, etc.). He (like Bosch) was something of a surrealist before surrealism.

• The Pliable Structure with Boiled Beans: A Premonition of the Civil War (1936) Like Autumn Cannibalism, written the same year, this picture is the horror of a Spaniard who understands what is happening to his country and where it is heading. This painting is akin to “Guernica” by the Spaniard Pablo Picasso.

• Sunshine Table (1936) and Poetry of America (1943) When advertising has become a part of everyone's life, Dali resorts to it to create a special effect, a kind of unobtrusive culture shock. In the first picture he casually drops a pack of CAMEL cigarettes onto the sand, and in the second he uses a bottle of Coca-Cola.

• Venus de Milo with a basin (1936) The most famous Dalian item. The idea of ​​boxes is also present in his paintings. This can be confirmed by “Giraffe on Fire” (1936-1937), “Anthropomorphic Locker” (1936) and other paintings.

• Slave Market with the Appearance of Voltaire's Invisible Bust (1938) One of Dali's most famous "optical" paintings, in which he skillfully plays with color associations and angles of view. Another extreme famous work of a similar kind is “The Gala, looking at the Mediterranean Sea, at a distance of twenty meters turns into a portrait of Abraham Lincoln” (1976).

• A dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before awakening (1944) This bright picture has a feeling of lightness and instability of what is happening. In the background is a long-legged elephant. This character appears in other works, such as “The Temptation of St. Anthony” (1946).

• Naked Dali contemplating five ordered bodies turning into corpuscles from which Leonardo’s Leda is unexpectedly created, fertilized by the face of Gala (1950) One of many paintings dating back to the period of Salvador’s passion for physics. He breaks images, objects and faces into spherical corpuscles or some kind of rhinoceros horns (another obsession demonstrated in the diary entries). And if an example of the first technique is “Galatea with Spheres” (1952) or this painting, then the second is based on “The Explosion of Raphael’s Head” (1951).

• Hypercubic Body (1954) Corpus hypercubus - a painting depicting the crucifixion of Christ. Dali turns to religion (as well as mythology, as exemplified by “The Colossus of Rhodes” (1954)) and writes biblical stories in his own way, introducing a considerable amount of mysticism into the paintings. The wife Gala is now becoming an indispensable character in “religious” paintings. However, Dali does not limit himself and allows himself to write quite provocative things. Such as "Sodom's Satisfaction of the Innocent Maiden" (1954).

• Last Supper (1955) The most famous painting, showing one of the biblical scenes. Many researchers still argue about the value of the so-called “religious” period in Dali’s work. The paintings “Our Lady of Guadalupe” (1959), “The Discovery of America through the Dream of Christopher Columbus” (1958-1959) and “Ecumenical Council” (1960) (in which Dali depicted himself) - prominent representatives paintings of that time.

“The Last Supper” is one of the master’s most amazing paintings. It presents in its entirety scenes from the Bible (the supper itself, Christ’s walking on water, the crucifixion, prayer before the betrayal of Judas), which are surprisingly combined, intertwined with each other. It's worth saying that biblical theme occupies a significant position in the work of Salvador Dali. The artist tried to find God in the world around him, in himself, imagining Christ as the center of the primordial Universe (“Christ of San Juan de la Cruz”, 1951).

Links

• 1500+ paintings, biography, resources (English), Posters (English)
• Salvador Dali (English) on the Internet Movie Database

Wikimedia Foundation.

The great and extraordinary man Salvador Dali was born in Spain in the city of Figueres in 1904 on May 11. His parents were very different. My mother believed in God, but my father, on the contrary, was an atheist. Salvador Dali's father's name was also Salvador. Many people believe that Dali was named after his father, but this is not entirely true. Even though father and son had same names However, the younger Salvador Dali was named in memory of his brother, who died before he was two years old. This worried the future artist, as he felt like a double, some kind of echo of the past. Salvador had a sister who was born in 1908.

The childhood of Salvador Dali

Dali studied very poorly, was spoiled and restless, although he developed the ability to draw in childhood. Ramon Pichot became El Salvador's first teacher. Already at the age of 14, his paintings were at an exhibition in Figueres. In 1921, Salvador Dali went to Madrid and entered the Academy of Fine Arts there. He didn't like studying. He believed that he himself could teach his teachers the art of drawing. He stayed in Madrid only because he was interested in communicating with his comrades. There he met Federico García Lorca and Luis Buñuel.

Studying at the Academy

In 1924, Dali was expelled from the academy for misbehavior. Returning there a year later, he was again expelled in 1926 without the right to reinstatement. The incident that led to this situation was simply amazing. During one of the exams, the academy professor asked to name the 3 greatest artists in the world. Dali replied that he would not answer questions of this kind, because not a single teacher from the academy had the right to be his judge. Dali was too contemptuous of teachers. And by this time, Salvador Dali already had his own exhibition, which Pablo Picasso himself visited. This was the catalyst for the artists to meet. Salvador Dali's close relationship with Buñuel resulted in a film called Un Chien Andalou, which had a surrealistic slant. In 1929, Dali officially became a surrealist.

How Dali found his muse

In 1929, Dali found his muse. She became Gala Eluard. It is she who is depicted in many paintings by Salvador Dali. A serious passion arose between them, and Gala left her husband to be with Dali. At the time of meeting his beloved, Dali lived in Cadaqués, where he bought himself a hut without any special amenities. With the help of Gala Dali, it was possible to organize several excellent exhibitions, which took place in cities such as Barcelona, ​​London, and New York. In 1936, a very tragicomic moment happened. At one of his exhibitions in London, Dali decided to give a lecture dressed as a diver. Soon he began to choke. Actively gesturing with his hands, he asked to take off his helmet. The public took it as a joke, and everything worked out. By 1937, when Dali had already visited Italy, the style of his work had changed significantly. The works of the Renaissance masters were too strongly influenced. Dali was expelled from the surrealist society.

During World War II, Dali went to the United States, where he was recognized, and quickly achieved success. In 1941, the US Museum of Modern Art opened its doors for his personal exhibition. Having written his autobiography in 1942, Dali felt that he was truly famous, as the book sold out very quickly. In 1946, Dali collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock. Of course, looking at the success of your former comrade Andre Breton could not miss the chance to write an article in which he humiliated Dali - “ Salvador Dali– Avida Dollars” (“Rowing Dollars”). In 1948, Salvador Dali returned to Europe and settled in Port Lligat, traveling from there to Paris and then back to New York.

Dali was very famous person. He did almost everything and was successful. It is impossible to count all his exhibitions, but the most memorable is the exhibition at the Tate Gallery, which was visited by about 250 million people, which cannot fail to impress. Salvador Dali died in 1989 on January 23 after the death of Gala, who died in 1982.

Creation

It is difficult to find a more controversial personality among artists. Judgments, actions, paintings by Salvador Dali, everything had a slight touch of crazy surrealism. This man was not just a surrealist artist, he himself was the embodiment of surrealism.

However, Dali did not come to surrealism right away. The work of Salvador Dali began, first of all, with the study of the techniques of classical academic painting. Dali also tried his hand at cubism; he treated the paintings of Pablo Picasso with the greatest reverence. As a result, elements of cubism can be traced in some of his surrealist works. The work of Salvador Dali was also greatly influenced by Renaissance painting. He said many times that modern artists are nothing compared to the titans of the past (however, who would doubt it). But when he began to paint in the style of surrealism, it became his love almost until the end of his life. Only at the end of his life would Dali move somewhat away from surrealism and return to more realistic painting.

Salvador Dali can easily be considered a classic of surrealism. Moreover, Dali’s expression “surrealism is me” in the modern world has become 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, even to those who are not interested in painting. Salvador Dali had a rare ability to shock others, he was the hero of the lion's share of social conversations of his era, everyone talked about him, from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. He was probably best actor of the artists, and if the word PR existed then, then Dali could easily be called a genius of PR, both black and white. However, it is stupid to talk about what Dali was like, if you really want to understand it - just look at his paintings, which are the embodiment of his extravagant personality; brilliant, strange, crazy and beautiful.

Nuclear mysticism

After World War II, humanity moved into a new phase of existence. One of the most destructive and at the same time stimulating factors was the use of the US nuclear bomb, when the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed on August 6 and 9, 1945. Of course, from a moral and ethical point of view, this event became a disgrace for the civilized world, but there was another side - the transition to a fundamentally new level of scientific and technical thought. At the same time, religious motives became more pronounced in Western European and American life.

New trends have penetrated especially deeply among the creative elite and intelligentsia. One of the creators most sensitive to tragic events was Salvador Dali. Due to his psycho-emotional characteristics, he perceived this universal catastrophe quite acutely and, against the backdrop of the specifics of his art, developed his artistic manifesto. This marked new period in his life and work, which lasted from 1949 to 1966, under the name “nuclear mysticism”.

The first signs of “nuclear mysticism” appeared in the work “ Atomic Leda", where he performed in synthesis with ancient mythology. So, after arriving from America, the theme of Christianity became the main one for Dali. Probably the first in the series of works can be considered “Madonna of Port Lligat”, written in 1949. In it he tried to get closer to the aesthetic criteria of the Renaissance. In November of the same year, he visited Rome, where, at an audience with Pope Pius XII, he presented his painting to the pontiff. According to eyewitnesses, the Pope was not too impressed by the resemblance of the Mother of God to Gala, because the church at that time was heading for renewal.

After this significant event, Dali came up with the idea of ​​a new painting - “Christ of San Juan de la Cruz”, for the creation of which he took as a basis a drawing of the Crucifixion, the creation of which was attributed to the saint himself. The huge painting depicted Jesus over the bay of Port Lligat, the view of which could be seen from the terrace of the artist’s house. Later, this landscape was repeated several times in Dali’s paintings in the 50s. And already in April 1951, Dali published the “Mystical Manifesto,” in which he proclaimed the principle of paranoid-critical mysticism. Salvador was absolutely sure of the decline of modern art, which, in his opinion, was associated with skepticism and a lack of faith. Paranoid-critical mysticism itself, according to the master, was based on the amazing successes modern science and the “metaphysical spirituality” of quantum mechanics.

With the help of his paintings, Dali tried to show the presence of a Christian and mystical principle in the atom. He considered the world of physics to be more transcendental than psychology, and quantum physics to be the greatest discovery of the 20th century. In general, the period of the 50s became a period of intellectual and spiritual search for the artist, which gave him the opportunity to combine two opposing principles - science and religion.

Paintings by Salvador Dali

The paintings of 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 delusional ideas from the very depths of the subconscious, the combination of the impossible with the possible, this is what Salvador Dali’s paintings are. And with all this, with all the monstrosity of Salvador Dali’s work, it has an inexplicable appeal, even the emotions that arise when viewing Salvador Dali’s paintings, it would seem, are simply not able to exist together. It’s scary to even think what could be going on in the head of a person capable of painting such canvases. One thing is clear - what was not there was the dullness of monotonous everyday life.
But too much crap has already been written; painting speaks louder than any words. Enjoy.

"Atomic Leda"

Today the painting “Atomic Leda” can be seen at the Salvador Dali Theater-Museum in the city of Figueres. The author of the painting, as strange as it may sound, was inspired to write it by the discovery of the atom and the reset atomic bombs on japanese islands in 1945. Terrifying destructive force the atom did not frighten the artist at all. Information about elementary particles that never come into contact with each other and, along with this, form the surrounding reality and objects around, became a new source of the master’s creativity and the key subjects of his paintings. Moreover, Dali, who did not tolerate any kind of touch, saw in the principle of the structure of the world a special symbolism for himself personally.

"Atomic Leda" was written in 1949. At the heart of the picture ancient greek myth about Leda, the ruler of Sparta, and Zeus, the god of all gods of Olympus, who fell in love with the queen and appeared to her in the guise of a swan. After this, the queen laid an egg, from which three children hatched - Helen of Troy and the twin brothers Castor and Pollux. The master identified his older brother, who died before his birth, with Castor.

Two more important objects in the picture are a square and a book. A square and a ruler, in the form of a shadow, are integral tools used in geometry. They also indicate a mathematical calculation, and in the artist’s sketches the proportions of the pentagram, called the “golden ratio,” can be traced. Dali was assisted in these calculations by the famous Romanian mathematician Matila Ghica. The book, according to many assumptions, is a bible and an indication of the artist’s return to the Catholic Church.

The background of the painting is land and sea, like all parts of the painting that are not in contact with each other. Salvador Dali interpreted this point using the example of one of the sketches, explaining that this is how he sees the projection into reality of the origin of the “divine and animal.” The rocks on the sides of the picture are part of the Catalan coast where the artist was born and raised. It is known that when Dali was working on the canvas, he was in California, thus, the longing for his native landscapes spilled out in the creator’s pictures.

"Face of War"

Salvador Dali could not see how Hitler's troops burst into his native France. He left for the USA with his wife, leaving his favorite places, realizing with pain and bitterness that everything would be destroyed and broken.

The horror of war, fear, bloodshed overwhelmed the artist’s consciousness. Everything that was sweet and dear for many years was trampled, burned and torn to pieces in an instant. It seemed that all dreams, all plans were buried alive under the fascist boot.

In the USA, Dali was waiting for success, recognition, his life there was very happy and eventful, but then, when the artist was sailing on a ship, leaving France, he still did not know this. Every nerve of his was taut like a string, his emotions demanded an outlet and, right there, on the ship, Dali began his painting “The Face of War” (1940).

This time he deviated from his typical manner; the picture was painted extremely simply and intelligibly. She screamed, she burst into consciousness, she shackled everyone who beheld her with horror. The eye sockets and twisted mouth repeat this nightmare many times over. Skulls, skulls, skulls, and also inhuman horror - that’s all that war brings to everyone who stands in its way. There is no life next to war, and in itself it is nightmarish and dead.

Numerous snakes are born from the head and eat it. They look more like vile worms, but their mouths are open and it seems that even now their evil hissing can be heard. The viewer of the picture is not an outside observer; it is as if he is right here, just looking at the nightmarish face from the cave. This feeling is reinforced by the hand mark in the corner of the picture.

Dali seems to want to call to reason - now, when you are under cover, in a cave, think - is it worth going there, where there is only a lifeless mask of death, is it worth starting wars that devour their own founders, that bring endless suffering and are doomed to terrible death.

"Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate"

The famous masterpiece of the outrageous surrealist Dali, created in 1944 and inspired by Freudian psychoanalysis, can be briefly called “The Dream”. Thus, Freud's extensive work on the theory of dreams turned out to be useful not only in the field of scientific psychology and psychiatry, but also served as a clear inspiration for adherents of surrealism. It must be said that the psychoanalyst himself did not recognize this creativity, but one cannot deny the uniqueness of these paintings and the presence of many fans of such art.

Dreams can last for seconds, creating the impression of a complete performance in the arena of the unconscious. Freudianism insists on the ability of external stimuli to “penetrate” a dream, thereby transforming into various symbolic images. So, on the canvas by Salvador Dali, the focus is on a nude model (Gala’s wife) and a small pomegranate with a bee hovering above it. These are objects real world. The rest of the composition's drawings are the product of the dream. The vast sea personifies the human unconscious, full of deep secrets. Bernini's ghostly elephant on “stilts” conveys the fragility and instability of a sleepy state. A fruit with scarlet berries takes on increased size in a dream.

The woman’s body hovers above the rocky plane, which conveys to the audience the possibility of the impossible, familiar in dreams. Just a little more, and Gala will wake up... We see a foggy moment before her departure into the conscious world from the abyss of the unconscious. Now residents and tourists of Madrid have the opportunity to admire the painting with their own eyes. Other art lovers are familiar with the work from the pages of the World Wide Web and from reproductions.

"Galatea of ​​the Spheres"

All Dali's paintings are distinguished by their unusual appeal. I would like to carefully examine every corner so as not to miss a single detail. So it is in his famous and great Galatea of ​​the spheres. Looking at her, you wonder: how did the artist so masterfully manage to depict a face through a set of spheres? One can only marvel at the perfection and harmony of their merging. Only a true master can create such a masterpiece.

Salvador Dali painted his picture back in 1952 during the period of nuclear mystical creativity. At that time, the artist studied various sciences and came across the theory of atoms. This theory impressed Dali so much that he began to write new picture. He depicts his wife’s face from many small spheres of atoms merging into one whole corridor. The symmetry of these circles creates a powerful perspective and gives the painting a three-dimensional appearance.

Galatea's lips are the shadow of a row of balls. The eyes are like two separate little planets. The outlines of the nose, oval of the face, ears, hair seem to break these spheres into separate atoms. Color combinations and the contrasts make them appear voluminous, convex and embossed. It’s as if Galatea is a transparent shell consisting of color contrasts of many small ideal spheres.

Only some of its elements reflecting Gala’s face, her hair, lips, and body are painted in natural colors. The whole composition as a whole fascinates and enchants the viewer. It creates the impression of circles moving. It’s as if Galatea were spinning with the help of every single living atom.

"The Great Masturbator"

The painting, painted in 1929 in the surrealist style, is currently on display at the Reina Sofia Art Center in Madrid (Spain). In the center of the painting is a deformed human face looking down. A similar profile is also depicted in Dali’s more famous painting “The Persistence of Memory” (1931). From the lower part of the head rises a naked female figure, reminiscent of the artist’s muse Gala. The woman’s mouth reaches out to the male genitals hidden under light clothing, hinting at impending fellatio. The male figure is depicted only from the waist to the knees with fresh bleeding cuts.

Under the human face, on his mouth, sits a locust - an insect of which the artist had an irrational fear. Ants crawl along the locust's belly and over the central figure - a popular motif in Dali's works - a symbol of corruption. Under the locusts there is a pair of figures casting one common shadow. In the lower left corner of the painting, a lone figure hurriedly moves away into the distance. In addition, the canvas also contains an egg (a symbol of fertility), a pile of stones and (under the woman’s face) a calla flower with a phallus-shaped pistil.

“The Great Masturbator” is of great importance for the study of the artist’s personality, since it is inspired by his subconscious. The painting reflects Dali's controversial attitude towards sex. During his childhood, Dali's father left a book on the piano with photographs of genitals affected by sexually transmitted diseases, which led to the association of sex with decay and turned the young Dali away from sexual relations for a long time.

"Portrait of Luis Buñuel"

This painting was painted in 1924. Originally in the collection of Luis Buñuel. Currently located at the Reina Sofía Art Center in Madrid. Dalí met Luis Buñuel at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid during his studies from 1922–1926. Buñuel was one of those who greatly influenced El Salvador. Dali later took part in the filming of two Buñuel films: Un Chien Andalou (1929) and The Golden Age (1930).

The portrait of Luis Buñuel was painted when the future director was 25 years old. He is depicted as a serious and thoughtful man with a gaze looking away from the artist and the audience. The picture is made in gloomy colors. Subtle colors create an atmosphere of seriousness and emphasize a thoughtful look.

This Dali masterpiece achieves a remarkable unity active form and concentrated psychological characteristics. A superbly painted face is instantly recognizable, just as the features of Dali’s individual style, which is gaining maturity, and the artist’s ability to exercise strict self-control when choosing painting means are immediately “grabbed.”

"Melancholy"

Salvador Dali was a genius (perhaps a little crazy, but this is generally characteristic of geniuses who were ahead of their time) - even those in whose hearts his paintings do not find a response agree with this.

After all, these paintings, even more than any other art, need to be understood by the heart, the center of the soul, which hurts, pulls, knocks and beats. After all, even if you understand with your brain that the artist meant this, achieved this and generally protested against the Second World War and discrimination, for example, against blacks, you will not be able to love the paintings. They need to be felt. Feel the freedom beating in them - they are endless, despite the fact that they are limited by the narrow space of the canvas.

So “Melancholia” is full of desert, which stretches from edge to edge. The mountains on the horizon do not limit it; on the contrary, they seem to help it grow further, expand further. Clouds twisting into strange shapes widen the sky. Faceless cupid angels are mischievous, one of them plays the lyre. The table, with carved pillars, like a bed, looks almost ridiculous in the desert, and violates all the laws of human perception. A man with a blank face looks into the distance, bored and silent.

The whole picture resonates in the soul - melancholy, the wind in the desert, the chime of strings on a lute - but does not resonate in the brain, because the brain cannot feel it, that’s what the heart is for.

"A geopolitical baby watching the birth of a new man"

The artist spent the difficult period of World War II in America. His beloved Spain was at the very center of the bloody events, and, of course, worries about the fate of humanity resonated in the soul of the genius. The painting was painted in 1943, at the height of hostilities in Europe. In the center is a huge egg, symbolizing the planet. A crack runs through it and a hand can be seen tightly grasping the shell. The outlines inside say what kind of torment he is experiencing New person, and a drop of blood falls onto the white cloth spread under the planet. In the right corner stands a woman with hair flowing in the wind and bare breasts, pointing to the baby hugging her knees at the complex action of the birth of a new consciousness of humanity. The universe is depicted as a desert, where lonely silhouettes can be seen. Written in yellow-brown tones, symbolizing the sick state the world is in.

"The Persistence of Memory"

One of Salvador Dali's best works was inspired by piece of Camembert cheese. A deserted beach with quiet surface of water became an unconscious person. A melted clock resembling the shape of a cheese hangs on the branch of a broken tree. In the center lies a bizarrely shaped creature, in which you can see closed eyelids with long eyelashes, on which there is also a soft watch. A peculiar idea of ​​time, which slowly flows away in the quiet haven of human consciousness.

"Invisible Man"

It is based on a human outline, which is lost in his fantasies and imagination. The author created a work of amazing depth, the boundaries are blurred, and the space becomes cosmically endless. The same feeling is conveyed by connecting time periods of human history. Antiquity and the Middle Ages remained through the means of columns and architecture, modernity is represented by clear forms of cubism. The painting contains many images understandable only to the artist. Salvador Dali's fascination with Freud's theories is evident in The Invisible Man.

"Crucifixion"

On the chessboard in the left corner there is a woman in Renaissance clothes, in front of the sea surface of water. The gaze of the woman, who is recognizable as the artist’s wife, is directed upward, where Jesus Christ is crucified. The face is not visible, the head is thrown back, the body is stretched out like a string, the fingers are bent in a painful spasm. The geometric shapes of the cube and the perfection of the young body merge and at the same time become antipodes. The cold surface of the crucifixion is human indifference and cruelty, on which love and kindness die.

Activities outside of painting

• In addition to painting, Dali’s ebullient nature found its expression in other areas of art: sculpture, photography, and cinema, which at the beginning of the 20th century was considered the most magical and promising of the arts.
• Dali visits America, where he meets and becomes friends with the famous animator Walt Disney and even draws a little for cartoons.
• He also willingly appears in commercials, however commercials with his participation they come out too eccentric and shocking. I will remember for a long time the chocolate advertisement where Dali takes a bite of a piece of chocolate, after which his mustache curls and he says in a euphoric voice that he has just gone crazy from this chocolate.
• The creative legacy of Salvador Dali is simply enormous: a lot amazing paintings, each of which costs at least millions of dollars.
• The artist died in 1989, but his paintings will live forever, surprising us and more than one generation of our descendants with their mysterious, crazy, eccentric beauty and genius.