They gave a biography and personal life. Salvador Dali and his surreal paintings

Salvador Dali (full name - Salvador Domènec Felip Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Púbol; cat. Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí de Púbol; Spanish. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí y de Púbol ). Born May 11, 1904 in Figueres - died January 23, 1989 in Figueres. Spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer. One of the most famous representatives of surrealism.

Worked on the films: “Un Chien Andalou,” “The Golden Age,” “Spellbound.” Author of the books “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Told by Himself” (1942), “The Diary of a Genius” (1952-1963), Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1927-33) and the essay “The Tragic Myth of Angelus Millet.”

Salvador Dali was born in Spain on May 11, 1904 in the city of Figueres, province of Girona, into the family of a wealthy notary. He was a Catalan by nationality, perceived himself as such and insisted on this peculiarity of his. Had a sister and an older brother (October 12, 1901 - August 1, 1903), who died of meningitis. Later, at the age of 5, at his grave, Salvador was told by his parents that he was the reincarnation of his older brother.

As a child, Dali was a smart, but arrogant and uncontrollable child.

Once he even started a scandal in the shopping area for the sake of a candy, a crowd gathered around and the police asked the owner of the shop to open it during siesta and give this sweetness to the naughty boy. He achieved his goal through whims and simulation, always striving to stand out and attract attention.

Numerous complexes and phobias prevented him from joining ordinary school life and forming the usual bonds of friendship and sympathy with children.

But, like any person, experiencing sensory hunger, he sought emotional contact with children by any means, trying to get used to their team, if not as a comrade, then in any other role, or rather the only one he was capable of - as a shocking and a naughty child, strange, eccentric, always acting contrary to other people's opinions.

When he lost in school gambling games, he acted as if he had won and celebrated. Sometimes he would start fights for no reason.

Part of the complexes that led to all this were caused by the classmates themselves: they treated the “strange” child rather intolerantly, took advantage of his fear of grasshoppers, slipped these insects down his collar, which drove Salvador to hysterics, which he later told about in his book “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Told by Himself.”

He began studying fine arts at a municipal art school. From 1914 to 1918 he was educated at the Academy of the Brothers of the Marist Order in Figueres. One of his childhood friends was the future FC Barcelona footballer Josep Samitier. In 1916, with the family of Ramon Pichó, he went on vacation to the city of Cadaqués, where he became acquainted with modern art.

In 1921 he entered the Academy of San Fernando. The drawing, presented by him as an applicant, was highly appreciated by the teachers, but was not accepted due to its small size. Salvador Dali was given 3 days to create a new drawing. However, the young man was in no hurry to get to work, which greatly worried his father, who had already suffered through his quirks over the years. In the end, young Dali announced that the drawing was ready, but it was even smaller than the previous one, and this was a blow for his father. However, the teachers, due to their extremely high skill, made an exception and accepted the young eccentric into the academy.

In the same year, Salvador Dali's mother dies, which becomes a tragedy for him.

In 1922, he moved to the “Residence” (Spanish: Residencia de Estudiantes) (a student dormitory in Madrid for gifted young people) and began his studies. In those years, everyone noted his panache. At this time he met Luis Buñuel, Federico Garcia Lorca, Pedro Garfias. He reads works with enthusiasm.

Acquaintance with new trends in painting is developing - Dali experiments with the methods of cubism and dadaism. In 1926, he was expelled from the Academy for his arrogant and disdainful attitude towards teachers. In the same year he goes to Paris for the first time, where he meets. Trying to find his own style, in the late 1920s he created a number of works influenced by Picasso and Joan Miró. In 1929, he participated with Buñuel in the creation of the surreal film “Un Chien Andalou.”

At the same time, he first meets his future wife Gala (Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova), who was then the wife of the poet Paul Eluard. Having become close to Salvador, Gala, however, continued to meet with her husband and started relationships with other poets and artists, which at that time seemed acceptable in those bohemian circles where Dali, Eluard and Gala moved. Realizing that he actually stole his friend’s wife, Salvador paints his portrait as “compensation.”

The provocative, shocking and seemingly terrible actions of the artist were not always worth understanding literally and seriously: he probably did not want to offend his mother and did not even imagine what this would lead to, perhaps he longed to experience a series of feelings and experiences that he stimulated in such a blasphemous, at first glance, act. But the father, upset by the long-ago death of his wife, whom he loved and whose memory he carefully preserved, could not stand his son’s antics, which became the last straw for him. In retaliation, the indignant Salvador Dali sent his sperm to his father in an envelope with an angry letter: “This is all I owe you.” Later, in the book “The Diary of a Genius,” the artist, already an elderly man, speaks well of his father, admits that he loved him very much and endured the suffering caused by his son.

In 1934, he unofficially married Gala (the official wedding took place in 1958 in the Spanish town of Girona). In the same year he visited the USA for the first time.

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, states: "Surrealism is me".

Salvador was practically apolitical, and even his monarchist views should be understood surrealistically, that is, not seriously, as well as his constantly advertised sexual passion for Hitler.

He lived surrealistically, his statements and works had a broader and deeper meaning than the interests of specific political parties.

So, in 1933, he painted the painting The Riddle of William Tell, where he depicts the Swiss folk hero in the image of Lenin with a huge buttock.

Dali reinterpreted the Swiss myth according to Freud: Tell became a cruel father who wants to kill his child. Personal memories of Dali, who broke with his father, were layered. Lenin was perceived by communist-minded surrealists as a spiritual, ideological father. The painting depicts dissatisfaction with an overbearing parent, a step towards the formation of a mature personality. But the surrealists took the drawing literally, as a caricature of Lenin, and some of them even tried to destroy the canvas.

In 1937, the artist visited Italy and was delighted with the works of the Renaissance. In his own works, the correctness of human proportions and other academic features begin to dominate. Despite the departure from surrealism, his paintings are still filled with surrealist fantasies. Later, Dali (in the best traditions of his conceit and shockingness) credits himself with saving art from modernist degradation, with which he associates his own name (“Salvador” translated from Spanish means “Savior”).

In 1939, Andre Breton, mocking Dali and the commercial component of his work (which, however, Breton himself was not alien to), came up with an anagram nickname for him: “Avida Dollars” (which in Latin is not entirely accurate, but recognizable means “ greedy for dollars"). Breton's joke instantly gained enormous popularity, but did not harm Dalí's commercial success, which far exceeded Breton's.

With the outbreak of World War II, Dali and Gala left for the United States, where they lived from 1940 to 1948. In 1942, he released a fictionalized autobiography, “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.” His literary experiments, like his works of art, usually turn out to be commercially successful. He collaborates with Walt Disney. He invites Dali to test his talent in cinema - an art that at that time was surrounded by an aura of magic, miracles and wide possibilities. But the surreal cartoon project Destino, proposed by Salvador, was considered commercially unfeasible, and work on it was stopped. Dali works with director Alfred Hitchcock and paints the scenery for the dream scene from the film Spellbound. However, the scene was included in the film very truncated - again for commercial reasons.

After returning to Spain, he lives mainly in his beloved Catalonia. In 1965 he came to Paris and again, as almost 40 years ago, conquered it with his works, exhibitions and shocking actions. He makes whimsical short films and takes surreal photographs. In his films, he mainly uses reverse viewing effects, but skillfully selected shooting objects (flowing water, a ball bouncing down the steps), interesting comments, and a mysterious atmosphere created by the artist’s acting make the films unusual examples of art house. Dali appears in commercials, and even in such commercial activities he does not miss the opportunity for self-expression. TV viewers will long remember a chocolate commercial in which the artist takes a bite of a piece of a bar, after which his mustache twirls in euphoric delight and he exclaims that he has gone crazy from this chocolate.

His relationship with Gala is quite complicated. On the one hand, from the very beginning of their relationship, she promoted him, found buyers for his paintings, convinced him to paint works that were more understandable to the mass audience (the change in his painting at the turn of the 20-30s was striking), shared with him the luxury, and need. When there was no order for paintings, Gala forced her husband to develop product brands and costumes: her strong, decisive nature was very necessary for the weak-willed artist. Gala was putting things in order in his studio, patiently putting away canvases, paints, and souvenirs that Dali had scattered senselessly while looking for the right thing. On the other hand, she constantly had relationships on the side, in her later years the spouses often quarreled, Dali’s love was rather a wild passion, and Gala’s love was not devoid of calculation, with which she “married a genius.” In 1968, Dali bought a castle for Gala in the village of Pubol, in which she lived separately from her husband, and which he himself could visit only with the written permission of his wife. In 1981, Dali developed Parkinson's disease. Gala dies in 1982.

After the death of his wife, Dali experiences deep depression.

His paintings themselves are simplified, and for a long time they are dominated by the motif of grief (variations on the theme “Pietà”).

Parkinson's disease also prevents Dali from painting.

His most recent works (“Cockfights”) are simple squiggles in which the bodies of the characters are guessed - the last attempts at self-expression of an unfortunate sick person.

It was difficult to care for a sick and distraught old man; he threw himself at the nurses with whatever came to hand, screamed, and bit.

After Gala's death, Salvador moved to Pubol, but in 1984 there was a fire in the castle. The paralyzed old man rang the bell unsuccessfully, trying to call for help. In the end, he overcame his weakness, fell out of bed and crawled towards the exit, but lost consciousness at the door. Dali was taken to the hospital with severe burns, but survived. Before this incident, Salvador may have planned to be buried next to Gala, and even prepared a place in the crypt in the castle. However, after the fire, he left the castle and moved to the theater-museum, where he remained until the end of his days.

The only intelligible phrase he uttered during the years of illness was “My friend Lorca”: the artist recalled the years of his happy, healthy youth, when he was friends with the poet.

The artist bequeathed to bury him in such a way that people could walk on the grave, so Dali’s body is walled up in the floor in one of the rooms of the Dali Theater-Museum in the city of Figueres.

The most famous works of Salvador Dali:

Self-Portrait with Raphael's Neck (1920-1921)
Portrait of Luis Buñuel (1924)
Flesh on the Stones (1926)
The Gizmo and the Hand (1927)
The Invisible Man (1929)
Enlightened Pleasures (1929)
Portrait of Paul Eluard (1929)
Riddles of Desire: "My Mother, My Mother, My Mother" (1929)
The Great Masturbator (1929)
William Tell (1930)
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Partial hallucination. Six apparitions of Lenin on the piano (1931)
Paranoid Transformations of Gala's Face (1932)
Retrospective Bust of a Woman (1933)
The Mystery of William Tell (1933)
Mae West's face (used as a surreal room) (1934-1935)
Woman with a Head of Roses (1935)
The Pliable Structure with Boiled Beans: A Premonition of the Civil War (1936)
Venus de Milo with boxes (1936)
Giraffe on Fire (1936-1937)
Anthropomorphic Locker (1936)
Telephone - Lobster (1936)
Sun Table (1936)
Metamorphoses of Narcissus (1936-1937)
The Riddle of Hitler (1937)
Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)
Appearance of a face and a bowl of fruit on the seashore (1938)
Slave Market with the Appearance of Voltaire's Invisible Bust (1938)
Poetry of America (1943)
A dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before awakening (1944)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946)
Nude Dali contemplating five ordered bodies turning into corpuscles from which Leda Leonardo is unexpectedly created, fertilized by the face of Gala (1950)
Raphael's Head Explosion (1951)
Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951)
Galatea with Spheres (1952)
Crucifixion or Hypercubic Body (1954) Corpus hypercubus
Colossus of Rhodes (1954)
Sodom's Self-Pleasure of an Innocent Maiden (1954)
Last Supper (1955)
Our Lady of Guadalupe (1959)
Discovery of America through the sleep of Christopher Columbus (1958-1959)
Ecumenical Council (1960)
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (1976).

Salvador Dali(full name Salvador Domenech Felip Jacinte Dalí and Domenech, Marquis de Dalí de Pubol, cat. Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí de Púbol, Spanish. Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí y de Púbol; May 11, 1904, Figueres - January 23, 1989, Figueres) - Spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer. One of the most famous representatives of surrealism.

Worked on the films: “Un Chien Andalou,” “The Golden Age” (directed by Luis Buñuel), “Spellbound” (directed by Alfred Hitchcock). Author of the books “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Told by Himself” (1942), “The Diary of a Genius” (1952-1963), Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution(1927-33) and the essay “The Tragic Myth of Angelus Millet.”

Childhood

Salvador Dali was born in Spain on May 11, 1904 in the city of Figueres, province of Girona, into the family of a wealthy notary. He was a Catalan by nationality, perceived himself as such and insisted on this peculiarity of his. He had a sister, Anna Maria Dali (Spanish. Anna Maria Dalí, 6 January 1908 – 16 May 1989), and an older brother (12 October 1901 – 1 August 1903), who died of meningitis. Later, at the age of 5, Salvador was told by his parents at his grave that he was the reincarnation of his older brother.

As a child, Dali was a smart, but arrogant and uncontrollable child. One day he started a scandal in a shopping area for the sake of a candy, a crowd gathered around, and the police asked the owner of the shop to open it during siesta and give the boy some sweets. He achieved his goal through whims and simulation, always striving to stand out and attract attention.

Numerous complexes and phobias, for example, fear of grasshoppers, prevented him from joining ordinary school life and forming ordinary bonds of friendship and sympathy with children. But, like any person, experiencing sensory hunger, he sought emotional contact with children by any means, trying to get used to their team, if not as a comrade, then in any other role, or rather the only one he was capable of - as a shocking and disobedient child, strange, eccentric, always acting contrary to other people's opinions. When he lost in school gambling games, he acted as if he had won and celebrated. Sometimes he would start fights for no reason.

Classmates treated the “strange” child rather intolerantly, took advantage of his fear of grasshoppers, slipped these insects down his collar, which drove Salvador to hysterics, which he later told about in his book “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Told by Himself.”

Dali began studying fine arts at a municipal art school. From 1914 to 1918 he was educated at the Academy of the Brothers of the Marist Order in Figueres. One of his childhood friends was the future FC Barcelona footballer Josep Samitier. In 1916, with the family of Ramon Pichó, he went on vacation to the city of Cadaqués, where he became acquainted with modern art.

Youth

In 1921, at the age of 47, Dali’s mother died of breast cancer. For Dali this was a tragedy. That same year he entered the Academy of San Fernando. The drawing he prepared for the exam seemed too small to the caretaker, which he informed his father, and he, in turn, informed his son. Young Salvador erased the entire drawing from the canvas and decided to draw a new one. But he only had 3 days left before the final assessment. However, the young man was in no hurry to get to work, which greatly worried his father, who had already suffered through his quirks over the years. In the end, young Dali announced that the drawing was ready, but it was even smaller than the previous one, and this was a blow for his father. However, the teachers, due to their extremely high skill, made an exception and accepted the young eccentric into the academy.

In 1922, Dali moved to the “Residence” (Spanish. Residencia de Estudiantes), a student residence in Madrid for gifted young people, and begins his studies. At this time, Dali met Luis Buñuel, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Pedro Garfias. He reads Freud's works with enthusiasm.

After becoming acquainted with new trends in painting, Dali experiments with the methods of Cubism and Dadaism. In 1926, he was expelled from the Academy for his arrogant and disdainful attitude towards teachers. In the same year, he goes to Paris for the first time, where he meets Pablo Picasso. Trying to find his own style, in the late 1920s he created a number of works influenced by Picasso and Joan Miró. In 1929, he participated with Buñuel in the creation of the surreal film Un Chien Andalou.

Youth

Dali's works are shown at exhibitions, he is gaining popularity. In 1929 he joined the group of surrealists organized by Andre Breton. At the same time, there is a break with his father. The hostility of the artist’s family towards Gala, the associated conflicts, scandals, as well as the inscription made by Dali on one of the canvases - “Sometimes I spit with pleasure on the portrait of my mother” - led to the fact that the father cursed his son and kicked him out of the house. The provocative, shocking and terrible actions of the artist were not always worth understanding literally and seriously: he probably did not want to offend his mother and did not even imagine what this would lead to, perhaps he longed to experience a series of feelings and experiences that he stimulated in himself with such blasphemous by action. But the father, upset by the long-ago death of his wife, whom he loved and whose memory he carefully preserved, could not stand his son’s antics, which became the last straw for him. In retaliation, the indignant Salvador Dali sent his sperm to his father in an envelope with an angry letter: “This is all I owe you.” Later, in the book “The Diary of a Genius,” the artist, already an elderly man, speaks well of his father, admits that he loved him very much and endured the suffering caused by his son.

In 1934, he unofficially married Gala. In the same year he visited the USA for the first time.

Break with the surrealists

After Caudillo Franco came to power in 1936, Dalí quarreled with the surrealists on the left and was expelled from the group. In response to Dali: “Surrealism is me.” Salvador was practically apolitical, and even his monarchist views were not taken seriously, as well as his constantly advertised sexual passion for Hitler.

In 1933, Dali painted The Riddle of William Tell, where he depicts the Swiss folk hero in the image of Lenin with a huge buttock. Dali reinterpreted the Swiss myth according to Freud: Tell became a cruel father who wants to kill his child. Personal memories of Dali, who broke with his father, were layered. Lenin was perceived by communist-minded surrealists as a spiritual, ideological father. The painting depicts dissatisfaction with an overbearing parent, a step towards the formation of a mature personality. But the surrealists took the drawing literally, as a caricature of Lenin, and some of them even tried to destroy the canvas.

The evolution of creativity. Departure from surrealism

In 1937, the artist visited Italy and was delighted with the works of the Renaissance. In his own works, the correctness of human proportions and other academic features begin to dominate. Despite the departure from surrealism, his paintings are still filled with surrealist fantasies. Later, Dali credited himself with saving art from modernist degradation, with which he associated his own name, since “ Salvador" translated from Spanish means "Savior".

In 1939, Andre Breton, mocking Dali and the commercial component of his work, came up with his anagram nickname “ Avida Dollars", which in Latin is not precise, but recognizably means "greedy for dollars." Breton's joke instantly gained enormous popularity, but did not harm Dali's success, which far exceeded Breton's commercial success.

Life in the USA

With the outbreak of World War II, Dali and Gala left for the USA, where they lived from 1940 to 1948. In 1942, he published a fictionalized autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali. His literary experiments, like his works of art, usually turn out to be commercially successful. He collaborates with Walt Disney. He invites Dali to test his talent in cinema, but the project of the surreal cartoon Destino proposed by Salvador was considered commercially unfeasible, and work on it was stopped. Dali worked with director Alfred Hitchcock and created the set for the dream scene from the film Spellbound. However, the scene was cut into the film due to commercial reasons.

Mature and older years

Salvador Dali with his ocelot named Babou in 1965

After returning to Spain, Dali lived mainly in Catalonia. In 1958, he officially married Gala in the Spanish city of Girona. In 1965 he came to Paris and conquered it with his works, exhibitions and shocking actions. He makes short films and takes surreal photographs. In his films, he mainly uses reverse viewing effects, but skillfully selected shooting objects (flowing water, a ball bouncing down the steps), interesting comments, and a mysterious atmosphere created by the artist’s acting make the films unusual examples of art house. Dali appears in commercials, and even in such commercial activities he does not miss the opportunity for self-expression. TV viewers will long remember a chocolate commercial in which the artist takes a bite of a piece of a bar, after which his mustache twirls in euphoric delight and he exclaims that he has gone crazy from this chocolate.

Salvador Dali in 1972

His relationship with Gala is quite complicated. On the one hand, from the very beginning of their relationship, she promoted him, found buyers for his paintings, and convinced him to paint works that were more understandable to the mass audience at the turn of the 20s and 30s. When there was no order for paintings, Gala forced her husband to develop product brands and costumes. Her strong, decisive nature was very necessary for the weak-willed artist. Gala was putting things in order in his studio, patiently putting away canvases, paints, and souvenirs that Dali had scattered senselessly while looking for the right thing. On the other hand, she constantly had relationships on the side, in her later years the spouses often quarreled, Dali’s love was rather a wild passion, and Gala’s love was not devoid of calculation, with which she “married a genius.” In 1968, Dali bought Pubol Castle for Gala, in which she lived separately from her husband, and which he himself could visit only with the written permission of his wife. In 1981, Dali developed Parkinson's disease. Gala dies in 1982.

Last years

After the death of his wife, Dali experiences deep depression. His paintings themselves are simplified, and for a long time they are dominated by the motif of grief, for example, variations on the theme “Pieta”. Parkinson's disease prevents Dali from painting. His latest works (“Cockfights”) are simple squiggles in which the bodies of the characters are guessed.

It was difficult to care for a sick and distraught old man; he threw whatever came to hand at the nurses, screamed, and bit.

After Gala's death, Salvador moved to Pubol, but in 1984 there was a fire in the castle. The paralyzed old man rang the bell unsuccessfully, trying to call for help. In the end, he overcame his weakness, fell out of bed and crawled towards the exit, but lost consciousness at the door. Dali received severe burns but survived. Before this incident, Salvador may have planned to be buried next to Gala, and even prepared a place in the crypt in the castle. However, after the fire, he left the castle and moved to the theater-museum, where he remained until the end of his days.

In early January 1989, Dali was hospitalized with a diagnosis of heart failure. The only intelligible phrase he uttered during the years of illness was “My friend Lorca.”

Salvador Dali died on January 23, 1989, at the age of 85. The artist bequeathed to bury him in such a way that people could walk on the grave, so Dali’s body is walled up in the floor in one of the rooms of the Dali Theater-Museum in the city of Figueres. He bequeathed all his works to Spain.

In 2007, Spaniard Maria Pilar Abel Martinez announced that she was the illegitimate daughter of Salvador Dali. The woman claimed that many years ago Dali visited his friend’s house in the town of Cadaques, where her mother worked as a maid. A love affair arose between Dali and her mother, as a result of which Pilar was born in 1956. Allegedly, the girl knew from childhood that she was Dali’s daughter, but did not want to upset the feelings of her stepfather. At Pilar's request, a DNA test was carried out using hair and skin cells from Dali's death mask as a sample. The results of the examination indicated the absence of family ties between Dali and Maria Pilar Abel Martinez. However, Pilar demanded that Dali's body be exhumed for a re-examination.

In June 2017, a court in Madrid decided to exhume the remains of Salvador Dali to take samples for the purpose of conducting a genetic examination to establish the possible paternity of a resident of Girona. On July 20, the coffin containing the remains of Salvador Dali was opened and exhumation was carried out. 300 people watched the opening of the coffin. If paternity is recognized, Dali’s daughter would be able to obtain rights to his surname and part of the inheritance. However, the DNA test clearly refuted the assumptions about the relationship of these people.

Creation

Theater

Cinema

In 1945, in collaboration with Walt Disney, he began work on an animated film Destino. Production was then delayed due to financial problems; The Walt Disney Company released the film in 2003.

Design

Salvador Dali is the author of the packaging design for Chupa Chups. Enrique Bernat called his caramel "Chups", and at first it had 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. Enrique Bernat turned to Salvador Dali with a request to draw something memorable. The brilliant artist did not think long and in less than an hour sketched out a picture for him, which 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. What made the new logo different was its location: it is located not on the side, but on top of the candy.

Female figure (Baku Museum of Modern Art)

Horse and rider stumbling

Space elephant

In prison

Since 1965, in the main dining room of the prison complex on Rikers Island (USA), a drawing by Dali, which he wrote as an apology to prisoners for not being able to attend their lecture on art, has hung in a prominent place. In 1981, the drawing was hung in the hall “for safekeeping,” and in March 2003 it was replaced with a fake, and the original was stolen. Four employees were charged in this case, three of them pleaded guilty, the fourth was acquitted, but the original was not found.

Much is known about Salvador Dali, but even more remains unknown. Being a narcissistic egocentric, a real narcissist, the artist talked a lot about himself, published diaries, biographies, wrote many poems, articles and other literary works, but all this only thickened the fog around his life. It is sometimes simply impossible to distinguish the truth from deliberate lies in the name of advertising. With his own hands, Salvador Dali created a myth about himself. And, as you know, legends are just legends in which the truth is dissolved in fiction.

So, the biography of Salvador Dali:

On May 11, 1904, in the family of Don Salvador Dalí y Cusi and Doña Felipa Domenech in the small Spanish town of Figueras in northeastern Spain, not far from Barcelona, a boy was born who was destined to become one of the greatest geniuses of the era of surrealism in the future. His name was Salvador Dali. In his biography, Dali writes:

"...The said child was born at 20 Monturiol Street at 8:45 a.m. on May 11 of this year. He is henceforth named Salvador Felipe Jacinto. He is the legitimate son of the applicant and his wife Dona Felipa Dom Domenech, 30 years old, a native of Barcelona, also residing in street Monturiol, 20. Paternal ancestors: Don Galo Dali Vinas, born and buried in Cadaques, and Doña Teresa Cusi Marcoe, native of Roses. His maternal ancestors: Don Anselmo Domenech Serra and Doña Maria Ferres Sadurni, natives of Barcelona. Witnesses : Don José Mercader, native of La Bisbala in the province of Gerona, tanner, residing at 20 Calle Calzada de Los Monjas, and Don Emilio Baig, native of Figueres, musician, residing at 5 Calle Perelada, both of age."

Salvador means "Savior" in Spanish, which is what his father called him after his first son died. The second was called upon to continue the ancient family.

"...My brother died of meningitis at the age of seven, three years before my birth. The despairing father and mother found no other consolation than my birth. My brother and I were like two peas in a pod: the same stamp of genius, then the same expression of causeless anxiety. We differed in certain psychological traits. Moreover, his gaze was different - as if shrouded in melancholy, “irresistible” thoughtfulness."

The third child in the Dali family was a girl born in 1908. Ana Maria Dali became one of Salvador Dali's best childhood friends, and she later posed for many of his works. (cm. portraits of Ana Maria) Ana Maria replaced the mother of the completely helpless and impractical Dali in life, and was his only female model until the moment when he met Gala Eluard. Gala took on the role of Dali's only model, which caused Anna Maria's continued hostility

Dali showed a talent for painting at a young age. At the age of four, he tried to draw with surprising diligence for such a small child. At the age of six, Dali was attracted by the image of Napoleon and, as if identifying himself with him, he felt the need for some kind of power. Having put on the king's fancy dress, he took great pleasure in his appearance.

"...I reigned and commanded in the house. Nothing was impossible for me. My father and mother did not pray for me. On Infanta's Day, among countless gifts, I received a magnificent king's suit with a cape lined with real ermine, and a crown of gold and precious stones. And for a long time afterwards I kept this brilliant (albeit masquerade) confirmation of my chosenness."

Salvador Dali painted his first painting when he was 10 years old. It was a small impressionist landscape painted on a wooden board with oil paints. The talent of a genius was bursting forth. Dali sat all day long in a small room specially allocated to him, drawing pictures.

"...I knew what I wanted: to be given a laundry room under the roof of our house. And they gave it to me, allowing me to furnish the workshop to my liking. Of the two laundries, one, abandoned, served as a storage room. The servants cleared it of all the junk that it was piled up, and I took possession of it the very next day. It was so cramped that the cement tub occupied it almost entirely. Such proportions, as I already said, revived intrauterine joys in me. Inside the cement tub, I placed a chair on it, instead desktop, laid the board horizontally. When it was very hot, I undressed and turned on the tap, filling the tub up to my waist. The water came from the tank next door, and was always warm from the sun."

The theme of most of the early works was landscapes around Figueres and Cadaqués. Another outlet for Dali's imagination was the ruins of a Roman city near Ampurius. The love for his native places can be seen in many of Dali’s works. Already at the age of 14, it was impossible to doubt Dali’s ability to draw.
At the age of 14, his first solo exhibition took place at the Municipal Theater of Figueres. Young Dali persistently searches for his own style, but in the meantime he masters all the styles he liked: impressionism, cubism, pointillism. "He painted passionately and greedily, like a man possessed"- Salvador Dali will say about himself in the third person.
At the age of sixteen, Dali began to put his thoughts on paper. From that time on, painting and literature became equally parts of his creative life. In 1919, in his homemade publication "Studium", he published essays on Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Michelangelo and Leonardo.
In 1921, at the age of 17, he became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid.

"...Soon I began attending classes at the Academy of Fine Arts. And this took up all my time. I did not hang out on the streets, never went to the cinema, did not visit my fellow Residence members. I returned and locked myself in my room to continue work alone. On Sunday mornings I went to the Prado Museum and took catalogs of paintings from different schools. The journey from the Residence to the Academy and back cost one peseta. For many months this peseta was my only daily expenditure. Father, notified by the director and poet Marquina (under the tutelage whom he left me) was worried that I was leading the life of a hermit. He wrote to me several times, advising me to travel around the area, go to the theater, take breaks from work. But it was all in vain. From the Academy to the room, from the room to the Academy, "One peseta a day and not a centime more. My inner life was content with this. And all kinds of entertainment disgusted me."

Around 1923, Dalí began his experiments with Cubism, often even locking himself in his room to paint. At that time, most of his colleagues tried their artistic abilities and strengths in impressionism, which Dali was interested in several years earlier. When Dali's comrades saw him working on cubist paintings, his authority immediately rose, and he became not just a participant, but one of the leaders of an influential group of young Spanish intellectuals, among whom were the future film director Luis Buñuel and the poet Federico García Lorca. Meeting them had a great influence on Dali's life.

In 1921, Dali's mother dies.
In 1926, 22-year-old Salvador Dali was expelled from the Academy. Having disagreed with the teachers' decision regarding one of the painting teachers, he stood up and left the hall, after which a brawl broke out in the hall. Of course, Dali was considered the instigator, although he had no idea what had happened, and for a short time he even went to prison.
But he soon returned to the academy.

"...My exile ended and I returned to Madrid, where the group was impatiently waiting for me. Without me, they argued, everything was “no glory to God.” Their imagination was hungry for my ideas. They gave me a standing ovation, ordered special ties, put aside seats in the theater, packed my suitcases, monitored my health, obeyed my every whim and, like a cavalry squadron, descended on Madrid in order to defeat at any cost the difficulties that prevented the realization of my most unimaginable fantasies.

Despite Dalí's outstanding ability in academic pursuits, his eccentric dress and demeanor eventually led to his expulsion for his refusal to take an oral examination. When he learned that his last question would be about Raphael, Dali suddenly declared: “...I don’t know less than three professors combined, and I refuse to answer them because I am better informed on the matter.”
But by that time, his first personal exhibition had already taken place in Barcelona, a short trip to Paris, and an acquaintance with Picasso.

"...For the first time I stayed in Paris for only a week with my aunt and sister. There were three important visits: to Versailles, to the Grevin Museum and to Picasso. I was introduced to Picasso by the cubist artist Manuel Angelo Ortiz from Granada, to whom Lorca introduced me. I I came to Picasso on Rue La Boétie so excited and respectful, as if I were at a reception with the pope himself."

Dali's name and works attracted close attention in artistic circles. In Dali's paintings of that time one can notice the influence of Cubism ( "Young Women", 1923).
In 1928 Dali became famous throughout the world. His picture "Bread Basket" among others, was exhibited at the Carnegie International Exposition in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This work is an example of a completely different artistic style. The painting is painted in such a beautiful and realistic style, one might even say that it is almost photorealistic.

Like many artists, Dali began to work in those artistic styles that were popular at that time. In his works of the early period (1914 - 1927) one can see the influence of Rembrandt, Vermeer, Caravaggio and Cezanne. Towards the end of this period of his work, surreal qualities begin to appear in Dali's works, reflecting not so much the real world as his inner personal world.

The personal life of Salvador Dali until 1929 did not have any bright moments (unless you count his many hobbies for unrealistic girls, young women and women).
Dali, who very early acquired professional skills, mastered drawing and the secrets of academic painting, and also went through the school of cubism, in order to be at the level of his time, had to move on, because the heroic time of cubism was behind him, and, improving in classical craftsmanship, he could only count on the role of an ordinary provincial artist. It should be noted that already his youthful works: seascapes, landscapes of Cadaqués, portraits of peasant women, still lifes and other works of 1918-1921 - indicate that Dali, developing this direction, could enter Spanish painting as an interesting artist... And yet to say “into the history of painting” would be an exaggeration. In the same way, he would have been lost in history if, following the example of his idol Velazquez, he had become a portrait painter, because his portraits are far from the most successful in his work. Their scrupulous “academic” design does not replace the deep psychological characteristics characteristic of great classical art.

Dali's undoubted genius was that he chose the optimal path to realize his modest artistic gift and satisfy his more than immodest ambition.
This was unusually well matched by the surrealist theory, which Dali obviously became acquainted with before his first surrealist “paranoid” paintings appeared ( "Honey is sweeter than blood", 1926). These works are preceded by variations on a theme "Venus and the Sailor", 1925, "Flying Woman", 1926, and "Portrait of a girl in a landscape (Cadaques)", from the same time - marked by the influence of Picasso, as well as Figure at a Window, 1925, "Woman in front of the rocks of Peña Segat", 1926 - imitating the style of “metaphysical” painting by De Chirico. These works contain everything that makes painting successful; everything except independence. Their secondary nature is obvious.
In 1926 a sharp change occurred. It's hard to believe that a dismembered female corpse and a decomposing donkey carcass ( "Honey is sweeter than blood") - a picture of horror and despair written in the same year as the one that enchants with its simplicity, harmony and chastity "Portrait of a girl in a landscape (Cadaques)" And "Woman in front of the rocks of Peña Segat".

The year 1929 came - a fatal year for Dali, when two important events took place in his life. Both radically influenced the future of Salvador Dali, who was destined to become one of the greatest artists of all time. He had always feared his “greatness,” but now he stood on the threshold of a new era. An era in which he was elevated to the status of Master.
The first and most important event was his meeting with Gala Eluard in Cadaques, who became his muse, assistant, lover, and then wife. At that time she was married, but despite this, since they met, they have never been separated. At the beginning of their acquaintance, Gala saved Dali from a serious mental crisis, and without her support and faith in his genius, he would hardly have turned out to be the artist he was. Dalí created a lush cult of Gala, who appears in many of his works, ultimately in almost divine form.

"...I walked up to the window that looked out onto the beach. She was already there. Who is She? Don't interrupt me. Enough of what I'm saying: She was already there. Gala, Eluard's wife. It was her! Galyuchka Rediviva! I recognized her by her bare back. Her body was tender, like a child's. The line of her shoulders was almost perfectly round, and the muscles of her waist, outwardly fragile, were athletically tense, like a teenager's. But the curve of her lower back was truly feminine. A graceful combination Her slender, energetic torso, wasp waist and soft hips made her even more desirable."(more about Gala Dali)

Another important event was Dali's decision to officially join the Parisian surrealist movement. With the support of his friend, the artist Joan Miró, he joined their ranks in 1929. Andre Breton treated this dressed-up dandy - a Spaniard who painted puzzles - with a fair amount of distrust.
In 1929, his first personal exhibition took place in Paris at Goeman's Gallery, after which he began his path to the pinnacle of fame. That same year, in January, he met his friend from the Academy of San Fernando, Luis Bunuel, who proposed to work together on a script for a film known as "Andalusian Dog"(Un Chien andalou). (“Andalusian puppies” was what Madrid youth called immigrants from the south of Spain. This nickname meant “slobber,” “slut,” “klutz,” “mama’s boy”).
Now this film is a classic of surrealism. It was a short film designed to shock and touch the heart of the bourgeoisie and ridicule the excesses of the avant-garde. Among the most shocking images is the famous scene, which is known to have been invented by Dali, where a man's eye is cut in half with a blade. The decaying donkeys that appeared in other scenes were also part of Dali's contribution to the film.
After the first public screening of the film in October 1929 at the Théâtre des Ursulines in Paris, Buñuel and Dalí immediately became famous and celebrated.

Two years after Un Chien Andalou came The Golden Age. Critics received the new film with delight. But then he became a bone of contention between Buñuel and Dali: each claimed that he did more for the film than the other. However, despite the disputes, their collaboration left a deep mark on the lives of both artists and sent Dali on the path of surrealism.
Despite his relatively short “official” connection with the surrealist movement and the Breton group, Dali initially and forever remains the artist who personifies surrealism.
But even among the surrealists, Salvador Dali turned out to be a real disturber of surrealist tranquility; he advocated for surrealism without boundaries, declaring: “Surrealism is me!” and, dissatisfied with the principle of mental automatism proposed by Breton and based on a spontaneous creative act not controlled by the mind, the Spanish master defines the method he invented as “paranoid-critical activity.”
Dali's break with the surrealists was also facilitated by his delusional political statements. His admiration for Adolf Hitler and his monarchical inclinations ran counter to Breton's ideas. Dali's final break with the Breton group occurs in 1939.

The father, dissatisfied with his son’s relationship with Gala Eluard, forbade Dali to appear in his house, and thereby marked the beginning of a conflict between them. According to his subsequent stories, the artist, tormented by remorse, cut off all his hair and buried it in his beloved Cadaques.

"...A few days later I received a letter from my father, who told me that I was finally expelled from the family...My first reaction to the letter was to cut off my hair. But I did it differently: I shaved my head, then buried it in the ground his hair, sacrificing it along with the empty shells of sea urchins eaten at dinner."

With virtually no money, Dali and Gala moved to a small house in a fishing village in Port Ligat, where they found refuge. There, in solitude, they spent many hours together, and Dali worked hard to earn money, because although he was already recognized by that time, he still had difficulty making ends meet. At that time, Dali began to become increasingly involved in surrealism, his work now differing significantly even from the abstract paintings he had painted in the early twenties. The main theme for many of his works was now the confrontation with his father.
The image of a deserted shore was firmly entrenched in Dali’s mind at that time. The artist painted the deserted beach and rocks in Cadaques without any specific thematic focus. As he later claimed, the emptiness was filled for him when he saw a piece of Camembert cheese. The cheese became soft and began to melt on the plate. This sight evoked a certain image in the artist's subconscious, and he began to fill the landscape with melting clocks, thus creating one of the most powerful images of our time. Dali named the painting "The Persistence of Memory".

"... Having decided to write the hours, I painted them soft. It was one evening, I was tired, I had a migraine - an extremely rare ailment for me. We were supposed to go to the cinema with friends, but at the last moment I decided to stay at home. Gala will go with them, and I will go to bed early. We ate very tasty cheese, then I was left alone, sitting with my elbows on the table, and thinking about how “super soft” the processed cheese is. I got up and went to the workshop to, as usual , take a look at my work. The picture that I was going to paint represented the landscape of the outskirts of Port Lligat, the rocks, as if illuminated by a dim evening light. In the foreground, I sketched the chopped off trunk of a leafless olive tree. This landscape is the basis for a canvas with some kind of an idea, but which one? I needed a wonderful image, but I couldn’t find it. I went to turn off the light, and when I came out, I literally “saw” the solution: two pairs of soft watches, one plaintively hanging from an olive branch. Despite the migraine, I prepared palette and got to work. Two hours later, when Gala returned from the cinema, the film, which was to become one of the most famous, was completed. "

The Persistence of Memory was completed in 1931 and has become a symbol of the modern concept of the relativity of time. A year after the exhibition at the Pierre Colet Gallery in Paris, Dali's most famous painting was purchased by the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Unable to visit his father's house in Cadaques due to his father's ban, Dalí, using money received from the philanthropist Viscount Charles de Noeil for the sale of paintings, built a new house on the seashore, not far from Port Lligat.

Dali was now more convinced than ever that his goal was to learn to paint like the great masters of the Renaissance, and that with the help of their technique he could express the ideas that prompted him to paint. Thanks to meetings with Buñuel and numerous disputes with Lorca, who spent a lot of time with him in Cadaqués, new broad avenues of thinking opened up for Dali.
By 1934, Gala had already divorced her husband, and Dali could marry her. The amazing thing about this married couple was that they felt and understood each other. Gala, in the literal sense, lived the life of Dali, and he, in turn, deified her and admired her.
The outbreak of civil war prevented Dalí from returning to Spain in 1936. Dali's fear for the fate of his country and its people was reflected in his paintings painted during the war. Among them - tragic and terrifying "Premonition of Civil War" in 1936. Dali liked to emphasize that this painting was a test of the genius of his intuition, since it was completed 6 months before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936.

Between 1936 and 1937, Salvador Dali painted one of his most famous paintings, The Metamorphosis of Narcissus. At the same time, his literary work entitled "Metamorphoses of Narcissus. Paranoid Theme" was published. By the way, earlier (1935) in his work “Conquest of the Irrational” Dali formulated the theory of the paranoid-critical method. This method used various forms of irrational associations, especially images that change depending on visual perception - so that, for example, a group of fighting soldiers can suddenly turn into a woman's face. Dali's distinctive feature was that, no matter how bizarre his images were, they were always painted in an impeccable "academic" manner, with that photographic precision that most avant-garde artists considered old-fashioned.

Although Dali often expressed the idea that world events such as wars had little bearing on the world of art, he was greatly concerned about events in Spain. In 1938, as the war reached its climax, "Spain" was written. During the Spanish Civil War, Dalí and Gala visited Italy to view the works of the Renaissance artists Dalí most admired. They also visited Sicily. This trip inspired the artist to paint African Impressions in 1938.

In 1940, Dalí and Gala, just weeks before the Nazi invasion, left France on a transatlantic flight booked and paid for by Picasso. They stayed in the States for eight years. It was there that Salvador Dali wrote, probably one of his best books - a biography - "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Written by Himself." When this book was published in 1942, it immediately attracted severe criticism from the press and puritanical supporters.
During the years Gala and Dali spent in America, Dali made a fortune. At the same time, according to some critics, he paid with his reputation as an artist. Among the artistic intelligentsia, his extravagances were considered as antics in order to attract attention to himself and his work. And Dali's traditional style of painting was considered unsuitable for the twentieth century (at that time, artists were busy searching for a new language to express new ideas born in modern society).

During his stay in America, Dali worked as a jeweler, designer, photo reporter, illustrator, portrait painter, decorator, window decorator, made sets for the Hitchcock film The House of Dr. Edwards, distributed the Dali News newspaper (which, in particular, published Hieroglyphic Interpretation and psychoanalytic analysis of Salvador Dali's mustache). At the same time, he was writing the novel Hidden Faces. His performance is amazing.
His texts, films, installations, photo reports and ballet performances are distinguished by irony and paradox, fused into a single whole in the same original manner that is characteristic of his painting. Despite the monstrous eclecticism, the combination of the incompatible, the mixture (obviously deliberate) of soft and hard stylistics - his compositions are built according to the rules of academic art. The cacophony of subjects (deformed objects, distorted images, fragments of the human body, etc.) is “pacified” and harmonized by jewelry technology that reproduces the texture of museum painting.

Dali's new vision of the world was born after the explosion over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Having been deeply impressed by the discoveries that led to the creation of the atomic bomb, the artist painted a whole series of paintings dedicated to the atom (for example, “Splitting the Atom,” 1947).
But nostalgia for their homeland takes its toll and in 1948 they return to Spain. While in Port Lligat, Dali turned to religious and fantastic themes in his creations.
On the eve of the Cold War, Dali developed the theory of “atomic art”, published in the same year in the Mystical Manifesto. Dali sets himself the goal of conveying to the viewer the idea of the constancy of spiritual existence even after the disappearance of matter ( "Raphael's Exploding Head", 1951). The fragmented forms in this painting, as well as in others painted during this period, are rooted in Dali's interest in nuclear physics. The head is similar to one of Raphael's Madonnas - images of classically clear and calm; at the same time it includes the dome of the Roman Pantheon with a stream of light falling inside. Both images are clearly distinguishable, despite the explosion, which breaks the entire structure into small fragments in the shape of a rhinoceros horn.
These studies culminated in "Galatea of the Spheres", 1952, where Gala's head consists of rotating spheres.

The rhinoceros horn became a new symbol for Dali, most fully embodied by him in the painting “Rhinoceros-shaped Figure of Ilissa Phidias”, 1954. The painting dates back to the time that Dali called “the almost divine strict period of the rhinoceros horn”, claiming that the curve of this horn is the only one in nature is an absolutely exact logarithmic spiral, and therefore the only perfect form.
That same year he also painted A Young Virgin Self-Sodomized by Her Own Chastity. The painting depicted a naked woman being threatened by several rhinoceros horns.
Dali was fascinated by the new ideas of the theory of relativity. This prompted him to return to "The Persistence of Memory" 1931. Now in "Disintegration of memory persistence",1952-54, Dali depicted his soft clock below sea level, where stones like bricks stretch into perspective. The memory itself was disintegrating, since time no longer existed in the meaning that Dali gave it.

His international fame continued to grow, based both on his flamboyance and his sense of public taste, and on his incredible prolificacy in painting, graphic work and book illustrations, as well as as a designer in jewelry, clothing, costumes for the stage, and store interiors. He continued to amaze audiences with his extravagant appearances. For example, in Rome he appeared in the "Metaphysical Cube" (a simple white box covered with scientific icons). Most of the spectators who came to see Dali's performances were simply attracted by the eccentric celebrity.
In 1959, Dalí and Gala truly established their home in Port Lligat. By that time, no one could doubt the genius of the great artist. His paintings were bought for huge sums of money by fans and lovers of luxury. Huge canvases painted by Dali in the 60s were valued at huge sums. Many millionaires considered it chic to have paintings by Salvador Dali in their collection.

In 1965, Dali met an art college student, a part-time model, nineteen-year-old Amanda Lear, a future pop star. A couple of weeks after their meeting in Paris, when Amanda was returning home to London, Dali solemnly announced: “Now we will always be together.” And over the next eight years they really hardly separated. In addition, their union was blessed by Gala herself. Dali's muse calmly gave her husband into the caring hands of a young girl, knowing well that Dali would never leave her for anyone. There was no intimate connection in the traditional sense of the word between him and Amanda. Dali could only look at her and enjoy. Amanda spent several seasons in a row every summer in Cadaques. Dali, lounging in a chair, enjoyed the beauty of his nymph. Dali was afraid of physical contacts, considering them too rough and mundane, but visual eroticism brought him real pleasure. He could watch Amanda bathe endlessly, so when they stayed in hotels, they often booked rooms with connecting baths.

Everything was going great, but when Amanda decided to step out of Dali’s shadow and pursue her own career, their love-and-friendly union collapsed. Dali did not forgive her for the success that befell her. Geniuses don't like it when something that belongs completely to them suddenly floats out of their hands. And someone else’s success is an unbearable torment for them. How is it possible that his “baby” (despite the fact that Amanda’s height is 176 cm) allowed herself to become independent and successful! They hardly communicated for a long time, seeing each other only in 1978 at Christmas in Paris.

The next day, Gala called Amanda and asked her to come to her urgently. When Amanda appeared at her place, she saw that an open Bible lay in front of Gala and right next to it stood the icon of the Kazan Mother of God, taken from Russia. “Swear to me on the Bible,” 84-year-old Gala strictly ordered, that when I am gone, you will marry Dali. I cannot die, leaving him unattended.” Amanda swore without hesitation. A year later she married Marquis Allen Philip Malagnac. Dali refused to accept the newlyweds, and Gala did not speak to her again until her death.

Beginning around 1970, Dali's health began to deteriorate. Although his creative energy did not decrease, thoughts about death and immortality began to bother him. He believed in the possibility of immortality, including the immortality of the body, and explored ways to preserve the body through freezing and DNA transplantation in order to be reborn.

More important, however, was the preservation of the works, which became his main project. He put all his energy into it. The artist came up with the idea of building a museum for his works. He soon took on the task of rebuilding the theater in Figueres, his homeland, which was badly damaged during the Spanish Civil War. A giant geodesic dome was erected over the stage. The auditorium was cleared and divided into sections in which his works of different genres could be displayed, including Mae West's bedroom and large paintings such as The Hallucinogenic Bullfighter. Dali himself painted the entrance foyer, depicting himself and Gala panning for gold in Figueres, with their feet hanging from the ceiling. The salon was named the Palace of the Winds, after the poem of the same name, which tells the legend of the east wind, whose love married and lives in the west, so whenever he approaches her, he is forced to turn, while his tears fall to the ground. This legend really pleased Dali, the great mystic, who dedicated another part of his museum to erotica. As he often liked to emphasize, erotica differs from pornography in that the former brings happiness to everyone, while the latter only brings misfortune.
The Dalí Theater and Museum had many other works and other trinkets on display. The salon opened in September 1974 and looked less like a museum and more like a bazaar. There, among other things, were the results of Dali's experiments with holography, from which he hoped to create global three-dimensional images. (His holograms were first exhibited at the Knoedler Gallery in New York in 1972. He stopped experimenting in 1975.) In addition, the Dali Theater Museum displays double spectroscopic paintings of a nude Gala against a background painting by Claude Laurent and other art objects. created by Dali. Read more about the Theater-Museum.

In 1968-1970, the painting “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” was created - a masterpiece of metamorphism. The artist himself called this huge canvas “the whole of Dali in one picture,” since it represents a whole anthology of his images. At the top, the entire scene is dominated by the spirited head of Gala, in the lower right corner stands six-year-old Dali, dressed as a sailor (as he portrayed himself in The Phantom of Sexual Attraction in 1932). In addition to many images from earlier works, the painting contains a series of Venuses de Milo, gradually turning and simultaneously changing gender. The bullfighter himself is not easy to see - until we realize that the naked torso of the second Venus from the right can be perceived as part of his face (the right breast corresponds to the nose, the shadow on the stomach to the mouth), and the green shadow on her drapery as a tie. To the left, a sequined bullfighter's jacket shimmers, merging with the rocks in which the head of a dying bull can be discerned.

Dali's popularity grew. The demand for his work became crazy. Book publishers, magazines, fashion houses and theater directors competed for it. He has already created illustrations for many masterpieces of world literature, such as the Bible, Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, Freud's God and Monotheism, and Ovid's The Art of Love. He published books dedicated to himself and his art, in which he uncontrollably praises his talent ("The Diary of a Genius", "Dali by Dali", "The Golden Book of Dali", "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali"). He always had a quirky demeanor, constantly changing his extravagant suits and mustache style.

The cult of Dali, the abundance of his works in different genres and styles led to the appearance of numerous fakes, which caused big problems in the world art market. Dalí himself was implicated in a scandal in 1960 when he signed many blank sheets of paper intended for making impressions from lithographic stones kept by dealers in Paris. An accusation was made of illegal use of these blank sheets. However, Dali remained unperturbed and in the 1970s continued to lead his chaotic and active life, as always, continuing to search for new flexible ways to explore his amazing world of art.

At the end of the 60s, the relationship between Dali and Gala began to fade. And at Gala’s request, Dali was forced to buy her his own castle, where she spent a lot of time in the company of young people. The rest of their life together was smoldering firebrands that had once been a bright fire of passion... Gala was already about 70 years old, but the more she aged, the more she wanted love. “Salvador doesn’t care, each of us has our own life”“,” she convinced her husband’s friends, dragging them into bed. "I allow Gala to have as many lovers as she wants- said Dali. - I even encourage her because it excites me.". Gala's young lovers robbed her mercilessly. She gave them Dali paintings, bought them houses, studios, cars. And Dali was saved from loneliness by his favorites, young beautiful women, from whom he needed nothing but their beauty. In public, he always pretended that they were lovers. But he knew that it was all just a game. The woman of his soul was only Gala.

Throughout her life with Dali, Gala played the role of an eminence grise, preferring to remain in the background. Some considered her to be the driving force behind Dali, others - a witch weaving intrigues...Gala managed her husband's ever-growing wealth with efficient efficiency. It was she who closely followed private transactions for the purchase of his paintings. She was needed physically and mentally, so when Gala died in June 1982, the artist suffered a heavy loss. Among the works created by Dalí in the weeks before her death is Three Famous Riddles of the Gala, 1982.

Dali did not participate in the funeral. According to eyewitnesses, he entered the crypt only a few hours later. "Look, I'm not crying", is all he said. After Gala's death, Dali's life became gray, all his madness and surreal fun were gone forever. What Dali lost with Gala’s departure was known only to him. Alone, he wandered around the rooms of their house, muttering incoherent phrases about happiness and how beautiful Gala was. He did not draw anything, but only sat for hours in the dining room, where all the shutters were closed.

After her death, his health began to deteriorate sharply. Doctors suspected Dali had Parkinson's disease. This disease once became fatal for his father. Dali almost stopped appearing in society. Despite this, his popularity grew. Among the awards that rained down on Dali as if from a cornucopia was membership in the Academy of Fine Arts of France. Spain gave him the highest honor by awarding him the Grand Cross of Isabella the Catholic, given to him by King Juan Carlos. Dalí was declared Marquis de Pubol in 1982. Despite all this, Dali was unhappy and felt bad. He threw himself into his work. All his life he admired the Italian Renaissance artists, so he began to paint paintings inspired by the heads of Giuliano de' Medici, Moses and Adam (found in the Sistine Chapel) by Michelangelo and his "Descent from the Cross" in St. Peter's Church in Rome.

The artist spent the last years of his life completely alone in Gala's castle in Pubol, where Dali moved after her death, and later in his room at the Dali Theater-Museum.
Dali completed his last work, “Swallowtail,” in 1983. This is a simple calligraphic composition on a white sheet of paper, inspired by catastrophe theory.

By the end of 1983, his spirits seemed to have lifted somewhat. He began to sometimes walk in the garden and began to paint pictures. But this did not last long, alas. Old age took precedence over a brilliant mind. On August 30, 1984, a fire occurred in Dali's house. The burns on the artist's body covered 18% of the skin. After this, his health deteriorated further.

By February 1985, Dali’s health had improved somewhat and he was able to give an interview to the largest Spanish newspaper Pais. But in November 1988, Dali was admitted to the clinic with a diagnosis of heart failure. Salvador Dali died on January 23, 1989 at the age of 84.

He bequeathed to bury himself not next to his surreal Madonna, in the tomb of Pubol, and in the city where he was born, in Figueres. The embalmed body of Salvador Dali, dressed in a white tunic, was buried in the Figueres Theater-Museum, under a geodesic dome. Thousands of people came to say goodbye to the great genius. Salvador Dali was buried in the center of his museum. He left his fortune and his works to Spain.

Report of the artist’s death in the Soviet press:
"Salvador Dali, the world-famous Spanish artist, has died. He died today in a hospital in the Spanish city of Figueres at the age of 85 after a long illness. Dali was the largest representative of surrealism - an avant-garde movement in the artistic culture of the twentieth century, which was especially popular in the West in the 30s "Salvador Dali was a member of the Spanish and French academies of arts. He is the author of many books and film scripts. Exhibitions of Dali's works were held in many countries around the world, including recently in the Soviet Union."

"For fifty years now I have been entertaining humanity", Salvador Dali once wrote in his biography. It entertains to this day and will continue to entertain unless humanity disappears and painting perishes under technical progress.

Two years after Un Chien Andalou came The Golden Age. Critics received the new film with delight. But then he became a bone of contention between Buñuel and Dali: each claimed that he did more for the film than the other. However, despite the controversy, their collaboration left a deep mark on the lives of both artists and sent Dali on the path of surrealism.
Despite his relatively short “official” connection with the surrealist movement and the Breton group, Dali initially and forever remains the artist who personifies surrealism.
But even among the surrealists, Salvador Dali turned out to be a real troublemaker of surrealist unrest; he advocated for surrealism without shores, declaring: “Surrealism is me!” and, dissatisfied with the principle of mental automatism proposed by Breton and based on a spontaneous creative act not controlled by the mind, the Spanish master defines the method he invented as “paranoid-critical activity.”
Dali's break with the surrealists was also facilitated by his delusional political statements. His admiration for Adolf Hitler and his monarchical inclinations ran counter to Breton's ideas. Dali's final break with the Breton group occurs in 1939.

"... Having decided to write the hours, I painted them soft. It was one evening, I was tired, I had a migraine - an extremely rare ailment for me. We were supposed to go to the cinema with friends, but at the last moment I decided to stay at home. Gala will go with them, and I will go to bed early. We ate very tasty cheese, then I was left alone, sitting with my elbows on the table, and thinking about how “super soft” processed cheese is. I got up and went to the workshop to, as usual , take a look at my work. The picture that I was going to paint represented the landscape of the outskirts of Port Lligat, the rocks, as if illuminated by a dim evening light. In the foreground, I sketched the chopped off trunk of a leafless olive tree. This landscape is the basis for a canvas with some kind of an idea, but which one? I needed a wonderful image, but I couldn’t find it. I went to turn off the light, and when I came out, I literally “saw” the solution: two pairs of soft watches, one plaintively hanging from an olive branch. Despite the migraine, I prepared palette and got to work. Two hours later, when Gala returned from the cinema, the painting, which was to become one of the most famous, was completed. "

Between 1936 and 1937, Salvador Dali painted one of his most famous paintings, "The Metamorphosis of Narcissus". At the same time, his literary work entitled "Metamorphoses of Narcissus. Paranoid Theme" was published. By the way, earlier (1935) in his work “Conquest of the Irrational” Dali formulated the theory of the paranoid-critical method. This method used various forms of irrational associations, especially images that change depending on visual perception - so that, for example, a group of fighting soldiers can suddenly turn into a woman's face. Dali's distinctive feature was that, no matter how bizarre his images were, they were always painted in an impeccable "academic" manner, with that photographic precision that most avant-garde artists considered old-fashioned.

Dali's new vision of the world was born after the explosion over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Having been deeply impressed by the discoveries that led to the creation of the atomic bomb, the artist painted a whole series of paintings dedicated to the atom (for example, “Splitting the Atom,” 1947).
But nostalgia for their homeland takes its toll and in 1948 they return to Spain. While in Port Lligat, Dali turned to religious and fantastic themes in his creations.
On the eve of the Cold War, Dali developed the theory of “atomic art”, published in the same year in the Mystical Manifesto. Dali sets himself the goal of conveying to the viewer the idea of the constancy of spiritual existence even after the disappearance of matter ( "Raphael's Exploding Head", 1951). The fragmented forms in this painting, as well as others painted during this period, are rooted in Dali's interest in nuclear physics. The head is similar to one of Raphael's Madonnas - images of classically clear and calm; at the same time it includes the dome of the Roman Pantheon with a stream of light falling inside. Both images are clearly distinguishable, despite the explosion, which breaks the entire structure into small fragments in the shape of a rhinoceros horn.
These studies culminated in "Galatea of the Spheres", 1952, where Gala's head consists of rotating spheres.

The rhinoceros horn became a new symbol for Dali, most fully embodied by him in the painting “Rhinoceros-shaped Figure of Ilissa Phidias”, 1954. The painting dates back to the time that Dali called “the almost divine strict period of the rhinoceros horn,” arguing that the curve of this horn is the only one in nature is an absolutely exact logarithmic spiral, and therefore the only perfect form.
That same year he also painted "Young Virgin Self-Sodomized by Her Own Chastity." The painting depicted a naked woman being threatened by several rhinoceros horns.
Dali was fascinated by the new ideas of the theory of relativity. This prompted him to return to "The Persistence of Memory" 1931. Now in "Disintegration of memory persistence",1952-54, Dali depicted his soft clock below sea level, where stones like bricks stretch into perspective. The memory itself was disintegrating, since time no longer existed in the meaning that Dali gave it.

By February 1985, Dali's health had improved somewhat and he was able to give an interview to the largest Spanish newspaper Pais. But in November 1988, Dali was admitted to the clinic with a diagnosis of heart failure. Salvador Dali died on January 23, 1989 at the age of 84.

through public scenes and hysterics.
The child suffered from a lot of phobias and complexes, which prevented him from finding a common language with his peers. His classmates often teased him and used his phobias against him. At the same time, Salvador behaved defiantly and tried to shock those around him. Although there were few childhood friends, one of them was Josep Samitier, a Barcelona football player.
Already in childhood, Dali's talent for fine art manifested itself. At the age of 6 he painted interesting paintings. And at the age of 14, his first exhibition took place in Figueres. Dali had the opportunity to improve his skills at the municipal art school.
In 1914-1918, Salvador studied in Figueres at the Academy of the Marist Order. Education at the monastic school did not go smoothly, and at the age of 15 the eccentric student was expelled for obscene behavior.
In 1916, a significant event for Dali took place - a trip to Cadaqués with the Pichot family. There I became acquainted with modern painting. In his hometown, the genius studied with Joan Nunez.
In 1921, the future artist graduated from the institute (that’s what high schools were called in Catalonia), which he managed to enroll in even despite his expulsion from the monastic school. Dali's grades were brilliant.

Dalí's youthful years

A talented young man easily enters the Madrid Academy of San Fernando and moves to the “Residence” - a dormitory for gifted students. Dali is noticed for his attractive appearance and panache. Along with studying artistic craft, the young man begins to master literature. Although the first notes about great artists appeared back in 1919, while studying at the Academy, he devoted more time to writing.
In 1921, Salvador's mother, whom he adored, died.
During his studies, Dali met Lorca, Garfias and Buñuel. Later, in his scandalous book “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali, Told by Himself,” written in 1942, the artist would write that only Lorca made an indelible impression on him. The artist will have a fruitful collaboration with Buñuel.
Also during his studies, Dali read Freud, whose ideas made an indelible impression on him. Under the influence of the father of psychoanalysis, the paranoid - critical method was born, which in 1935 would be described in the work “Conquest of the Irrational.”
Contemporaries spoke of Salvador Dali as a very talented and hardworking person. They said that he could spend hours writing in the studio, mastering new techniques, and forgetting to go down to eat. Experimenting with Dada and Cubism, Dali tried to find his own style. Towards the end of his studies, he became disillusioned with his teachers and began to behave defiantly, for which he was expelled from the Academy in 1926. In the same year, in search of himself, the genius goes to Paris and meets Picasso. In the works of that period, the influence of the latter is noticeable, as well as Joan Miró.

Youth

In 1929, Dali, together with Buñuel, wrote the script for the film “Un Chien Andalou” in just six days. The film is a resounding success.

In the same year, the artist met Gala, Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova. She, along with her husband Paul Eluard, paid a visit to the young genius in Cadaques. They say love struck them instantly, like a lightning strike. Gala was 10 years older, married, had free views on sexual life... But, despite all the obstacles, they got married in 1934 (although the church marriage was registered in 1958). Gala was Dali's muse and only woman throughout her life. Since the artist stole the wife of a friend with whom they moved in the same circles, he painted his portrait as compensation.

Turbulent events in my personal life only added inspiration. Numerous paintings are shown at exhibitions. In 1929, Dali joined the Breton Surrealist Society. Painted in the early 30s, the paintings “The Persistence of Memory” and “Blurry Time” brought Dali fame. Fantasies on the theme of death and decay, sexuality and desire were present in all canvases. The artist admires Hitler, which displeases Breton.
The success of Un Chien Andalou inspired Buñuel and Dali to make their second film, The Golden Age, which was released in 1931.

The genius's behavior becomes more and more eccentric. In one of the paintings he wrote that he was spitting with pleasure on his mother’s portrait. For this and for his relationship with Gala, Dali was cursed by his father. Already at an advanced age, the artist wrote that his father was a very good and loving person and regretted the conflict.
Quarrels with the surrealists begin. The last straw was the painting of the painting “The Mystery of William Tell” in 1933. Here the character is identified with Lenin as a stern ideological father. The surrealists took Dali literally. Moreover, he had the audacity to declare: “Surrealism is me.” The conflict leads to a break with Breton society in 1936.

Creative changes

In 1934, one of the most famous paintings, “The Metamorphosis of Narcissus,” was painted. Almost immediately Dali published the literary work “Metamorphoses of Narcissus. Paranoid topic."

In 1937, the artist went to Italy to study paintings of the Renaissance. He admired the paintings of Raphael and Vermeer. There is a famous phrase from his book that artists who believe that they have surpassed their skill are in blissful idiocy. Dali called for first learning to write like the old masters, and then creating your own style, this is the only way to achieve respect.
Gradually, the artist moves away from surrealism, but still continues to shock the public, calling himself a savior (a play on the meaning of the name Salvador) from modernist degradation.

Life in the USA

With the outbreak of World War II, Dali and Gala went to the USA, where they would remain throughout 1940-1948. The scandalous autobiography mentioned earlier comes out here.
All activities in the States turn out to be commercially successful: paintings, advertising, photographs, exhibitions, eccentric actions. Gala’s strong-willed character contributes a lot to this. She organizes her husband’s activities, puts things in order in his workshop, pushes him in certain directions, stimulating him to earn money.

Return to Spain. Mature years

Homesickness made itself felt, and in 1948 the couple returned to Spain, to their beloved Catalonia. Fantastic and religious themes begin to appear in the paintings of that period. In 1953, an exhibition was held, which collected more than 150 works. In general, Dali was a very prolific artist.
Dali and Gala established their real first home in Port Lligat in 1959. By that time, the genius had become a very popular and sold author. Only very wealthy people could afford his paintings in the 60s.
In 1981, the artist was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and he practically stopped writing. The death of his wife also brought him down. The latest works express all the melancholy of an old sick person.
The genius died on January 23, 1989 from heart failure and was buried in his homeland, in a museum under an unnamed slab, so that, as he wanted, people could walk on the grave.