What is Salvador Dali? The most famous works

). Author of 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.”

Biography

Childhood

Salvador Dalí 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 feature 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 (fear of grasshoppers and others [which?] ) prevented him from joining the usual school life, establish 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.

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.”

Learn fine arts started at the 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

1921 At the age of 47, Dali’s mother dies of breast cancer. This became a tragedy for him. The 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 was already long years suffered his quirks. 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, teachers, due to their extremely high skill They made an exception and accepted the young eccentric into the academy.

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

Acquaintance with new trends in painting develops - 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”.

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.”

Youth

Dali's works are shown at exhibitions, he is gaining popularity. In 1929 he joined the surrealist group 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 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.

Break with the surrealists

At the beginning of 1989, Dali was hospitalized with a diagnosis of heart failure. Sick and infirm, Dali died on January 23, 1989.

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 Federico García Lorca.

The artist bequeathed to bury him so 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.

Creation

Theater

Salvador Dali is the author of the libretto and design of the ballet “Bacchanalia” (music by Richard Wagner, choreography by Leonid Massine, Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo).

Cinema

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

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 his fellow countryman, the 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

Sculptures

• 1969-1979 - Clot Collection, series of 44 bronze statues, created by the artist in his home in Port Ligat.

Dali. Caballo.JPG

Horse and rider stumbling

Dalí DonQuijotesentado.JPG

Seated Don Quixote

Dali. Elefantecósmico.JPG

Space elephant

Gala in the window

Dali. GalaGradiva.JPG

Dalí.Perseo.JPG

Image in cinema

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Notes

Literature

• 1974 Robert Desharnes. Salvador Dali. Ed. DuMont Buchverlag, 164 pp., ISBN 3-7701-0753-5;
• 1990 George Orwell. The privilege of spiritual shepherds. Essay. - Lenizdat,
• 1992 A. I. Rozhin Salvador Dali. Ed. Republic, 224 pp., circulation 75,000 copies, ISBN 5-250-01946-3;
• 1992 E. V. Zavadskaya Salvador Dali. Ed. Fine Arts, 64 pp., circulation 50,000 copies, ISBN 5-85200-236-4;
• 1995 Gilles Neret. Salvador Dali. 1904-1989 = Salvador Dali / Gilles Neret. - Koeln: TASCHEN, 95 pp. (On German) ISBN 3-8228-9520-2 ;
• 2001 Nicola Descharnes, Robert Descharnes. Ed. White City, 382 pp., ISBN 5-7793-0325-8;
  • 1996 (erroneous);
• 2002 Meredith Etherington-Smith. "Salvador Dali" (Translation by E. G. Handel). Ed. Medley, 560 pp., circulation 11,000 copies, ISBN 985-438-781-X, ISBN 0-679-40061-3;
• 2006 Robert Descharnes, Gilles Neret. Dali. Ed. Taschen, 224 pp., ISBN 3-8228-5008-X;
• 2008 Delassin S. Gala for Dali. Biography of a married couple. M., Text, 186 pp., circulation: 5000, ISBN 978-5-7516-0682-4
• 2009 Olga Morozova. Burnt alive. Scandalous biography of Salvador Dali. Ed. Funky Inc., 224 pp., circulation 3000 copies, ISBN 978-5-903912-70-4;
• 2010 Salvador Dali. Thoughts and anecdotes. Pensees et anecdotes. Ed. Text, 176 pp., circulation 3000 copies, ISBN 978-5-7516-0923-8;
• 2011 S. S. Pirozhnik. Salvador Dali. Ed. Harvest, 128 pp., circulation 3000 copies, ISBN 978-985-16-1274-7;
• 2011 V. G. Yaskov Salvador Dali. Ed. Eksmo, 12 pp., circulation 3000 copies, ISBN 978-5-699-47135-5;
• 2012 Salvador Dali. My secret life. La Vie Secrete De Salvador. (Translation by E. G. Handel) Ed. Medley, 640 pp., circulation 5100 copies, ISBN 978-985-15-1620-5;
• 2012 Salvador Dali. Diary of a genius. Journal D'un Genie. (Translation by O. G. Sokolnik, T. A. Zhdan) Ed. Medley, 336 pp., circulation 5100 copies, ISBN 978-985-15-1619-9;
  • 2014 Salvador Dali. Diary of a genius. Journal D'un Genie. Ed. ABC, ABC-Atticus, 288 pp., circulation 5000 copies, ISBN 978-5-389-08671-5;
• 2012 Robert Descharnes, Nicolas Descharnes. Salvador Dali / Salvador Dali. Album. Ed. Edita, 384 pp., ISBN 5-7793-0325-8;
  • 2008 Ed. White City
• 2013 R.K. Balandin Salvador Dali art and outrageousness. Ed. Veche, 320 pp., circulation 5000 copies, ISBN 978-5-4444-1036-3;
• 2013 Bible with illustrations by Salvador Dali. Ed. Book club"Family Leisure Club" Belgorod, Book Club “Family Leisure Club”. Kharkov, 900 pp., circulation 500 copies, ISBN 978-5-9910-2130-2;
• 2013 Dali near and far. Digest of articles. Rep. editor Busev M. A. M., Progress-Tradition, 416 pp., circulation 500 copies, ISBN 978-5-89826-406-2
• 2014 Salvador Dali. Hidden faces. Ostros Ocultos (Visages Caches/Hidden Faces). (Translation by L. M. Tsyvyan) Ed. Eksmo, 512 pp., circulation 7000 copies, ISBN 978-5-699-70849-9;
• 2014 Katherine Ingram. The brilliant Dali. This is DaLi (Translation by T. Platonov). Ed. Eksmo, 80 pp., circulation 3150 copies, ISBN 978-5-699-70398-2;

Links

• - Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, #4 2015 (49)

Excerpt characterizing Dali, Salvador

After his meeting in Moscow with Pierre, Prince Andrey left for St. Petersburg on business, as he told his relatives, but, in essence, in order to meet there Prince Anatoly Kuragin, whom he considered necessary to meet. Kuragin, whom he inquired about when he arrived in St. Petersburg, was no longer there. Pierre let his brother-in-law know that Prince Andrei was coming to pick him up. Anatol Kuragin immediately received an appointment from the Minister of War and left for the Moldavian Army. At the same time, in St. Petersburg, Prince Andrei met Kutuzov, his former general, always disposed towards him, and Kutuzov invited him to go with him to the Moldavian Army, where the old general was appointed commander-in-chief. Prince Andrei, having received the appointment to be at the headquarters of the main apartment, left for Turkey.
Prince Andrei considered it inconvenient to write to Kuragin and summon him. Without giving a new reason for the duel, Prince Andrei considered the challenge on his part to be compromising Countess Rostov, and therefore he sought a personal meeting with Kuragin, in which he intended to find new reason to a duel. But in the Turkish army he also failed to meet Kuragin, who soon after the arrival of Prince Andrei in the Turkish army returned to Russia. In a new country and in new living conditions, life became easier for Prince Andrei. After the betrayal of his bride, which struck him the more diligently the more diligently he hid the effect it had on him from everyone, the living conditions in which he was happy were difficult for him, and even more difficult were the freedom and independence that he had so valued before. Not only did he not think those previous thoughts that first came to him while looking at the sky on the Field of Austerlitz, which he loved to develop with Pierre and which filled his solitude in Bogucharovo, and then in Switzerland and Rome; but he was even afraid to remember these thoughts, which revealed endless and bright horizons. He was now interested only in the most immediate, practical interests, unrelated to his previous ones, which he grabbed with the greater greed, the more closed from him the previous ones were. It was as if that endless receding vault of the sky that had previously stood above him suddenly turned into a low, definite, oppressive vault, in which everything was clear, but there was nothing eternal and mysterious.
Of the activities presented to him, military service was the simplest and most familiar to him. Holding the position of general on duty at Kutuzov's headquarters, he persistently and diligently went about his business, surprising Kutuzov with his willingness to work and accuracy. Not finding Kuragin in Turkey, Prince Andrei did not consider it necessary to jump after him again to Russia; but for all that, he knew that, no matter how much time passed, he could not, having met Kuragin, despite all the contempt that he had for him, despite all the proofs that he made to himself that he should not humiliate himself to the point of confrontation with him, he knew that, having met him, he could not help but call him, just as a hungry man could not help but rush to food. And this consciousness that the insult had not yet been taken out, that the anger had not been poured out, but lay in the heart, poisoned the artificial calm that Prince Andrei had arranged for himself in Turkey in the form of preoccupied, busy and somewhat ambitious and vain activities.
In 12, when news of the war with Napoleon reached Bukarest (where Kutuzov lived for two months, spending days and nights with his Wallachian), Prince Andrei asked Kutuzov to transfer to the Western Army. Kutuzov, who was already tired of Bolkonsky with his activities, which served as a reproach for his idleness, Kutuzov very willingly let him go and gave him an assignment to Barclay de Tolly.
Before going to the army, which was in the Drissa camp in May, Prince Andrei stopped at Bald Mountains, which were on his very road, located three miles from the Smolensk highway. The last three years and the life of Prince Andrei there were so many upheavals, he changed his mind, experienced so much, re-saw (he traveled both west and east), that he was strangely and unexpectedly struck when entering Bald Mountains - everything was exactly the same, down to the smallest detail - exactly the same course of life. As if he were entering an enchanted, sleeping castle, he drove into the alley and into the stone gates of the Lysogorsk house. The same sedateness, the same cleanliness, the same silence were in this house, the same furniture, the same walls, the same sounds, the same smell and the same timid faces, only somewhat older. Princess Marya was still the same timid, ugly, aging girl, in fear and eternal moral suffering, living the best years of her life without benefit or joy. Bourienne was the same flirtatious girl, joyfully enjoying every minute of her life and filled with the most joyful hopes for herself, pleased with herself. She only became more confident, as it seemed to Prince Andrei. The teacher Desalles brought from Switzerland was dressed in a frock coat of Russian cut, distorting the language, spoke Russian with the servants, but he was still the same limitedly intelligent, educated, virtuous and pedantic teacher. The old prince changed physically only in that the lack of one tooth became noticeable on the side of his mouth; morally he was still the same as before, only with even greater embitterment and distrust of the reality of what was happening in the world. Only Nikolushka grew up, changed, became flushed, acquired curly dark hair and, without knowing it, laughing and having fun, raised the upper lip of his pretty mouth in the same way as the deceased little princess raised it. He alone did not obey the law of immutability in this enchanted, sleeping castle. But although in appearance everything remained the same, the internal relations of all these persons had changed since Prince Andrei had not seen them. The members of the family were divided into two camps, alien and hostile to each other, which now converged only in his presence, changing their usual way of life for him. To one belonged the old prince, m lle Bourienne and the architect, to the other - Princess Marya, Desalles, Nikolushka and all the nannies and mothers.
During his stay in Bald Mountains, everyone at home dined together, but everyone felt awkward, and Prince Andrei felt that he was a guest for whom they were making an exception, that he was embarrassing everyone with his presence. During lunch on the first day, Prince Andrei, involuntarily feeling this, was silent, and the old prince, noticing the unnaturalness of his state, also fell gloomily silent and now after lunch went to his room. When Prince Andrei came to him in the evening and, trying to stir him up, began to tell him about the campaign of the young Count Kamensky, the old prince unexpectedly began a conversation with him about Princess Marya, condemning her for her superstition, for her dislike for m lle Bourienne, who, according to According to him, there was one truly devoted to him.
The old prince said that if he was sick, it was only because of Princess Marya; that she deliberately torments and irritates him; that she spoils little Prince Nikolai with self-indulgence and stupid speeches. The old prince knew very well that he was torturing his daughter, that her life was very hard, but he also knew that he could not help but torment her and that she deserved it. “Why doesn’t Prince Andrei, who sees this, tell me anything about his sister? - thought the old prince. - What does he think, that I’m a villain or an old fool, I moved away from my daughter for no reason and brought the French woman closer to me? He doesn’t understand, and therefore we need to explain to him, we need him to listen,” thought the old prince. And he began to explain the reasons why he could not stand his daughter’s stupid character.
“If you ask me,” said Prince Andrey, without looking at his father (he condemned his father for the first time in his life), “I didn’t want to talk; but if you ask me, then I will tell you frankly my opinion about all this. If there are misunderstandings and discord between you and Masha, then I can’t blame her at all - I know how much she loves and respects you. If you ask me,” Prince Andrei continued, getting irritated, because he was always ready for irritation in Lately, - then I can say one thing: if there are misunderstandings, then they are caused by an insignificant woman who should not have been her sister’s friend.
At first the old man looked at his son with fixed eyes and unnaturally revealed with a smile a new tooth deficiency, which Prince Andrei could not get used to.
-What kind of girlfriend, darling? A? I've already spoken! A?
“Father, I didn’t want to be a judge,” said Prince Andrei in a bilious and harsh tone, “but you called me, and I said and will always say that Princess Marya is not to blame, but it’s the fault... this Frenchwoman is to blame...”
“And he awarded!.. he awarded!” the old man said in a quiet voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrei, with embarrassment, but then suddenly he jumped up and shouted: “Get out, get out!” May your spirit not be here!..

Prince Andrey wanted to leave immediately, but Princess Marya begged him to stay another day. On this day, Prince Andrei did not see his father, who did not go out and did not allow anyone to see him except M lle Bourienne and Tikhon, and asked several times whether his son had left. The next day, before leaving, Prince Andrei went to see his son's half. A healthy, curly-haired boy sat on his lap. Prince Andrei began to tell him the tale of Bluebeard, but, without finishing it, he became lost in thought. He was not thinking about this pretty boy son while he was holding him on his lap, but was thinking about himself. He searched in horror and found in himself neither remorse for having irritated his father, nor regret that he (in a quarrel for the first time in his life) was leaving him. The most important thing for him was that he was looking for and did not find that former tenderness for his son, which he hoped to arouse in himself by caressing the boy and sitting him on his lap.
“Well, tell me,” said the son. Prince Andrei, without answering him, took him down from the pillars and left the room.
As soon as Prince Andrei left his daily activities, especially as soon as he entered into the previous conditions of life in which he had been even when he was happy, the melancholy of life gripped him with the same force, and he hurried to quickly get away from these memories and find something to do quickly.
– Are you going decisively, Andre? - his sister told him.
“Thank God I can go,” said Prince Andrey, “I’m very sorry that you can’t.”
- Why are you saying this! - said Princess Marya. - Why are you saying this now, when you are going to this terrible war and he is so old! M lle Bourienne said that he asked about you... - As soon as she began to talk about this, her lips trembled and tears began to fall. Prince Andrei turned away from her and began to walk around the room.
- Oh my god! My God! - he said. – And just think about what and who – what insignificance can be the cause of people’s misfortune! - he said with anger, which frightened Princess Marya.
She realized that, speaking about the people whom he called nonentities, he meant not only m lle Bourienne, who made him misfortune, but also the person who ruined his happiness.
“Andre, I ask one thing, I beg you,” she said, touching his elbow and looking at him with shining eyes through tears. – I understand you (Princess Marya lowered her eyes). Don't think that it was people who caused the grief. People are his instrument. “She looked a little higher than Prince Andrei’s head with that confident, familiar look with which they look at a familiar place in a portrait. - The grief was sent to them, not people. People are his tools, they are not to blame. If it seems to you that someone is to blame for you, forget it and forgive. We have no right to punish. And you will understand the happiness of forgiving.
– If I were a woman, I would do this, Marie. This is the virtue of a woman. But a man should not and cannot forget and forgive,” he said, and, although he had not thought about Kuragin until that moment, all the unresolved anger suddenly rose in his heart. “If Princess Marya is already trying to persuade me to forgive me, then it means I should have been punished a long time ago,” he thought. And, no longer answering Princess Marya, he now began to think about that joyful, angry moment when he would meet Kuragin, who (he knew) was in the army.
Princess Marya begged her brother to wait another day, saying that she knew how unhappy her father would be if Andrei left without making peace with him; but Prince Andrei replied that he would probably soon come back from the army again, that he would certainly write to his father, and that now the longer he stayed, the more this discord would be fueled.
– Adieu, Andre! Rappelez vous que les malheurs viennent de Dieu, et que les hommes ne sont jamais coupables, [Farewell, Andrey! Remember that misfortunes come from God and that people are never to blame.] - were the last words he heard from his sister when he said goodbye to her.
“This is how it should be! - thought Prince Andrei, driving out of the alley of the Lysogorsk house. “She, a pitiful innocent creature, is left to be devoured by a crazy old man.” The old man feels that he is to blame, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up and enjoying a life in which he will be the same as everyone else, deceived or deceiving. I'm going to the army, why? - I don’t know myself, and I want to meet that person whom I despise, in order to give him a chance to kill me and laugh at me! And before there were all the same living conditions, but before they were all connected with each other, but now everything has fallen apart. Some senseless phenomena, without any connection, one after another presented themselves to Prince Andrei.

Prince Andrei arrived at the army headquarters at the end of June. The troops of the first army, the one with which the sovereign was located, were located in a fortified camp near Drissa; the troops of the second army retreated, trying to connect with the first army, from which - as they said - they were cut off by large forces of the French. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general course of military affairs in the Russian army; but no one thought about the danger of an invasion of the Russian provinces, no one imagined that the war could be transferred further than the western Polish provinces.
Prince Andrei found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he was assigned, on the banks of the Drissa. Since there was not a single large village or town in the vicinity of the camp, the entire huge number of generals and courtiers who were with the army were located in a circle of ten miles along the best houses villages on this side and on the other side of the river. Barclay de Tolly stood four miles from the sovereign. He received Bolkonsky dryly and coldly and said in his German accent that he would report him to the sovereign to determine his appointment, and in the meantime he asked him to be at his headquarters. Anatoly Kuragin, whom Prince Andrei hoped to find in the army, was not here: he was in St. Petersburg, and this news was pleasant for Bolkonsky. Prince Andrei was interested in the center of the huge war taking place, and he was glad to be free for a while from the irritation that the thought of Kuragin produced in him. During the first four days, during which he was not required anywhere, Prince Andrey traveled around the entire fortified camp and, with the help of his knowledge and conversations with knowledgeable people, tried to form a definite concept about him. But the question of whether this camp was profitable or unprofitable remained unresolved for Prince Andrei. He had already managed to derive from his military experience the conviction that in military affairs the most thoughtfully thought-out plans mean nothing (as he saw it in the Austerlitz campaign), that everything depends on how one responds to unexpected and unforeseen actions of the enemy, that everything depends on how and by whom the whole business is conducted. In order to clarify this last question, Prince Andrei, taking advantage of his position and acquaintances, tried to understand the nature of the administration of the army, the persons and parties participating in it, and derived for himself the following concept of the state of affairs.

We can say with confidence that people who have not heard of Dali simply do not exist. Some know him for his creativity, which reflected an entire era in the life of mankind, others for the shockingness with which he lived and painted.

All of Salvador Dali's works are worth millions these days, and there are always connoisseurs of creativity who are willing to pay the required amount for a canvas.

Dali and his childhood

The first thing that should be said about the great artist is that he is Spanish. By the way, his nationality Dali was incredibly proud and was a true patriot of his country. The family into which he was born largely determined his life path and the characteristics of his position. The mother of the great creator was a deeply religious person, while his father was a convinced atheist. From childhood, Salvador Dali was immersed in an atmosphere of ambiguity and some ambivalence.

The author of paintings valued at millions was a rather weak student. Restless character, uncontrollable desire for expression own opinion, too wild an imagination did not allow him to achieve great success in his studies, however, Dali showed himself as an artist quite early. Ramon Pichot was the first to notice his ability to draw, and directed the talent of the fourteen-year-old creator in the right direction. So, already at the age of fourteen, the young artist presented his works at an exhibition held in Figueres.

Youth

The works of Salvador Dali allowed him to enter the Madrid Academy of Fine Arts, but the young and even then outrageous artist did not stay there for long. Convinced of his exclusivity, he was soon expelled from the academy. Later, in 1926, Dali decided to continue his studies, but was expelled again, without the right to reinstatement.

A huge role in the life of the young artist was played by his acquaintance with Luis Bonuel, who later became one of the most famous directors working in the genre of surrealism, and Federico, who went down in history as one of the most prominent poets in Spain.

Expelled from the Academy of Arts, the young artist did not hide his feelings, which allowed him in his youth to organize his own exhibition, which was visited by the great Pablo Picasso.

Muse of Salvador Dali

Of course, any creator needs a muse. For Dali, she was Gala Eluard, who was at

The moment of meeting the great surrealist married. A deep, all-consuming passion became the impetus for Gala to leave her husband and for Salvador Dali himself to actively create. The beloved became for the surrealist not only an inspiration, but also a kind of manager. Thanks to her efforts, the works of Salvador Dali became known in London, New York and Barcelona. The artist's fame acquired completely different dimensions.

Avalanche of glory

As befits any creative person, the artist Dali constantly developed, strived forward, improved and transformed his technique. Of course, this led to significant changes in his life, the least of which was his exclusion from the list of surrealists. However, this did not affect his career in any way. Multi-thousand and then multi-million dollar exhibitions gained momentum. The realization of greatness came to the artist after the publication of his autobiography, the circulation of which sold out in record time.

The most famous works

A person who does not know a single work of Salvador Dali simply does not exist, but few can name at least a few works of the great artist. All over the world, the creations of the outrageous artist are preserved like the apple of an eye and are shown to millions of visitors to museums and exhibitions.

Salvador Dali almost always painted his most famous paintings in a certain outburst of feelings, as a result of a certain emotional outburst. For example, “Self-Portrait with Raphael’s Neck” was painted after the death of the artist’s mother, which became a real emotional trauma for Dali, which he repeatedly admitted.

“The Persistence of Memory” is one of Dali’s most famous works. This particular painting has several different names that coexist equally in art circles. On canvas in in this case The place where the artist lived and worked - Port Lligat - is depicted. Many creativity researchers argue that deserted shore This painting reflects the inner emptiness of the creator himself. Salvador Dali painted “Time” (as this painting is also called) under the impression of the melting of Camembert cheese, from which, perhaps, the key images masterpiece. The clock, which takes on completely unimaginable forms on canvas, symbolizes the human perception of time and memory. The Persistence of Memory is definitely one of Salvador Dali's most profound and thoughtful works.

Variety of creativity

It's no secret that Salvador Dali's paintings are very different from each other. certain period in the life of an artist, one or another manner, style, certain direction. By the time when the creator publicly declared: “Surrealism is me!” - refers to works written from 1929 to 1934. Such paintings as “William Tell”, “The Evening Ghost”, “Bleeding Roses” and many others belong to this period.

The listed works differ significantly from the paintings of the period limited to 1914 and 1926, when Salvador Dali kept his work within certain limits. The early works of the master of shocking are characterized by greater uniformity, measuredness, greater calm, and to some extent greater realism. Among such paintings are “Holiday in Figueres”, “Portrait of my father”, painted in 1920-1921, “View of Cadaqués from Mount Pani”.

Salvador Dali painted his most famous paintings after 1934. From that time on, the artist’s method became “paranoid-critical.” The creator worked in this vein until 1937. Among Dali’s works at this time, the most famous were the paintings “Pliable Structure with Boiled Beans (Premonition civil war)" and "Atavistic Remains of Rain"

The “paranoid-critical” period was followed by the so-called American period. It was at this time that Dali wrote his famous “Dream”, “Galarine” and “Dream inspired by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate, a moment before awakening.”

The works of Salvador Dali become increasingly tense over time. The American period is followed by a period of nuclear mysticism. The painting “Sodom Self-satisfaction of an Innocent Maiden” was painted precisely at this time. During the same period, in 1963, the “Ecumenical Council” was written.

Dali calms down

The Less Known Dali

Few people know, but Salvador Dali created his greatest works not only on canvas and wood and not only with the help of paints. The artist’s acquaintance with Luis Bonuel not only largely determined the further direction of Dali’s work, but was also reflected in the painting “Un Chien Andalusian,” which shocked the audience at the time. It was this film that became a kind of slap in the face of the bourgeoisie.

Soon, Dali and Bonuel parted ways, but their joint work went down in history.

Dali and shocking

Even the artist’s appearance suggests that this is a deeply creative, extraordinary nature, striving for something new and unknown.

Dali was never known for his desire for a calm, traditional appearance. On the contrary, he was proud of his unusual antics and used them in every possible way to his advantage. For example, the artist wrote a book about his own mustache, calling it “antennas for the perception of art.”

In an effort to impress, Dali decided to spend one of his own meetings in a diving suit, as a result of which he almost suffocated.

Dali Salvador put his creativity above all else. The artist gained fame in the most unexpected, strangest ways imaginable. He bought dollar bills for $2, then sold a book about this action for a lot of money. The artist defended the right of his installations to exist by destroying them and bringing them to the police.

Salvador Dali left behind his most famous paintings in huge quantities. However, as well as memories of his strange, incomprehensible character and worldview.

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. Although father and son had the same names, 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

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 he visited himself. 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 in a diver's suit. 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.

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.”

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 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 deep meaning rather 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 surreal fantasies. Later Dali (in best traditions his conceit and outrageousness) 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 subjects (flowing water, a ball bouncing down the steps), interesting comments, a mysterious atmosphere created acting artist, makes 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 later years the spouses often quarreled, Dali’s love was rather a wild passion, and Gala’s love was not without 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 - last attempts self-expression of an unhappy 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 so 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).

DALI SALVADOR

(b. 1904 - d. 1989)

“How did you want to understand my paintings, when I myself, who create them, don’t understand them either.”

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was born twice. His father, the notary public of Figueres, an anti-Madrid Republican and also an atheist, also named Salvador Dalí, was twenty-nine years old when his first son, Salvador, was born on the morning of October 21, 1901. However, after some time (in 1903), the baby died of meningitis. The disease developed as a result of a blow inflicted on him by his father during one of his frequent outbursts of anger.

The second Salvador Dali (born Salvador Philippe Jaquinto Dali and Dominic) was born nine months and ten days after his brother's death - on May 2, 1904. Subsequently, he recalled how, as a child, he was afraid to enter his parents’ bedroom, where a portrait of his deceased twin brother hung above the bed.

Dali's mother is a typical representative of her class, a loving wife and an unwavering Catholic. Without a doubt, it was she who insisted that the family attend church regularly, often calling her deceased firstborn a genius and taking little Salvador with her to her brother’s grave. And the baby, seeing his name on the tombstone, experienced deep anxiety and lost peace of mind. As a result, Salvador formed a strong opinion that his parents did not love him at all, but his older brother, which he spoke about in 1976 in his autobiographical “Unspoken Revelations.”

The child grew up in a family dominated by women: the old grandmother sat in her rocking chair, Dali's mother gave orders, Dali's unmarried aunt, his nanny and maids helped with the housework. And in the center of this world was Salvador - the spoiled prince, around whom this round dance of women revolved.

His so-called tantrums and childhood illnesses (which he later called sore throats) were the main events in the claustrophobic life of the family. From a very early age, Salvador had unusual fits in which he would suddenly and inexplicably fall into a state of anger, which his always-excited mother could only calm with promises that he could dress up in a king's fancy dress. Grateful Dali considered his mother perfect. As for his father, he became his fierce enemy and rival in the struggle for his mother’s affection and feelings. To annoy him, Dali deliberately wet his bed until he was eight years old, and also gave himself coughing fits that simulated suffocation, which made his father shake with fear.

Salvador grew up as a strange child. He was always distinguished by his unusual and pretentious behavior, even from his younger sister Anna-Maria (to whom, by the way, he already experienced sexual attraction as a young man). Once, when he was with his father in Barcelona, ​​he asked his son to buy tortillas and gave him money. After some time, Dali Jr. returned with two empty packages. When asked where the cakes were, the boy calmly replied that he “got rid of them because he doesn’t like yellow” (there is a fairly widespread opinion, even among psychiatrists, that people with schizophrenia “cannot stand” the color yellow).

The boy went to school extremely reluctantly. Firstly, he did not want to change his usual environment of total adoration from women. Secondly, Salvador, in principle, did not want to obey his father’s will. In primary school, the child learned absolutely nothing. It was then that his “wanderings” began from one educational institution to another. But there was no point, since Dali behaved everywhere like a notorious loafer.

From the age of 14, during puberty, the young man let his hair grow, stole his mother's cosmetics, thickly covered his face with rice powder, lined his eyes and eyebrows with pencil, and bit his lips to make them bright. Those around him did not understand him, but he was not at all upset about this, but, on the contrary, boasted of his dissimilarity. Dali filled his free time with reading Nietzsche, Voltaire, Kant, who inspired him to write poetry (later Dali would claim that he was better as a writer than as an artist, and treat his literary activity no less seriously than painting).

When Salvador turned seventeen, his mother died of cancer. Childhood is over. His father sent him to the Student Residence, where Francisco Goya was once one of the directors. It was there that the young man met Federico Garcia Lorca, who became his close friend. In the future, Dali will paint portraits of Lorca, they will travel together and even live in Salvador’s house. It was then that Dali’s sister fell in love with Lorca, but he refused her, preferring to have Salvador as his lover.

Four years after his wife's death, Dali's father remarried - to his brother's ex-wife. Dali considered this a betrayal. Thus was born one of his very first artistic allegories, based on the story of William Tell, whom Dali turned into an Oedipal father who wants to destroy his son. Dali returned to this theme over the years.

If we talk about Salvador Dali’s talent as an artist, it manifested itself very early. Even at the age of four, the child developed the habit of drawing on the tablecloth and on the edge of the crib. The surprising thing is that when the baby started drawing, he was completely immersed in this activity and concentrated on it for a long time, which in itself is unusual for such a young age. At the age of seven, the boy saw a bust of Napoleon and became literally obsessed with this image (“I chose this model for myself, the king”).

Once in a class where they were drawing from life, Dali amused himself by firing pellets of clay at the model. When the peacefully seated sitter discovered who exactly was playing the fool, he came down from the dais and sharply said to Dali: “Listen, do you know that you are a son of a bitch?” To which Dali calmly replied: “Well, yes, I already know that.” The sitter was so surprised that he returned to his previous place and again assumed the desired pose.

However, despite his obvious talent, in 1926 Dali was expelled from the Residence. The reason was constant clashes with teachers and his incitement to unrest among students. Although by this time he already had the first personal exhibition(in November 1925 at the Delmo Gallery in Barcelona), which was received favorably by the public and critics.

However, studying in Madrid allowed him to meet people who had a great influence on his entire life. One of them is Luis Buñuel, who for half a century became one of the most revered avant-garde film directors in Europe. In 1929, Buñuel invited the artist to Paris to work on a surrealist film, where he planned to use images “caught” from his own unconscious. The film was called "Un Chien Andalou." Today this picture, shot to touch the heart of the bourgeoisie and ridicule the excesses of the avant-garde, is considered a classic of surrealism. Among the most shocking images is the famous and often quoted scene created by Dali: a man's eye is cut in half by a razor 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 at the Théâtre des Ursulines, Buñuel and Dalí became famous. Two years after Un Chien Andalou, The Golden Age was released, which critics received with no less enthusiasm. But then he also became a bone of contention between Buñuel and Dali: each claimed that his contribution to the work on the film was greater than the other. However, despite the disputes, their collaboration left a deep mark on the lives of both artists and contributed to the fact that Dali finally took the path of surrealism.

Most of the surrealists of the time, such as Andre Masson, Max Ernst and Joan Miró, explored their own subconscious, freeing the mind from rational control and allowing thoughts to “surface” freely and uncontrollably, as if bubble, without any sequence. This process was called “automatism” and was reflected in the creation of purely abstract forms, which were “casts” of unconscious images.

Dali's approach was different. He drew images familiar to human mind: people, animals, buildings, landscapes, but often merged them, under the dictation of his own consciousness, in a grotesque manner, so that the limbs turned into fish, and the torsos of women into horses. To some extent, his style was reminiscent of the surreal automatism of writing, when words familiar in everyday communication are arranged into sentences without any rules or restrictions in order to express “free” ideas not “processed” by consciousness. Subsequently, Salvador Dali would call his unique approach the “paranoid-critical method.” As the artist claimed, he was freeing himself from subconscious images, like a madman. Perhaps he was not far from the truth, because he artistic images so similar to the visual hallucinations of patients with schizophrenia.

Having completed work on Un Chien Andalou, the artist returned home to Cadaques to work on a new exhibition of his paintings, which the Parisian art dealer Camille Goemans agreed to organize in the fall. The plots of most of the paintings were inspired by the complex problems of Dali’s own sexuality and his contradictory attitude towards his parents.

In The Great Masturbator, the head depicted on the canvas is a version of the rock on the coast of Cadaqués, growing out of a massive block. The neck continues into a woman's head, whose lips aim at the man's obscure genitals. His bloody knees suggest complete bloodshed, perhaps castration. This painting became a milestone in Dali's work. It reveals his constant preoccupation with sex (Salvador was afraid of women, but still felt attracted to them), and the fear of violence, and a sense of guilt. The painting also contains a pile of rocks that will accompany him throughout his work, and such a typical Dali image as locusts - one of the insects that inhabit his nightmares. Just below the woman's head is a white lily flower, whose yellow, phallus-shaped pistil grows from soft, pale petals. For Salvador Dali, this was a deeply personal painting, inspired by his own unconscious.

His next picture- “Sacred Heart” - caused undesirable consequences. In the center of the painting is a silhouette of the Madonna with the Sacred Heart. Above the silhouette was crudely scrawled: “Sometimes I like to spit on my mother’s portrait.” What may have been intended by the artist as a shocking advertising joke seemed to his father to be a desecration of the memory of his first wife and the mother of his children. As a result, Dali's father forbade him to ever cross the threshold of his house. According to the artist's words, he, tormented by remorse, cut his hair and buried it in his beloved Cadaques on the grave of his mother.

Among numerous guests At that exhibition there was also the poet Paul Eluard, who came with his daughter Cecile and his wife Tala, who at one time was the mistress of Max Ernst, the founder of Dadaism and then surrealism. Tala herself was born in Kazan, on the Volga, in 1895 (she was almost ten years older than Dali). Her real name is Elena Delyuvina-Dyakonova. Over the years, Tala has told a lot about her ancestors fantastic stories. For example, she said that her father was a rich Kyrgyz gypsy from Siberia who lived in a tent and panned for gold on the river. In fact, she was an ordinary provincial girl.

Salvador Dali was so amazed by Gala's beauty that during their conversation, out of embarrassment, he first burst into hysterical giggles, which then turned into uncontrollable laughter. He didn't know how to behave around her, although he admitted that she excited him wildly. At the same time, he hated Gala just as he once hated Lorca. She “came to invade and destroy my solitude, and I began to shower her with unfair and undeserved reproaches.” - Dali would later write in his diary.

In turn, Gala was embarrassed by this tense and eccentric young man, always preoccupied with the problem of masturbation and castration. Having left Paul Eluard, who returned to Paris alone after the exhibition, Dali and Gala found a way out of the current situation in sex. “The first kiss,” Dali later wrote, “when our teeth collided and our tongues intertwined, was only the beginning of satisfying that hunger that made us bite and gnaw each other to the very essence of our being.” Images reflecting associations between physiological and sensual hunger often appeared in Dali's subsequent works: chops on a human body, fried eggs, cannibalism - all these images evoke frenetic sexual liberation young man. And how can we again not resist analogies with a schizophrenic disorder, in which sometimes there is a disinhibition of instincts, and structural and logical disorders of thinking are manifested earlier and most clearly in the unusual and even pretentiousness of the associative activity of the brain.

So, when the couple first eloped together, they locked themselves in their room at the Château de Cary-le-Rouet near Marseille and shut themselves off from the rest of the world. This flight continued throughout their married life, even when Dali became notorious.

Gala - whose reaction to Dali's fiercely passionate love was said to be the words: "My boy, we will never part" - became more than just a lover for him. When she eventually moved to El Salvador in 1930, she proved herself to be an excellent organizer, business manager, and accountant. They got married in 1934, and ex-husband Gala, Paul Eluard, was a witness at the wedding ceremony. By the way, Gala, being married to Salvador Dali, did not abandon Eluard at all and wrote him erotic love letters. She did this for two reasons: firstly, Eluard was rich, and secondly, he was the main member of the surrealist group, one of Andre Breton’s two “deputies”.

Gala inspired artists, and it became a saying among the surrealists that if a painter achieved something beyond the ordinary, then “he must have had an affair with Gala.” In everyday life, life together with Dali, Gala often mocked her lover, calling him a “Catalan hillbilly” (for example, at the bank, Salvador presented a check, but refused to give it to the clerk until he was given the money). And yet, they were ideal for each other, because even being together, they continued to remain lonely, as before they met. During this period, Salvador Dali painted his most famous paintings: “Gloomy Game”, “Adaptability of Desires”, “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” and others.

Marriage to Gala awakened Dali's inexhaustible imagination and inexhaustible energy. His work began new period. At this time, his own surrealism completely prevailed over the norms and guidelines of the group and led to a complete break with Breton and other surrealists. Now Dali did not belong to any artistic union and claimed: “Surrealism is me.” Moreover, in their creative quests Dali began to use the technique dual image, in which objects could be considered both as one and as two objects.

Now Dali had his own recipe for creativity, thanks to which he could release “inspiration” from the subconscious (the artist believed that unconscious images-symbols are some unchangeable fundamental principles, matrices of everything that exists, which other people perceive as something that came from the outside, and not from within, i.e. as inspiration). The key ingredients were: a Freudian-sexual theme, a paranoid-critical method in which he churned his thoughts thoroughly like a delirious madman, and theories of modern physics. Having freed himself from the threads connecting him to a limited world, he became a free explorer of the universe he himself created.

Dali's desire to be recognized in a society that, in essence, was indifferent to contemporary art, he reached the point of manic psychosis. He sought to attract attention to himself at any cost and by any means. It was for this purpose that the artist began to create surreal “objects” that became his most famous works. He created a bust from a hairdresser's mannequin, combining it with a French loaf and an inkwell. This was followed by a shocking and provocative, both in color and cut, aphrodisiac tuxedo 2, hung with wine glasses. His other famous works were “Lobster Telephone” and “Mae West’s Sofa Lips” 3.

But what attracted the public's attention most of all was not these strange objects, but his lectures on surrealism at the London Group Rooms. They were read within International exhibition surrealists. The artist appeared before the audience dressed as a deep sea diver. The suit was “intended” to delve into the subconscious; Dali was greeted with loud applause. However, when Dali began to gasp and desperately gesticulate, the applause gave way to fear and confusion on the faces of the listeners. This was not exactly what Dali had in mind (the fact is that he was terribly afraid of death, so even during his travels, Salvador always wore a life jacket while walking on the deck), but the public’s attention was attracted.

Although in artistic circles In Europe, Dali was not considered a serious esthete because of his penchant for exoteric theories in art; in the USA, where only traditional attitudes were welcomed and where traditional European art was hunted by millionaires and business kings, he was greeted with enthusiasm. His paintings, although of incomprehensible content, were accessible to visual perception, since they depicted understandable objects. Therefore, this impulsive personality, repulsed and irritated by everyone in Europe, was accepted in the United States.

Dali and Gala reluctantly left Europe, but soon settled comfortably first in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and then in Monterey, near San Francisco, California. The house in Monterey became their refuge, although they lived for a long time in New York, basking in luxury. During the eight years the couple spent in America, they amassed a huge fortune. At the same time, according to some critics, Dali paid with his reputation as an artist. He participated in numerous commercial projects: theater and ballet productions, jewelry design, fashion shows, and even published a newspaper for self-promotion (only two issues were published). He tried to publish his first manifesto - “Declaration of the Independence of the Imagination and the Rights of Man to His Own Madness” (it seems that by that time Dali himself had no doubt about his abnormality). But as the number of projects grew over time, he looked more like a mass entertainer than a serious artist engaged in exploring the means of expression in art. Although his popularity grew, Dali began to lose, at least in Europe, the support of art critics and art historians, on whom the reputation of any artist depends.

After one of his visits to the United States, where his fame reached unprecedented heights, thanks to which the sale of paintings was successful, Dali returned to Europe with another “device for creating paintings.” It was called an “electrocular monocle” and made it possible to transmit an image using a television signal to a telescopic tube and see both the object and its surroundings. This apparatus, Dali explained, was a response to his method of dual image and paranoid-critical method, as it was intended to help expand internal visual horizons, while other artists used narcotic psychostimulants for this purpose.

In 1973, the Dali Museum was opened in Figueres, rebuilt from an old theater and called the Palace of the Winds (after poem of the same name, which Dali liked, which tells the legend of the unhappy love of the eastern wind). This incomparable surreal creation still delights visitors to this day. The museum presents a retrospective of the life of the great artist. A giant geodesic dome was erected above the stage. Auditorium cleared and divided into sectors in which his works of different genres are presented, including large paintings, such as "The Hallucinogenic Bullfighter". The great hoaxer dedicated one of the sectors of the 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 failure). Dali also painted the foyer himself, depicting himself and Tala washing gold in Figueres. The museum itself was more like a bazaar due to the fact that it exhibited many various works and other trinkets. There, among other things, were the results of Dali's experiments with holography, as he hoped to create global three-dimensional images. In addition, Dali put on public display double spectroscopic paintings depicting a naked Gala.

By this time, the demand for his work was crazy. Publishers of books and magazines, managers of fashion houses, and theater directors tore him apart. He has already created illustrations for many masterpieces of world literature: the Bible, " The Divine Comedy» Dante,

Milton's Paradise Lost, Freud's God and Monotheism, Ovid's The Art of Love.

Despite such deafening popularity, unpleasant changes occurred in the artist’s personal life. Closer to old age, Gala completely ignored Salvador. Only his ability to make money kept her close. It was as if the fifty years we had lived together never happened. Their alienation began back in the 60s. At her request, Dali was forced to buy her a castle, where she spent 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 died at the age of 84. When Dali was told the sad news, he did not react outwardly, only saying that his wife did not die and that she would never die at all. And indeed, he never approached his wife’s grave.

On July 20, 1982, just over a month after Gala's death, Salvador Dalí was honored to receive the Grand Cross of Charles III from the hands of King Juan Carlos.

The artist should now be called, at his own request, the Marquis de Dalí de Pubol. This title ennobled not only himself, but also his father’s surname. Eleven days after the royal decree was promulgated, the kingdom of Spain bought from Dali “Particles of Ash” and “Harlequin with a Small Bottle of Rum” for one hundred million pesetas.

And on August 30, 1984, Dali almost lost his life. He had been bedridden for several days when somehow his bed caught fire. Perhaps the reason for this was a short circuit. The whole room was on fire, but Salvador managed to crawl to the door. Robert Desharnais, who managed Dali's affairs for many years, saved him from death by pulling him out of the burning room. Dali received severe burns (up to 18% of his entire body), and has not been heard from since then. Soon rumors spread that Dali was either completely paralyzed, or suffering from Parkinson's disease, or had completely lost his mind and was being forcibly kept locked up. But in February 1985, his health improved somewhat, and he even gave an interview to the most popular Spanish newspaper Pais, which became the last in his life. In November 1988, Salvador Dali was admitted to a Barcelona clinic with a suspicious diagnosis of heart failure for those who knew him closely.

Dalí died on November 23, 1989. He was buried in the same place where he lived - in the center of the stage of a small provincial opera house. There is one final irony associated with the artist's resting place, which the artist would have fully appreciated: his grave is located above the women's restroom.