What Is Salvador Dali Known For?
What Is Salvador Dali Known For? Salvador Dalí, in full Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship and the striking and bizarre images in his work.
Salvador Dali became one of the leading surrealist painters, producing pictures of weird and irrational subjects, sometimes gruesome ones. His work owed something to Freud’s theories about the working of the unconscious mind and the importance of dreams.
Apart from his subject-matter, Dali’s pictures were painted with deliberate, detailed realism, recalling the technique of the Pre-Raphaelites. He also produced, with Bunel, two notable Surrealist films, and kept himself in the public eye by a series of wildly outrageous acts and statements. Born in Figueres, Catalonia, Dalí received his formal education in fine arts at Madrid.
Influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters from a young age, he became increasingly attracted to Cubism and avant-garde movements. He moved closer to Surrealism in the late 1920’s and joined the Surrealist group in 1929, soon becoming one of its leading exponents. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931, and is one of the most famous Surrealist paintings.
Dalí lived in France throughout the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) before leaving for the United States in 1940 where he achieved commercial success. He returned to Catalonia in 1948 where he announced his return to the Catholic faith and developed his “nuclear mysticism” style, based on his interest in classicism, mysticism and recent scientific developments.
Dalí’s artistic repertoire included painting, graphic arts, film, sculpture, design and photography, at times in collaboration with other artists. He also wrote fiction, poetry, autobiography, essays and criticism. Major themes in his work include dreams, the subconscious, sexuality, religion, science and his closest personal relationships. To the dismay of those who held his work in high regard, and to the irritation of his critics, his eccentric and ostentatious public behavior sometimes drew more attention than his artwork.
His public support for the Francoist regime, his commercial activities and the quality and authenticity of some of his late works have also been controversial. His life and work were an important influence on other Surrealists, pop art and contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hurst. There are two major museums devoted to his work: The Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figures, Spain and the Salvador Dalí Museum in Florida.
Few Salvador Dali Quotes:
*At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.
*Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.
*Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
*Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.*Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
*If someday I may die, though it is unlikely, I hope the people in the cafés will say, ‘Dalí has died, but not entirely.’