SVEUILITE U SPLITU FILOZOFSKI FAKULTET ODSJEK ZA POVIJEST UMJETNOSTI

Kristina Petrievi

SALVADOR DALI
Seminarski rad

Kolegij : Engleski IV Nositelj kolegija: Sinia Ninevi

Split, 2012.

Contents:
Dali and Surrealism..2

Symbolism in his paintings..2

Salvador Dali Painting Interpretation.4

Interesting facts about Salvador Dali..5

Conclusion...5

SALVADOR DALI
Dali and Surrealism Surrealism was formed and it evolved directly from Metaphysical painting and Dadaism. Surrealists despised laws and the established customs, but instead of fighting with the society, they turned away from reality and focused on the exploration of man's interior, the human spirit for which they thought was suppressed and crushed by social pressures. Following the theory of the Austrian psychiatrist Freud, according to which man has two natures (one conscious and awake, and another subconscious and repressed by the Education and Community rules, but is released and is expressed in the dream), the Surrealists focused personal attention to dreams and free wandering areas of imagination.

Salvador Dali is the most famous surrealist, who depicts objects and landscapes even sharper and more precisely than what we see in everyday life, surrealistic. Salvador Dali was eccentric Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and designer born in Figueres on May 11, 1904. After passing through phases of Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical painting, he joined the Surrealists in 1929 and his talent for self-publicity rapidly made him the most famous representative of the movement. Throughout his life he cultivated eccentricity and exhibitionism (one of his most famous acts was appearing in a diving suit at the opening of the London Surrealist exhibition in 1936), claiming that this was the source of his creative energy. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem and to the irritation of his critics. He described his paintings as ''hand-painted dream photographs''. Dali used the perfect naturalism of painting to express '' paranoid'' dream in which time, space, and forms are distorted in a frightening natural way. He developed a method he named paranoiac- critical, where he would induce hallucinatory states in his mind, to bring up images from his subconscious. Typical motives of surrealistic paintings of Dali connect forms that are abhorrent in biological world or reflects unsustainable balance in the physical world. Dali was a prolific artist, creating more than 1500 paintings during his life time and many works in other mediums, including prints, drawings, sculpture, book illustration, and theater set designs. The most important, and influential figure in Salvador Dali's life was Gala, his wife, muse, and reason for living, and she figures prominently in many of Dali's most inspired works. In collaboration with the director Luis Buuel he also made the first Surrealist films: ''An Andalusian Dog (1929) and ''The Golden Age (1930). He contributed a dream sequence to Alfred Hitchcock's ''Spellbound'' (1945). He also wrote a novel, ''Hidden Faces'' (1944) and several volumes of flamboyant autobiography. His personality caused a lot of controversy, but nevertheless he is considered the greatest artist of the Surrealist art movement and one of the greatest masters of art of the twentieth century. There are museums devoted to Dal's work in Figueras, his home town in Spain, and in St. Petersburg in Florida. Symbolism in his paintings Dal explored his own fears and fantasies through these main symbolic images captured on canvas. The majority of his symbolism is based on his fears and phobias. Melting Watches The famous melting watches represent the omnipresence of time, and identify its mastery over human beings. The inspiration for this concept came from a dream of runny Camembert one hot August afternoon. These symbols represent a metaphysical image of time devouring itself and everything else. Crutches The crutch is one of Dal's most important images and features in many of his works. It is first and foremost a symbol of reality and an anchor in the ground of the real world, providing spiritual and physical support for inadequacy in life. The crutch is also the symbol of tradition, upholding essential human values.

Drawers The drawers arise from their Freudian explanation as a representation of the concealed sexuality of women. Dal portrays many of the drawers to be slightly ajar, indicating that their secrets are known and no longer to be feared. Elephants Dal's elephants are usually depicted with long, multijointed, almost invisible legs of desire, and carrying objects on their backs, which are also full of symbolism. These elephants represent the future and are also a symbol of strength. They are often shown carrying obelisks, which are symbols of power and domination, and not without phallic overtones. The weight supported by the animals spindly legs shows weightlessness, only made more significant by the burden on their backs. Eggs The egg is another favourite Dalnian motif, given the duality of its hard exterior and soft interior. Dal links the egg to pre-natal images and the intra-uterine universe, and thus it is a symbol of both hope and love. Snails The snail occupies an important place in the Dalnian universe as it is intimately linked to a significant event in Dal's life - his meeting with Sigmund Freud. As Dal believed that nothing occurred to him simply by accident, he was captivated when he saw a snail on a bicycle outside Freud's house. He connected the snail with a human head, more particularly Freud's head. Ants When Dal was five years old, he saw an insect that had been eaten by ants and of which nothing remained except the shell. The swarming ants in Dal's pictures and sculptures are references to death and decay, and are reminders of human mortality and impermanence. They are also said to represent overwhelming sexual desire. Grasshoppers Dal had an irrational fear of grasshoppers, stemming from his childhood torment by other children, who often threw grasshoppers and other insects at him. When they appear in Dal's work, grasshoppers are used as a symbol of destruction, waste and fear. Dal represents them with a fearful nature, as large and intimidating in comparison to the other figures, and they are often shown in the act of eating the main subject of the work.

Salvador Dali Painting Interpretation The Burning Giraffe and The Invention of Monsters Dali believed that both The Burning Giraffe and The Invention of Monsters were premonitions of war. Both of these paintings contain the image of a giraffe with its back ablaze, an image which Dali interpreted as "the masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster". Sleep

According to Dal, the act of sleeping was a sort of monster sustained by the crutches of reality. Sleep deals with a subject that fascinated the Surrealists: the world of dreams. They believed that the freedom of the subconscious within sleep could be tapped into and then used creatively. The Persistence of Memory One of Dali's most memorable Surrealist works. In the foreground, a sort of amorphous self portrait of Dali seems to melt. Three separate melting watch images even out the foreground of the work. The melting watches are literally meant to show the irrelevance of time.He said that he got the idea for melt watches seeing the Camembert cheese left for too long of a period of time on the table on a warm sunny day. Eggs on the Plate Without the Plate Dali tells us that this work was inspired by an intra-uterine memory (Dals memories before he was born). He says that one day, after vigorously rubbing his eyes, he became fascinated with the brilliant yellow, orange, and ochre colors he saw. As a result, he says, he had a flashback to his mother's womb, and created this paranoiac-critical explanation of the experience. Suspended on a string, in the center of the work is a single egg yolk, which Dali said represented himself in the womb. Below that, the two eggs on the plate were painted with a shimmering yolk. These represented the piercing gaze of Gala, whom Dali had met in 1929. It was said that her gaze could pierce through walls, and Dali is paying her homage here. Temptation of Saint Anthony In the bottom corner of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony is seen trying to ward off the temptations the horse and the elephants bring. The horse symbolizes strength and sensual desires. Following the horse is the elephant that carrying on its back the golden cup of lust in which a nude woman is standing. The gold cup and woman represent sexual desires as well as riches. The next three elephants carrying a tower and temple represent morality and religion: the first of these is a obelisk inspired by that of Bernini in Rome, the second and third are burdened with Venetian edifices in the style of Palladio. The last elephant carries another tower that symbolizes a phallic figure. It is said that the long legs of horse and elephants symbolize levitation and nearness to heaven.

Interesting facts about Salvador Dali He and his older brother, who died before he was born, had the same name. Salvador had an intense fear of grasshoppers. He dedicated his life to proving he was a genius. As a child he was frequently expelled from school.

He liked his wife because she changed her clothes three times a day. He was notorius for not knowing how to count money. He was afraid to expose his feet. To ward off evil spirits, he carried a piece of lucky driftwood around. He was afriad of germs, assassination and especially grasshoppers. When in public, he would jump up and down to get atention. He was kicked out of the official surrealist society in 1934. His nick name was Avida Dollars, which, roughly translated means "eager for dollars". Salvador Dali's pet llama was called "Dali Llama". Conclusion For Dali the surreal is that which is beyond the ordinary and the conventional, that which is strange and bizarre, lying just below the surface, challenging our normal sense of the real. Dali's surrealist perspective was more than an art style or a philosophy; it was his modus operandi. Dali expressed surrealism in everything he said and did. He was not just unconventional and dramatic; he was fantastic, shocking, and outrageous! For Dali it was all part of his adopted role as agent provocateur to the bourgeoisie, his ongoing mission to undercut our safe, complacent view of what is real. Salvador Dali remains one of the great artistic innovators of all time and had one of the biggest impacts and legacy in modern art.