Nguyen 1

Rose Nguyen

Mrs. Alexis

English H: Period 6

2 March 2011

Salvador Dali: The Surreal Life

Forty five minutes after eight as Salvador Dali suffered from his mother’s angst towards

his dead brother, he opened his eyes on the day of May 11, 1904 born in a way he describes as

“horror, pain and stupor,” (Salemson 12-13). Dali lived through his childhood with great

difficulty. Nine months before the birth of Dali, his older brother by the same name of Salvador

Dali was dying from meningitis causing great despair to his parents (Cowles 15). He knew how

his parents were feeling and expressed how “their anxiety never left [him].” He felt as though

“[he has] relived the life and death of this elder, whose traces were everywhere when [he

achieved] awareness--- in clothes, pictures, games—and who remained always in [his] parent’s

memories,” (Salemson 12). The physical similarities both brothers had caused the painter to live

in his brother’s shadow in which the mother once told him “he was his brother’s reincarnation,

which he came to believe,” (Biography Salvador Dali). He knew how they felt about his brother

Salvador and was told his brother was “[precocious],” in which “his genius his grace, his

handsomeness were to [his mother’s] so many delights; his disappearance was a terrible shock,”

(Parinaud 12). Although his brother possessed the power of those great attributes, when creating

and producing the idea of surrealism, Salvador Dali himself, does it best. During the 20th century

he swooped the nation with his abstract sense of style and deep stories behind the strokes of his
paintings expressing a wide range of variety from his personal life, his dreams, and fears to his

desires. Although many thought of him as crazy and did not support his work Dali still

continued with what he did best and went to create some of the world’s most popular

masterpieces (Robert 1).

As a child, Dali was ambitious and acquired the skill of painting at a young age. Aware

of his son’s potential, Dali’s father wanted him to get an education and acquire his baccalaureate

before he took the initiative to become a painter (Ades, “Dali and Surrealism” 11). Dali however

continued to work on his dream, to become a great painter. He turned out to be a prodigy

“[showing] his masterly use of rich hues and an eagerness to experiment with artistic technique,”

(Ades, “Salvador Dali: A Mythology” 10). With the support of his mother, she held great

importance to Dali. He saw her as an “angel,” (Salemson 31) “[worshipping] her saintly moral

values, which he thought were well above being human. He counted on her goodness,” (Cowles

16). Even so, Dali’s father still tried his best to keep Dali in school. At a young age, Dali never

liked school and spent most of his time “daydreaming instead of studying,” (Salvador Dalí:

BIOGRAPHY). The strict nature of his father hurt him and “[his] despair drove [him] to

delirium,” His father’s aggressiveness and their relationship worried him that his father became

“one of the slaves of [his] paranoia,” (Salemson 24-30).

At the age of ten, Dali was sent to live with his father’s friend Ramon Pitchots who was a

painter himself. Engulfed by Pitchot’s paintings in his room, Dali was even more inspired to

become a painter. Growing up he continued with his passion and studied other artists’ works

going to museums on his free time (Cowles 36). Creating his first painting the prodigy showed

great skill “[dabbling] on brushstrokes of light reflecting on the water” of his painting. At such a

young age one would not think of such a thing (Ades, “Salvador Dali: A Mythology” 10).
 Nguyen 3

Although his father did not accept his lack of effort in education, he was aware of the potential

that his son had and believed “his son would have a place in history.” Realizing Dali’s talent he

saw it as “an assured income,” (Cowles 47). In 1919, Dali held his first exhibition that consisted

of his charcoal drawings placed in his family home (“Biography Salvador Dali”). Shortly after,

Dali’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and died leaving behind Dali with great despair.

He lived in denial and “felt that her loss was a challenge,” (Salemson 32). This marked the

beginning of the paintings that reflected upon his disturbed life (Groff 11).

By the age of 17 Dali was taken to Madrid where he was accepted into the School of Fine

Arts resulting in expulsion later on. There he studied the art of cubism that awed his fellow

students. The idea of class sickened Dali but he was obligated to attend nonetheless (Cowles 51).

His teachers were very impressed with his “drawing skills and ambition.” In school Dali did not

have a strong relationship with his fellow students. He was often bullied by the boys in his class

but it “[encouraged] him to become even more outrageous.” Since young he was always isolated

and it continued throughout his school life “secluding himself in his small dorm and painting

around the clock,” (Groff 8-10). Dali worked hard in his classes working “faster and harder than

the best in his class.” Even so, his paintings were not enough. His teachers found his work “too

cerebral and lacking and emotion and personality, agreed, nevertheless, that he was an

intellectual,” (Cowles 51). Accused that his work did not come from the heart he incorporated

what he learned from Sigmund Freud and thus began some of his greatest works.

Sigmund Freud holds to be one of Salvador Dali’s greatest influences. Freud’s theories

on the unconsciousness and on the interpretations of dreams were the core of Dali’s influences in

creating his surrealistic masterpieces. They hold as a very important thing to Dali as he uses

them to help himself understand his “own dreams and inner conflicts.” Because of Freud “Dali’s
interests and energies… [became] channeled through the lens of Freudian psychoanalytic

theory.” In late 1927 Salvador creates a painting by the name of Apparatus and Hand. Although

Dali,

Salvador.

“Apparatu
his surrealistic style has not yet developed at this time; his painting shows his pre-matured
s at
surrealistic style. His style of cubism is present but the “apparatus” in the center if his picture
hand.”

Oil.
demonstrates the surrealistic aspect of this painting by going against gravity where “the cone and
Wikipedia.
obelisk are precariously propped up by the stilts.” Other elements such as the two different
12.Novem

women on either side of the painting show the dream like quality to theberpiece.
2011. One woman holds

Web.
realistic qualities to her where the other is painted flat and holds qualities that are unreal. (Groff
March 3,
39-45). With many more paintings on their way to his surrealistic style,2011.
this period came to be

one of Dali’s best in terms of his art. (Secrest124).

In 1929 Dali traveled to Paris where he soon joined the Surrealist Movement “and

thereby moved into the center of the European avant-garde,” (Ades, “Dali and Surrealism” 55).

After working on many magnificent paintings, Dali “[made] a name for himself in the avant-
 Nguyen 5

garde artistic circles in Barcelona.” His paintings were so surreal and “precise in their imagery

that they took on an almost hallucinogenic quality.” Fascinated and struck by his work, the

surrealists encouraged him to “rely on his dreams and imagination.” He continued to adapt

Freud’s theories into his paintings incorporating the dream process of condensation,

displacement, and sublimation. (Groff 43-45). From what he has learned in the past, he also

incorporates history, literature, religion, mythology, politics, contemporary science, and science

into his paintings. Dali is unique when it comes to his work. What he finds for inspiration, he

manipulates and incorporates them in any way he can. His studies in mythology played a central

part in his paintings, reflecting his concerns in life, using them to code reality (Ades, “Salvador

Dali: A Mythology” 1-10). His paintings were so advanced in technique and thought, “the

concept of time, space, and physical nature of objects in the conscious world gives way to a

timeless, placeless, physically transformed, dreamlike universe with its own taxonomy of

meanings,” (Robert 26). He began to develop a theory in which had to “provide him with one of

his most often reiterated themes.” He soon called it “paranoiac-critical method” where the

subject is to “[settle] down an obsession idea suggested by the unconsciousness and them

elaborating and reinforcing it by a perverse association of ideas and a seemingly irrefutable logic

until it took on the conviction of inescapable truth.” (Secrest 127). By developing his idea, it

helped Dali further look inside his mind and paint whatever comes to him.
 Growing more and more each day as an artist Dali continues to struggle with his past.

His “poetic and painted paternal and maternal images refer to his own mother and father or to

those who assume this role in his emotional life.” Through most of his surrealistic paintings Dali

used a great use of elements that can be seen in most of his personal works. Most of them were

described as “autobiographical, frequently symbolic and often interpreted.” The use of different

symbols all represents different things. One of Dali’s famous self portraits called The Great

Masturbator showed great struggle during his young life. This painting talks about how he was

sexually afraid and that loathed sex. Although he has never experienced such physical activity,

he was traumatized by a book he found about venereal diseases during his childhood.

This painting holds some of Dali’s reoccurring symbols. The grasshopper that

hangs on his nose symbolizes “feelings of hysterical fear and a loss of voice

or control” of the situation. (Salvador Dali).Usually when his paintings include

Dali, Salvador. “The Great Masturbator.” Oil. Wikipedia. 20 January

2011. Web. 3 March. 2011

grasshopper, it is showing his fear of the situation in the painting. When he

was young he was traumatized by grasshoppers. Seeing their face up close it

feared him and his school mates often threw them at him. The grasshoppers
 Nguyen 7

are sometimes portrayed eating the subject giving his painting the feeling of

destruction and waste. In some of his other famous works he also exhibits

ants into his paintings.

As a kid Dali experienced an animal being eaten by ants. Form this he

symbolizes the ants as decomposition and death among humans and their

immortality. In some other cases, it could also represent his “overwhelming

sexual desires.” (Salvador Dali: History and Background). These symbols are

also

present in

his most

famous

work of

The
Dali, Salvador. “The Persistance of Memory.” Oil.

Wikipedia. 5 January 2011. Web 3 March. 2011.

Persistence of Memory. In this painting many of his reoccurring images are

present such as the ants and the face that is shown in The Great

Masturbator. This face located in the middle of the painting is to represent

Dali himself. The clocks which hold the most significant and famous symbol

in this painting was to present and “[mock] the rigidity of chronometric time”

(Gromley 679). By creating this painting Dali hoped to express the idea that

eventually everything will die and decay but only time will remain immortal.

The watch also represented that people are able to manipulate time and
“twist time as he or she sees fit.” He wanted people to know that the person

can make turn time into however they want and that he was “able to

conquer time and achieve immortality.” Ants are also shown in this painting

as they are trying to eat a watch. The attempt to eat the watch further

supports Dali’s idea that time cannot be destroyed. (Mittler, Dr. Gene 364).

Although Dali spends most of his time painting, he also spends the other part of his life

with his wife Gala. Gala became one of the most important things in his life, she became “a

fundamental catalytic element in [his] life,” (Salemson 97). She was his muse and he began to

incorporate her in many of his paintings (Cowles 57). Dali loved her very much. Before Dali met

Gala, he was in state of some psychological issues that made him think violently. Gala helped

him in his life, helping him “rid of many sexual hang-ups and fears,” (Goff 45). She “weaned

him from his thoughts of crime” and he “gives her credit for his escape from madness, [making]

it patently clear he could not go on without her,” (Cowles 57-63). When he was asked what the

most exciting thing that ever happened to him, he replied “Meeting Gala. I fell in love

instantaneously,” (qtd. In Cowles 58). She, as he explains it

calms me. She reveals me. She makes me. She convinces me of his talent to live.

The paranoia-critical method owes its all to her. She forced me transform my

lucidity into a faculty of self-analysis that screens my most awful and awesome

thoughts to turn them into light and action. I should have died crushed under t

weight of my imagination and fears. I became wealthy with al l the mud that I

tuned into gold. I channeled the torrent of my impressions with which I

domesticated my reality. (Salemson 97)

 Nguyen 9

In 1982, Gala tragically dies leaving behind a depressed Dali. His health began to weaken as he

sufficiently lost a mass amount of weight. He began to be suicidal. (Biography Salvador Dali).

At the age of 84, January 23, 1989 Salvador Dali died from heart failure. Viewed as an

important painter in the 20th century, Salvador Dali left his mark in history as his dad predicted

(Biography Salvador Dali) being best known for “his Surrealist work with his bizarre images,”

(Gromley 679). Many people praised his work and understood that “Dali’s style is completely

and inimitably his own.” With his broad sense of style and abstract ways of thinking Dali earned

a spot in history. His life experiences and influences aided him greatly through his journey and it

made him big. People may have seen him as mad but they also thought he “won…a place of

lasting importance in the art of our time,” (Cowles 247).