Salvador was given who he is. Biography of Salvador Dali. Already in childhood, Dali's talent for fine arts manifested itself. Mature and older years

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

So, the biography of Salvador Dali:

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

“... The child in question was born at 20 Monturiol Street at 8.45 am on 11 May of this year. He is now named Salvador Felipe Jacinto. Calle Monturiol, 20. Paternal ancestors: Don Galo Dali Vinas, born and buried in Cadaqués, and Doña Teresa Cusi Marco, a native of Rosas His maternal ancestors: Don Anselmo Domenech Serra and Dona Maria Ferres Sadurni, natives of Barcelona Witnesses : Don José Mercader, native of La Bisbala in the province of Gerona, tanner, living in Calzada de los Monjas, 20, and Don Emilio Baig, native of Figueres, musician, living in Perelada, 5, both adults.

Salvador in Spanish means "Savior" - that's what his father called him after his first son died. The second was intended to continue the ancient family.

"... My brother died of meningitis seven years, three years before my birth. Desperate father and mother found no other consolation than my birth. My brother and I were like two drops of water: the same seal of genius, then same expression of unreasonable anxiety. We differed in some psychological traits. Moreover, his look was different - as if shrouded in melancholy, "irresistible" thoughtfulness.

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

Talent for painting manifested itself in Dali quite at a young age. At the age of four, he tried to draw with amazing diligence for such a small child. At the age of six, Dali attracted the image of Napoleon and, as if identifying himself with him, he felt the need for some kind of power. Wearing a masquerade costume of the king, he received great pleasure from his appearance.

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

Salvador Dali painted his first painting when he was 10 years old. It was a small impressionistic landscape, painted on a wooden board with oil paints. The talent of a genius was torn to the surface. Dali spent whole days sitting in a small room specially allocated to him, painting pictures.

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

The theme of most of the early works was landscapes in the vicinity of Figueres and Cadaqués. Another expanse for Dali's fantasy was the ruins of a Roman city near Ampurius. Love for one's native places can be traced in many of Dali's works. Already at the age of 14 it was impossible to doubt Dali's ability to draw.
At the age of 14 he had his first solo exhibition at the Municipal Theater of Figueres. Young Dali stubbornly seeks his own style, but for now he is mastering all the styles he liked: impressionism, cubism, pointillism. "He painted passionately and greedily, like a man possessed"- Salvador Dali will say about himself in the third person.
At the age of sixteen, Dali began to express his thoughts on paper. From that time on, painting and literature were equally parts of his creative life. In 1919 he published essays on Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Michelangelo and Leonardo in his self-made publication Studium.
In 1921, at the age of 17, he became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid.

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

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

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

"... My exile ended and I returned to Madrid, where the group was impatiently waiting for me. Without me, they claimed, everything was "not thank God." Their imagination was hungry for my ideas. I was given a standing ovation, ordered special ties, postponed places in the theater, packed my suitcases, looked after my health, obeyed my every whim, and, like a cavalry squadron, attacked Madrid in order to overcome at any cost the difficulties that prevented the realization of my most unimaginable fantasies.

Despite Dalí's outstanding ability in his academic pursuits, his eccentric dress and demeanor eventually led to his expulsion for his refusal to take the oral exam. When he learned that his last question would be the question of Raphael, Dali unexpectedly declared: "... I do not know less than three professors put together, and I refuse to answer them, because I am better informed on this issue."
But by that time his first solo exhibition had already taken place in Barcelona, ​​a short trip to Paris, acquaintance with Picasso.

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

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

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

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

The undoubted genius of Dali was that he chose the best way to realize his modest pictorial gift and satisfy more than immodest ambition.
This was extremely well matched by the surrealistic theory, which Dali, obviously, met before his first surrealistic "paranoid" paintings appeared ( "Honey is sweeter than blood", 1926). These works are preceded by variations on a theme "Venus and the Sailor", 1925, "Flying Woman", 1926, and "Portrait of a Girl in a Landscape (Cadaqués)", the same time - marked by the influence of Picasso, as well as the Figure at the Window, 1925, "Woman in front of the Peña Segat rocks", 1926 - imitating the manner of "metaphysical" painting by De Chirico. These works have everything that makes painting come true; everything but independence. Their secondary nature is obvious.
In 1926 there was a sharp turning point. It is hard to believe that the dismembered female corpse and the decomposing carcass of a donkey ( "Honey is sweeter than blood") - a picture of horror and despair written in the same year as charming with its simplicity, harmony and chastity "Portrait of a Girl in a Landscape (Cadaqués)" and "Woman in front of the Peña Segat rocks".

The year 1929 came - a fatal year for Dali, when two important events took place in his life. Both radically influenced the fate of Salvador Dali, who was destined to become one of the greatest artists of all time. He was always afraid of his "greatness", and now he stood on the threshold of a new era. The era in which he was elevated to the status of a Master.
The first and most important event was his meeting with Gala Eluard in Cadaques, who became his muse, assistant, lover, and then wife. At that time she was married, but despite this, since they met, they have not parted again. At the beginning of their acquaintance, Gala saved Dali from a serious mental crisis, and without her support and faith in his genius, he would hardly have turned out to be that artist. Dali created a pompous cult of Gala, who appears in many of his works, eventually in an almost divine guise.

"... I went to the window that overlooked the beach. She was already there. Who is She? Do not interrupt me. Enough of what I say: She was already there. Gala, Eluard's wife. It was she! Galuchka Rediviva! I recognized her by her naked back. Her body was delicate, like that of a child. The line of the shoulders was almost perfectly rounded, and the muscles of the waist, outwardly fragile, were athletically tense, like those of a teenager. But the curve of the waist was truly feminine. Graceful combination slender, vigorous torso, aspen waist and tender hips made her even more desirable.(more about Gala Dali)

Another important event was Dali's decision to officially join the Parisian surrealist movement. With the support of a friend, the artist Joan Miro, he joined their ranks in 1929. Andre Breton treated this dressed-up dandy - a Spaniard who painted pictures - puzzles, with a fair amount of distrust.
In 1929, his first solo exhibition was held in Paris at the Goeman's Gallery, after which he began his journey to the top of fame. In the same year, in January, he met his friend from the San Fernando Academy, Luis Bunuel, who offered to work together on a script for a film known as "Andalusian Dog"(Un Chien andalou). ("Andalusian puppies" Madrid youth called people from the south of Spain. This nickname meant "slobbery", "slob", "klutz", "sissy").
Now this film is a classic of surrealism. It was a short film designed to shock and hurt the bourgeoisie and ridicule the extremes of the avant-garde. Among the most shocking shots there is to this day the famous scene, which, as you know, was invented by Dali, where the human eye is cut in half with a blade. The decomposing donkeys seen in other scenes were also part of Dalí's contribution to the film.
After the film's first public screening in October 1929 at the Théâtre des Ursulines in Paris, Buñuel and Dalí immediately became famous and celebrated.

Two years after The Andalusian Dog, The Golden Age came out. Critics received the new film with enthusiasm. But then he became a bone of contention between Bunuel and Dali: each claimed that he did more for the film than the other. However, despite the controversy, their collaboration left a deep mark on the lives of both artists and sent Dali on the path of surrealism.
Despite a relatively short "official" connection with the surrealist movement and the Breton group, Dali initially and forever remains an artist who personifies surrealism.
But even among the surrealists, Salvador Dali turned out to be a real troublemaker of surrealistic restlessness, he advocated surrealism without shores, declaring: "Surrealism is me!" and, dissatisfied with the principle of mental automatism proposed by Breton and based on a spontaneous, uncontrolled creative act, the Spanish master defines the method he invented as "paranoid-critical activity."
Dali's break with the surrealists was also facilitated by his delusional political statements. His admiration for Adolf Hitler and monarchist tendencies ran counter to Breton's ideas. Dali's final break with the Breton group takes place in 1939.

The father, dissatisfied with his son's connection with Gala Eluard, forbade Dali to appear in his house, and thereby laid the foundation for a conflict between them. According to his subsequent stories, the artist, tormented by remorse, cut off all his hair and buried it in his beloved Cadaqués.

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

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

"... Deciding to write a clock, I wrote them soft. It was one evening, I was tired, I had a migraine - an extremely rare ailment for me. We had to go to the cinema with friends, but at the last moment I decided to stay at home. Gala will go with them, and I'll go to bed early. We ate very tasty cheese, then I was left alone, sitting leaning on the table and thinking about how "super soft" melted cheese. I got up and went to the workshop to, as usual, , cast a glance at my work. The picture I was going to paint was a landscape of the outskirts of Port Lligat, rocks, as if illuminated by a dim evening light. In the foreground, I sketched a chopped off trunk of a leafless olive tree. This landscape is the basis for a canvas with some idea, but what? I needed a marvelous image, but I could not find it. I went to turn off the light, and when I went out, I literally "saw" the solution: two pairs of soft clocks, one hanging plaintively from an olive branch. Despite the migraine, I cooked palette and took up work. Two hours later, when Gala returned from the cinema, the picture, which was to become one of the most famous, was completed. "

"The Persistence of Memory" was completed in 1931 and has become a symbol of the modern concept of the relativity of time. A year after the exhibition in the Pierre Colet Gallery in Paris, Dali's most famous painting was bought by the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Unable to visit his father's house in Cadaques due to his father's ban, Dali built a new house on the seashore, near Port Lligat, with money received from the patron of arts Viscount Charles de Noel for the sale of paintings.

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

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

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

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

During his stay in America, Dali worked as a jeweler, designer, photojournalist, illustrator, portraitist, decorator, window dresser, made scenery for the Hitchcock film The House of Dr. psychoanalytic analysis of Salvador Dali's mustache). At the same time he writes the novel "Hidden Faces". His performance is amazing.
His texts, films, installations, photo essays and ballet performances are distinguished by irony and paradox, fused into a single whole in the same peculiar manner that is characteristic of his painting. Despite the monstrous eclecticism, the combination of the incompatible, the mixture (obviously deliberate) of soft and hard styles - his compositions are built according to the rules of academic art. The cacophony of plots (deformed objects, distorted images, fragments of the human body, etc.) is "pacified", harmonized by the jewelry technique, which reproduces the texture of museum painting.

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

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

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

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

Everything was going great, but when Amanda decided to step out of Dali's shadow and pursue her own career, their love and friendship collapsed. Dali did not forgive her for the success that fell upon her. Geniuses do not like it when something that belongs to them undivided suddenly slips out of their hands. And someone else's success for them is an unbearable torment. How is it possible, his "baby" (despite the fact that Amanda's height is 176 cm) allowed herself to become independent and successful! For a long time they almost did not communicate, seeing each other only in 1978 at Christmas in Paris.

The next day, Gala called Amanda and asked her to urgently come to her. When Amanda appeared at her place, she saw that an open Bible was lying in front of Gala, and right next to it was an icon of the Kazan Mother of God, taken out of Russia. “Swear to me on the Bible,” 84-year-old Gala strictly ordered that when I am gone, you will marry Dali. I cannot die leaving him unattended. Amanda swore without hesitation. And a year later she married the Marquis Allen Philippe Malagnac. Dali refused to accept the newlyweds, and Gala no longer spoke to her until her death.

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

More important, however, was the preservation of the works, which became his main project. He put all his energy into it. The artist came up with the idea to build a museum for his works. He soon set about rebuilding the theater in Figueres, his homeland, badly damaged during the Spanish Civil War. A gigantic geodesic dome was erected over the stage. The auditorium was cleared and divided into sectors that could display his works of different genres, including Mae West's bedroom and large paintings such as "The Hallucinogenic Toreador". Dali himself painted the entrance foyer, depicting himself and Gala washing gold in Figueres, with their feet hanging from the ceiling. The Salon was called the Palace of the Winds, after the poem of the same name, which tells the legend of the east wind, whose love married and lives in the west, so whenever he approaches her, he is forced to turn, while his tears fall to the ground. This legend was very much liked by Dali, the great mystic, who devoted another part of his museum to erotica. As he often liked to point out, erotica differs from pornography in that the former brings everyone happiness, while the latter only brings bad luck.
Many other works and other trinkets were exhibited at the Dalí Theatre-Museum. The salon opened in September 1974 and looked less like a museum than a bazaar. There, among other things, were the results of Dali's experiments with holography, from which he hoped to create global three-dimensional images. (His holograms were first exhibited at the Knedler Gallery in New York in 1972. He stopped experimenting in 1975.) In addition, the Dali Theatre-Museum exhibits double spectroscopic paintings depicting a naked Gala against a painting by Claude Laurent and other works of art, created by Dali. More about the Theater-Museum.

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

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

The cult of Dali, the abundance of his works in different genres and styles led to the emergence of numerous fakes, which caused great problems in the global art market. Dalí himself was involved in a scandal in 1960 when he signed many blank sheets of paper intended to be used to create impressions from lithographic stones held by dealers in Paris. An allegation was made for the illegal use of these blank sheets. However, Dali remained imperturbable and in the 1970s continued to lead his hectic and active life, as always continuing to search for new plastic ways to explore his amazing world of art.

In the late 60s, the relationship between Dali and Gala began to fade. And at the request of Gala, Dali was forced to buy her his castle, where she spent a lot of time in the company of young people. The rest of their life together was smoldering firebrands that were once a bright fire of passion ... Galya was already about 70 years old, but the more she grew old, the more she wanted love. "El Salvador doesn't care, each of us has our own life", - she convinced her husband's friends, dragging them into bed. "I allow Gala to have as many lovers as she wants Dali said. - I even encourage her because it turns me on". Young lovers Gala mercilessly robbed her. She gave them paintings by Dali, bought houses, studios, cars. And Dali was saved from loneliness by his favorites, young beautiful women, from whom he did not need anything but their beauty. In public, he always pretended that they were lovers. But he knew that it was all just a game. The woman of his soul was only Gala.

All her life with Dali, Gala played the role of a gray cardinal, preferring to remain in the background. Some considered her the driving force of Dali, others - a witch weaving intrigues ... Gala managed her husband's constantly growing wealth with quick efficiency. It was she who closely followed private transactions for the purchase of his paintings. She was needed physically and morally, so when Gala died in June 1982, the artist suffered a heavy loss. Among the works created by Dali a few weeks before her death is "Three famous mysteries of Gala", 1982.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"For fifty years now I have entertained mankind", - Salvador Dali once wrote in his biography. It entertains to this day and will continue to entertain if humanity does not disappear and painting does not perish under technical progress.

Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - the great Spanish painter and sculptor, writer, graphic artist, director. One of the brightest and most talented representatives of the surrealist trend in painting.

Birth and family

In the northeastern part of Spain, not far from Barcelona, ​​there is a small town of Figueres. At the very beginning of the 20th century, on May 11, 1904, the future genius Salvador Dali was born in this place. His family at that time consisted only of parents - the father of Don Salvador Dali y Cusi and the mother of Dona Filipa Domenech. Later, El Salvador had a sister, Anna Maria.

Before that, there was already one son in the family, but he died of meningitis in 1903, a little before he was two years old. When the future artist was only 5 years old, while visiting the grave of his brother, his parents had the imprudence to say that Salvador was his reincarnation. From that moment on, Dali had an obsession that his parents did not love him at all, but their older deceased brother in the person of Salvador. Ideas of this kind will be characteristic of a genius all his life.

But the parents actually loved both Salvador and his younger sister very much. The family was of average income, dad was a wealthy public notary, mom was engaged in housekeeping and raising children. The father was an atheist, while the mother, on the contrary, was an unshakable Catholic, thanks to her insistence, the children regularly attended church.

Childhood and school years

The father and mother gave the children the most worthy education they were capable of, given their financial situation. In 1910, the boy was sent to the elementary school of the "Immaculate Conception" of the Christian Brothers.

Dali grew up as a very smart child, but for unknown reasons he himself claimed the opposite. He was unruly and arrogant. Once, while with his mother in the marketplace, Salvador threw a tantrum over a lollipop. The sweet shop was closed for the siesta, but the boy yelled so loudly that the policemen passing by begged the merchant owner to open the shop and sell the child the ill-fated candy. El Salvador achieved his goal by any means: he was capricious, feigned, attracted the attention of outsiders.

Because of this character at school, Dali did not succeed in making friends with the guys. In addition, all sorts of phobias and complexes prevented him from leading a normal school life. Even from school, he began to show some kind of split personality. He played games of chance with the guys, but when he lost, he behaved like a winner. So he could not find common ground with classmates and make sympathy or friendship with at least one of them. A strange, eccentric child caused a corresponding reaction in the children. When the children found out that Dali was terribly afraid of grasshoppers, they began to catch these insects and throw them by the collar. He began to have wild tantrums, which amused the children. The only child with whom El Salvador had at least some kind of human relationship was the future Barcelona footballer Josep Samitier.

Painting training

He showed talent in drawing from an early age, in school textbooks and notebooks in the margins, he often drew caricatures to make his little sister laugh. Family friend Ramon Pichot was an impressionist painter, he noticed the boy's abilities and helped him develop in this direction.

In the town of Cadaques by the sea, the Dali family had a small house. Here in 1916 the vacation of the future artist took place. He liked to communicate with the lower strata of society, he talked for a long time with local workers and fishermen, eagerly studied the superstitions and mythology of his people. Perhaps even then mystical themes were woven into his creative talent.

In parallel with receiving a regular education, the boy was enrolled in a municipal art school, where he studied fine arts. After graduating here, he entered the Academy of the Brothers of the Marist Order in Figueres, where the Spanish artist Nunez taught Dali the methods of the original engraving.

In 1921, a tragedy struck the family: my mother died of cancer.

Madrid

After the death of his mother, Dali decided to leave for Madrid. He persuaded his father to let him go and help him enter the Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1922, Salvador Dali prepared a drawing for the entrance exams, which turned out to be too small. The caretaker from the Academy told Dali's father about this, and he, already tired of his son's whims, in a good way asked him to redraw it. Three days remained, but Salvador was in no hurry to write, which drove his father to white heat. On the day of the exam, the young man told his father that he had made a drawing, only even smaller than the previous one, for the parent such a challenge was a strong blow. But the commission considered high skill in Dali's work and accepted him into the Academy.

He began his studies in Madrid and settled in a student hostel for gifted young people. Along with his studies, Dali was very fond of the works of Freud, flaunted in society, made new useful acquaintances.

Salvador wrote a lot at this time, introduced new trends into his paintings: cubism and Dadaism.

But in 1926, despite his talent, Salvador was expelled from the Academy for a disgusting arrogant and dismissive attitude towards teachers. In the same year he left for Paris.

creative way

In the French capital, Dali met Pablo Picasso. Under his influence, he created a number of paintings that took part in exhibitions and brought popularity to the artist.

Salvador painted in the style of surrealism. Myths intertwined with reality in his paintings, a deep study of psychology according to Freud left a considerable imprint on his work.

In 1937, the artist visited Italy, he was delighted with the works of the Renaissance, after which the correct human proportions appeared in his own paintings, but still with surrealistic fantasies.

At the beginning of World War II, El Salvador left for the United States, where he lived until 1948. In America, he also discovered his writing talent, in 1942 his autobiography "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali" was published. Acquaintance with Walt Disney also brought Dali experience in cinema. Director Alfred Hitchcock was filming the film Spellbound, and Salvador wrote the scenery for it.

Returning to Spain, the artist worked hard and, as before, conquered the whole world with his works, exhibitions and outrageous antics.

In 1969, Dali became interested in sculpture, among his most famous works:

• "Gala in the window";
• "Seated Don Quixote";
• "Space Elephant";
• "Horse with rider stumbling."

Incredible love story

The famous muse and wife of Salvador Dali was Elena Dyakonova, known throughout the world under the name Gala.

They met in the summer of 1929, at that time Elena was married to the French poet Paul Eluard and at the same time had a lover, Mark Ernst. The woman was too loving, she simply adored sex, could not exist without it.

Gala was 10 years older than Dali. At the time of their acquaintance, he was a young novice artist who came from a provincial town, and Gala is experienced and wise, self-confident and sophisticated, moving from the highest circles of society. He was taken aback by her beauty.

It cannot be said that Gala possessed beauty in the usual sense of the word, she, like a magnet, attracted men to her, they became as if bewitched and lost their heads from this woman.

Gala and Dali became close, but this did not prevent the woman from continuing her relationship with her husband, along the way, still making lovers, while this was considered normal in bohemian circles.

But in the end, she left her husband and in 1930 moved to Dali, she told him then: "My boy, we will never part". She not only satisfied his sexual fantasies, Gala became everything for El Salvador: patroness, business manager, organizer.

It was Gala who made the artist famous all over the world, she used all her connections, arranged exhibitions, wore his work to connoisseurs. And he created with such zeal that one picture had not yet been completed, but another was already asking for canvas. Dali constantly painted his muse, which inspired him so much. Now his paintings were signed with the double name Gala - Salvador Dali.

Husband Paul Eluard until the last days wrote her love letters, full of tenderness. And only after his death in 1952, Gala and Salvador got married.

When Dali began to lose interest in paintings, Gala threw him a new idea for creating designer furniture. The rich all over the world were ready to give any money for sofas in the shape of women's lips, elephants on thin legs, or for a bizarre clock with a strange dial. Salvador Dali is also the author of the Chupa-Chups caramel packaging design.

Their relationship for the ordinary world seemed strange, for the two of them it was normal. A woman changed lovers like gloves, Dali constantly had fun in the company of young girls, spending a lot of money on them. In 1965, El Salvador had a second muse - Amanda Lear, a 19-year-old model and singer.

But the only woman to whom he completely obeyed was Gala. If not for her, the world might never have known the great genius of Salvador Dali. First, she breathed self-confidence into the young insecure artist, then she fully revealed the full scale of his talent: she made Dali an idol of the planet, while constantly protecting and protecting him. And he bowed before her.

Their amazing relationship lasted 53 years. Gala died in 1982 at the age of 88. Her body was embalmed, put on a red dress and laid in a coffin with a glass lid. In their Pubole castle, during her lifetime, she arranged a crypt for the two of them, and the woman was buried there.

The last years of life and the death of a genius

Dali outlived his wife by 7 years. After the death of Gal, he had a terrible depression, while Parkinson's disease was rapidly developing. He spent his last years in seclusion at Pubole Castle, where the woman of his life lay under a glass cover.

He painted a little, but the pictures were very simple, and a thin thread of grief passed through them everywhere.

Over time, he stopped writing, talking, and then moving. The old man went mad, it was almost impossible to take care of him, he bit the nurses, threw anything at them, shouted.

He died on January 23, 1989. Finally, he shocked the whole world with his testament - to bury himself not next to the woman he loves; he asked people to walk over his grave. In the town of Figueres there is a theater-museum of Dali, in one of the rooms under the floor his body is walled up ...

Salvador Dali (full name - Salvador Domenech Felipe Jacinto Dali and Domenech, Marquis de Pubol; Cat. Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí de Púbol; Spanish Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marqués de Dalí y de Púbol ). 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 films: "Andalusian Dog", "Golden Age", "Bewitched". Author of The Secret Life of Salvador Dali as 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, in the family of a wealthy notary. He was a Catalan by nationality, perceived himself in this capacity and insisted on this peculiarity. 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, his parents told Salvador that he was the reincarnation of his older brother.

As a child, Dali was a quick-witted, but arrogant and uncontrollable child.

Once he even started a scandal on the marketplace for a candy, a crowd gathered around and the police asked the owner of the shop to open it during a siesta and give this sweet to the naughty boy. He achieved his whims and simulation, always sought to stand out and attract attention.

Numerous complexes and phobias prevented him from being involved in ordinary school life, from making ordinary bonds of friendship and sympathy with children.

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

When he lost at school games of chance, he acted like he had won and triumphed. Sometimes he got into fights for no reason.

Partially, the complexes that led to all this were caused by the classmates themselves: they were rather intolerant of the “strange” child, used his fear of grasshoppers, slipped these insects into his collar, which drove Salvador to hysteria, which he later told in his The Secret Life of Salvador Dali as Told by Himself.

He began to study fine art 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 football player of FC Barcelona, ​​Josep Samitier. In 1916, with the family of Ramon Picho, he went on vacation to the city of Cadaques, where he got 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 make a new drawing. However, the young man was in no hurry to work, which greatly worried his father, who had already endured his quirks for many years. In the end, young Dali said that the drawing was ready, but it was even smaller than the previous one, and this was a blow to 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, the mother of Salvador Dali dies, which becomes a tragedy for him.

In 1922, he moved to the "Residence" (Spanish: Residencia de Estudiantes) (a student hostel in Madrid for gifted young people) and began his studies. In those years, everyone celebrates his panache. At this time, he met Luis Bunuel, Federico Garcia Lorca, Pedro Garfias. Reads works with passion.

Acquaintance with new trends in painting is developing - Dali is experimenting with the methods of cubism and Dadaism. In 1926, he was expelled from the Academy for his arrogant and dismissive attitude towards teachers. In the same year, he travels 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 Miro. In 1929, together with Buñuel, he took part in the creation of the surrealistic film The Andalusian Dog.

Then he first meets his future wife Gala (Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova), who was then the wife of the poet Paul Eluard. Having become close to El Salvador, Gala, however, continues to meet with her husband, starts passing relationships with other poets and artists, which at that time seemed acceptable in those bohemian circles where Dali, Eluard and Gala revolved. 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 Surrealist group organized by Andre Breton. At the same time, there is a break with the father. The hostility of the artist’s family towards Gala, the conflicts, scandals associated with this, as well as the inscription made by Dali on one of the canvases - “Sometimes I spit on the portrait of my mother with pleasure” - led to the fact that the father cursed his son and put him out of the house.

The provocative, outrageous and seemingly terrible actions of the artist were far from always worth taking literally and seriously: he probably did not want to offend his mother and did not even know what it 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, grieved by the long-standing death of his wife, whom he loved and whose memory he carefully kept, could not stand the antics of his son, which became the last straw for him. In retaliation, the indignant Salvador Dali sent his father in an envelope his sperm 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 brought by his son.

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

After Caudillo Franco came to power in 1936, Dali quarreled with the surrealists on the left, and he was expelled from the group.

In response, Dali, not without reason, states: "Surrealism is me".

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

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

So, in 1933, he paints the picture The Riddle of William Tell, where he depicts a Swiss folklore hero in the form 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. The personal memories of Dali, who broke with his father, were layered. Lenin, on the other hand, 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 visits Italy and remains in awe of the works of the Renaissance. In his own works, the correctness of human proportions and other features of academicism begin to dominate. Despite the departure from surrealism, his paintings are still filled with surrealistic fantasies. Later, Dali (in the best traditions of his conceit and outrageousness) attributes to himself the salvation of art from modernist degradation, with which he associates his own name (“Salvador” in Spanish means “Savior”).

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

With the outbreak of World War II, Dali, together with Gala, left for the United States, where they lived from 1940 to 1948. In 1942, he published a fictionalized autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali. His literary endeavors, like his works of art, tend to be commercially successful. He collaborates with Walt Disney. He invites Dali to test his talent in cinema - art, which at that time was fanned with a halo of magic, miracles and wide possibilities. But the Destino surreal cartoon project proposed by Salvador was deemed commercially unviable, and work on it was discontinued. Dali is working with director Alfred Hitchcock to design the scenery for the dream scene from the movie Spellbound. However, the scene entered the film very truncated - again for commercial reasons.

After returning to Spain, he lives mainly in his beloved Catalonia. In 1965 he comes to Paris and again, as almost 40 years ago, conquers it with his works, exhibitions and outrageous acts. He shoots whimsical short films, takes surreal photographs. In films, he mainly uses reverse viewing effects, but skillfully chosen subjects (flowing water, a ball bouncing on the stairs), interesting comments, a mysterious atmosphere created by the artist's acting, make the films unusual examples of art house. Dali starred in commercials, and even in such commercial activities, he does not miss the opportunity for self-expression. TV viewers will remember a chocolate commercial for a long time, in which the artist bites off a piece of a bar, after which his mustache twists with 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 write works that were more understandable to the mass audience (the change in his painting at the turn of the 20-30s was striking), shared luxury with him, and need. When there was no order for paintings, Gala forced her husband to develop product brands, costumes: her strong, resolute nature was very necessary for a weak-willed artist. Gala put things in order in his workshop, patiently folded canvases, paints, souvenirs, which Dali senselessly scattered, looking for the right thing. On the other hand, she constantly had relations 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 for Gala a castle 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, Dalí developed Parkinson's disease. Gala dies in 1982.

After the death of his wife, Dali is experiencing a deep depression.

His paintings themselves are simplified, and for a long time the motive of sorrow prevails on them (variations on the theme of "Pieta").

Parkinson's disease also prevents Dali from painting.

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

It was difficult to take care of a sick and distraught old man, he threw himself at the nurses with what was tucked under his arm, shouted, bit.

After the death of Gala, Salvador moved to Pubol, but in 1984 a fire broke out in the castle. The paralyzed old man rang the bell unsuccessfully, trying to call for help. In the end, he overcame the weakness, fell off the bed and crawled to the exit, but passed out at the door. With severe burns, Dali was taken to the hospital, 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 legible phrase that he uttered during the years of illness was “My friend Lorca”: the artist remembered the years of a 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 was 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 neck (1920-1921)
Portrait of Luis Buñuel (1924)
Flesh on the Stones (1926)
Fixture and Hand (1927)
The Invisible Man (1929)
Enlightened Pleasures (1929)
Portrait of Paul Eluard (1929)
Riddles of Desire: "My Mother, My Mother, My Mother" (1929)
Great Masturbator (1929)
William Tell (1930)
The Persistence of Memory (1931)
Partial hallucination. Six appearances of Lenin on the piano (1931)
Paranoid transformations of Gal's face (1932)
Retrospective bust of a woman (1933)
The Riddle of William Tell (1933)
Mae West's face (used as a surrealist room) (1934-1935)
Woman with a Head of Roses (1935)
The Ductile Construct 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 Hitler Enigma (1937)
Swans Reflected in Elephants (1937)
The Apparition of a Face and a Bowl of Fruit by the Sea (1938)
Slave market with the appearance of the invisible bust of Voltaire (1938)
Poetry of America (1943)
Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before awakening (1944)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946)
Naked Dali, contemplating five ordered bodies, turning into corpuscles, from which Leda Leonardo is unexpectedly created, impregnated with the face of Gala (1950)
Raphael Head Explosion (1951)
Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951)
Galatea with Spheres (1952)
Crucifix or Hypercubic Body (1954) Corpus hypercubus
Colossus of Rhodes (1954)
Sodomic Self-Patience of an Innocent Maid (1954)
The Last Supper (1955)
Our Lady of Guadalupe (1959)
Discovery of America by the sleep effort of Christopher Columbus (1958-1959)
Ecumenical Council (1960)
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (1976).

Biography and episodes of life Salvador Dali. When born and died Dali, memorable places and dates of important events in his life. artist quotes, Photo and video.

Life of Salvador Dali:

born May 11, 1904, died January 23, 1989

Epitaph

“Let your swarthy brush bathe in a sea inhabited by happiness and sails.”
From Federico Garcia Lorca's poem "Ode to Salvador Dali"

Biography

It would seem that in the biography of Salvador Dali, who personally published his diaries and autobiography, there should not be black spots, nevertheless, with his revelations, he only thickened the fog of mystery around his name. It is still unknown which of Dali's biography told by him is true and which is fiction. So, for example, Dali claimed that, according to his parents, he was the reincarnation of his deceased brother. Dali himself created a myth about himself, but, as you know, there is some truth in every joke.

Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904 in the Spanish city of Figueres. He began to draw at the age of four and did it with amazing diligence and perseverance for a child, while remaining an uncontrollable, lazy and eccentric boy, which was reflected in his studies. In his autobiography, he admits that he often pretended to be crazy in class to avoid bad grades or criticism from the teacher. Already at the age of 14 he had his first exhibition, and at 17 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, from which he was expelled a few years later for disrespect for teachers and arrogance. However, the link did not last long.

The turning point in Dali's life was 1929, the year when he joined the surrealist movement and met Gala Eluard, who was still married at that time. Until now, it is believed that without Gala, Salvador Dali could not have become what he became. It was she who supported his belief that he was talented, took care of all money matters, put things in order in his workshop, made him work. She completely took control of the life of the helpless and impractical Dali, and he saw her as his muse. Not everything was rosy in the relationship of lovers - Gala had many young admirers and she did not always refuse them courtship. In 1968, Dali even bought a castle for Gala, which he could visit only at the invitation of his wife. At that time, Dali was already a wealthy and recognized artist. When the artist's muse died, it was a great tragedy for him. The death of his wife, the developing Parkinson's disease - all this led to the fact that the brilliant Dali spent the last years of his life alone in the Gala castle.

Salvador Dali died on January 23, 1989. At the time of his death, Dali was 84 years old. Even the funeral of Salvador Dali was not like an ordinary funeral. For a week, his embalmed body stood in the Dali Theater Museum he opened, so that visitors could pay tribute to the memory of Salvador Dali. Then the so-called Dali's funeral took place - his body was immured in the floor of one of the rooms of the museum. So Dali himself wanted, having bequeathed that people would walk on his grave.

Salvador Dali with his muse and beloved wife Gala (Elena Dyakonova)

life line

May 11, 1904 Salvador Dali's date of birth.
1914-1918 Studying at the Academy of the Friars of the Marist Order in Figueres.
1921 Admission to the Academy of San Fernando, death of the mother of Salvador Dali.
1922 Moving to Madrid, studying at the "Residence".
1926 Expulsion from the Academy.
1929 Joining a group of surrealists, breaking up with his father.
1934 Unofficial marriage with Elena Dyakonova (Gala).
1936 Exclusion of Dali from the group of surrealists.
1940-1948 Life in the USA.
1942 Release of the autobiography "The Secret Life of Salvador Dali".
1958 Official wedding with Gala.
1968 Purchase of a castle in the village of Pubol.
1973 Opening of the Dali Theatre-Museum.
1981 Dalí's development of Parkinson's disease.
1982 Gala's death, Dali receiving the title of count.
January 23, 1989 Date of Dali's death.

Memorable places

1. The city of Figueres, Spain, where Salvador Dali was born.
2. Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, where Salvador Dali studied.
3. Dormitory for gifted students in Madrid "Residence", where Dali studied.
4. The Dali Theater Museum, where Dali's grave is located.
5. Castle Pubol, or Castle Gala Dali, the former home of Salvador Dali in the 70s.

Episodes of life

Salvador Dali has always been distinguished by extravagance in behavior. So, the employees of the hotel Le Meurice recalled that one day the artist demanded that a herd of sheep be brought to his room. When the sheep were brought in, Dali suddenly took out a pistol and began to shoot at the animals, but, fortunately, the pistol was loaded with blanks.

Dali was a master of jokes, pranks and eccentric acts. When he bought a castle for his wife, it turned out that it was very difficult to get to it because of the bad road, which they have been trying to repair for fifteen years. Then Dali called the governor and invited him for a cup of tea. The governor arrived two hours late, complaining that the road was just disgusting and that two of their tires had burst before they reached Dali. To which El Salvador replied: “Yes, it worries me a lot. In three weeks, Generalissimo Franco will come to visit us, and I'm afraid he will not approve of this state of affairs. The road repair was resumed the next morning.

Dali never changed his own style

Covenant

"Do not be afraid of perfection: you will never reach it!"

Documentary "Biography of Salvador Dali"

condolences

"Salvador Dali can be reproached for many things, but not for betraying art, creativity."
Rudolf Balandin, writer

"He felt like a completely free man."
Enrique Sabater, friend and assistant of Salvador Dali

"He was Dali, and, as he once said, every brushstroke he made was the equivalent of a tragedy experienced."
Meredith Etherington-Smith, biographer

Salvador Domenech Felipe Jacinth Dali and Domenech, Marquis de Pubol (1904 - 1989) - Spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director, writer. One of the most famous representatives of surrealism.

BIOGRAPHY OF SALVADOR DALI

Salvador Dali was born in the town of Figueres in Catalonia, the son of a lawyer. His creative abilities manifested themselves in early childhood. At the age of seventeen, he was admitted to the Madrid Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, where fate happily brought him together with G. Lorca, L. Bunuel, R. Alberti. Studying at the academy, Dali enthusiastically and obsessively studies the works of old masters, the masterpieces of Velasquez, Zurbaran, El Greco, Goya. He is influenced by the cubist paintings of H. Gris, the metaphysical painting of the Italians, and is seriously interested in the legacy of I. Bosch.

Studying at the Madrid Academy from 1921 to 1925 was for the artist a time of persistent comprehension of professional culture, the beginning of a creative understanding of the traditions of the masters of past eras and the discoveries of his older contemporaries.

During his first trip to Paris in 1926, he met P. Picasso. Impressed by the meeting, which changed the direction of the search for his own artistic language, corresponding to his worldview, Dali creates his first surrealistic work, The Magnificence of the Hand. However, Paris inexorably attracts him, and in 1929 he makes a second trip to France. There he enters the circle of Parisian surrealists, gets the opportunity to see their solo exhibitions.

At the same time, together with Bunuel Dali, he makes two films that have already become classics - “Andalusian Dog” and “Golden Age”. His role in the creation of these works is not the main one, but he is always mentioned second, as a screenwriter and at the same time an actor.

In October 1929 he marries Gala. Russian by origin, the aristocrat Elena Dmitrievna Dyakonova occupied an important place in the life and work of the artist. The appearance of Gal gave his art a new meaning. In the book of the master “Dali according to Dali”, he gives the following periodization of his work: “Dali - Planetary, Dali - Molecular, Dali - Monarchic, Dali - Hallucinogenic, Dali - Future”! Of course, it is difficult to fit into such a narrow framework the work of this great improviser and mystifier. He himself admitted: “I don’t know when I start pretending or telling the truth.”

THE CREATIVITY OF SALVADOR DALI

Around 1923, Dali began his experiments with Cubism, often even locking himself in his room to paint. In 1925, Dali painted another painting in the style of Picasso: Venus and the Sailor. She was among the seventeen paintings exhibited at Dali's first solo exhibition. The second exhibition of Dali's work, held in Barcelona at the Delmo Gallery at the end of 1926, was met with even more enthusiasm than the first.

Venus and the Sailor The Great Masturbator Metamorphoses of Narcissus The Riddle of William Tell

In 1929, Dali painted The Great Masturbator, one of the most significant works of that period. It depicts a large, wax-like head with dark red cheeks and half-closed eyes with very long eyelashes. A huge nose rests on the ground, and instead of a mouth, a rotting grasshopper with ants crawling over it is drawn. Similar themes were characteristic of Dali's works of the 30s: he had an unusual weakness for the images of grasshoppers, ants, telephones, keys, crutches, bread, hair. Dali himself called his technique a manual photograph of concrete irrationality. It was based, as he said, on associations and interpretations of unrelated phenomena. Surprisingly, the artist himself noted that he did not understand all of his images. Although Dali's work was well received by critics who predicted a great future for him, the success did not bring immediate benefits. And Dali traveled the streets of Paris for days on end in a vain search for buyers for his original images. They, for example, were a woman's shoe with large steel springs, glasses with glasses the size of a fingernail, and even a plaster head of a roaring lion with fried chips.

In 1930, Dali's paintings began to bring him fame. Freud's work influenced his work. In his paintings, he reflected the sexual experiences of a person, as well as destruction, death. His masterpieces such as Soft the Clock and Persistence of Memory were created. Dali also creates numerous models from various objects.

Between 1936 and 1937, Dali worked on one of his most famous paintings, Metamorphoses of Narcissus, and a book of the same name immediately appeared. In 1953, a large-scale exhibition was held in Rome. He exhibits 24 paintings, 27 drawings, 102 watercolors.

Meanwhile, in 1959, since his father no longer wanted to let Dali in, he and Gala settled down to live in Port Lligat. Dali's paintings were already very popular, sold for a lot of money, and he himself was famous. He often communicates with William Tell. Under impressions, he creates such works as "The Riddle of William Tell" and "William Tell".

In 1973, the "Dalí Museum" opens in Figueres, incredible in its content. Until now, he is amazed by the audience with his surreal appearance.

The last work "Dovetail" was completed in 1983.

Salvador Dali often resorted to sleep with a key in his hand. Sitting on a chair, he fell asleep with a heavy key between his fingers. Gradually, the grip weakened, the key fell and hit a plate lying on the floor. The thoughts that arose during the nap could be new ideas or solutions to complex problems.

In 1961, Salvador Dali drew for Enrique Bernat, the founder of the Spanish lollipop company, the Chupa Chups logo, which, in a slightly modified form, is now recognizable in all corners of the planet.

In 2003, the Walt Disney Company released the animated film Destino, which Salvador Dal and Walt Disney began to draw back in 1945, the picture lay in the archive for 58 years.

A crater on Mercury is named after Salvador Dali.

The great artist, during his lifetime, bequeathed to bury him so that people could walk on the grave, so his body was immured in the wall in the Dali Museum in Figueres. Flash photography is not allowed in this room.

Arriving in New York in 1934, he carried a 2-meter-long loaf of bread in his hands as an accessory, and while visiting an exhibition of surrealist art in London, he dressed in a diving suit.

At various times, Dali declared himself either a monarchist, or an anarchist, or a communist, or an adherent of authoritarian power, or he refused to associate himself with any political movement. After World War II and returning to Catalonia, Salvador supported Franco's authoritarian regime and even painted a portrait of his granddaughter.

Dali sent a telegram to the Romanian leader Nicolas Ceausescu, written in the manner characteristic of the artist: in words he supported the communist, and caustic irony was read between the lines. Not noticing the catch, the telegram was published in the daily newspaper Scînteia.

The now famous singer Cher (Cher) and her husband Sonny Bono, while still young, attended the party of Salvador Dali, which he tripled at the New York Plaza Hotel. There, Cher accidentally sat on a strangely shaped sex toy placed on her chair by the host of the event.

In 2008, the film Echoes of the Past was filmed about El Salvador. The role of Dali was played by Robert Pattinson. For some time, Dali worked together with Alfred Hitchcock.

In his lifetime, Dali himself completed only one film, Impressions of Upper Mongolia (1975), in which he told the story of an expedition that went in search of huge hallucinogenic mushrooms. The video sequence of "Impressions of Upper Mongolia" is largely based on enlarged microscopic spots of uric acid on a brass strip. As you can guess, the "author" of these stains was the maestro. For several weeks he "painted" them on a piece of brass.

Together with Christian Dior in 1950, Dali created a "suit for 2045".

The canvas “The Persistence of Memory” (“Soft Clock”) Dali wrote under the impression of Einstein's theory of relativity. The idea in El Salvador's mind took shape as he looked at a piece of Camabert cheese one hot August day.

For the first time, the image of an elephant appears on the canvas "A dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before awakening." In addition to elephants, Dali often used images of other representatives of the animal kingdom in his paintings: ants (symbolized death, decay and, at the same time, great sexual desire), he associated a snail with a human head (see portraits of Sigmund Freud), locusts in his work is associated with waste and a sense of fear.

Eggs in Dali's paintings symbolize prenatal, intrauterine development, if you look deeper - we are talking about hope and love.

On December 7, 1959, the presentation of the ovocypede (ovocypede) took place in Paris: a device that was invented by Salvador Dali and brought to life by the engineer Laparra. Ovosiped - a transparent ball with a seat fixed inside for one person. This "transport" was one of the devices that Dali successfully used to shock the public with his appearance.

QUOTATIONS DALY

Art is a terrible disease, but it is still impossible to live without it.

With art I straighten myself and infect normal people.

The artist is not the one who is inspired, but the one who inspires.

Painting and Dali are not the same thing, as an artist I do not overestimate myself. It's just that others are so bad that I turned out better.

I saw - and sunk into the soul, and through the brush spilled onto the canvas. This is painting. And the same is love.

For the artist, every touch of the brush on the canvas is a whole life drama.

My painting is life and food, flesh and blood. Don't look for intelligence or feelings in it.

Through the centuries, Leonardo da Vinci and I extend our hands to each other.

I think that now we have the Middle Ages, but someday the Renaissance will come.

I am decadent. In art, I'm something like Camembert cheese: just a little overdose, and that's it. I - the last echo of antiquity - stand on the very edge.

Landscape is a state of mind.

Painting is a color photograph made by hand of all possible, ultra-refined, unusual, super-aesthetic samples of concrete irrationality.

My painting is life and food, flesh and blood. Don't look for intelligence or feelings in it.

A work of art does not arouse any feelings in me. Looking at a masterpiece, I am ecstatic about what I can learn. It doesn't even occur to me to spread in tenderness.

The artist thinks with a drawing.

It is good taste that is fruitless - for an artist there is nothing more harmful than good taste. Take the French - because of good taste, they are completely lazy.

Do not try to cover up your mediocrity with a deliberately careless painting - it will reveal itself in the very first stroke.

First, learn to draw and write like the old masters, and only then act on your own - and you will be respected.

Surrealism is not a party, not a label, but a unique state of mind, not bound by slogans or morality. Surrealism is the complete freedom of a human being and his right to dream. I'm not a surrealist, I'm a surrealist.

I - the highest embodiment of surrealism - follow the tradition of the Spanish mystics.

The difference between the surrealists and me is that the surrealist is me.

I'm not a surrealist, I'm a surrealist.

BIOGRAPHY AND FILMOGRAPHY OF SALVADOR DALI

Literature

"The Secret Life of Salvador Dali as Told by Himself" (1942)

"Diary of a Genius" (1952-1963)

Oui: The Paranoid-Critical Revolution (1927-33)

"The Tragic Myth of Angelus Millais"

Film work

"Andalusian dog"

"Golden age"

"Spellbound"

"Impressions of Upper Mongolia"

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