An Eye on Art: The Genius of Salvador Dali

Even at a young age, growing up in Catalonia, Salvador Dali tended to go his own way. He didn’t do well with formal education and leaned toward creativity. His first painting, a simple landscape, was done at the age of twelve.

Following his mother’s death when he was 16, he became a follower of Freud’s teachings on the erotic significance of subconscious imagery and claimed to induce hallucinatory states in himself through a process he termed ‘paranoiac critical method’, perhaps prompted by his affiliation with the Paris Surrealists, who sought to portray a ‘greater reality’ through the promotion of the human subconscious over reason. From 1929-1937, Dali produced the surrealist artwork, which he is famous for today. His name becoming the most recognized Surrealist of his day.¹

Dali tended to use forms he loved repeatedly in his works. The melting clocks of his most work, The Persistence of Memory (1931), are repeated in his later work, Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1954).

The human form is another image which appears repeatedly in his works, including his last painting, Hallucinagenic Troubadour (1969-70). Dali produced over 400 works of art, and you can be sure he created his share of nudes, only one of which appears here.

The human face is another repeated image, although no two are alike. Featured below are an early Self-Portrait (1921) and a later work, Portrait of my Dead Brother (1963), which is the image of his brother who died when he was a child. (verify this)

But painting wasn’t Dali’s only outlet for his amazing creativity. He studied and created screenplays, created amazing sculptures, and had an affinity for architecture. He designed and built the Dali Theater-Museum in Catalonia, which boasts the largest collection of Salvador Dali works, and the building which houses it is claimed to be the largest surrealist object.

References

¹Britanica. Salvador Dali. Salvador Dali | Biography, Art, Paintings, Surrealism, & Facts | Britannica

²Passages Through the Unconcious. Dali Theater-Museum. Passages Through the Unconscious – Fundació Gala – Salvador Dalí

³Dali Theater-Museum in Catalonia. Online Collection. Online collection – Fundació Gala – Salvador Dalí

⁴The Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg Collection. Category includes Painting | Salvador Dalí Museum

⁵The Salvador Dali Museum, Timeline. Salvador Dalí – Salvador Dalí Museum

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders. Her novels include Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and Books 1 & 2 in her Time-Travel Adventure series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw, and Double Visions.

Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press, where she edits and publishes two short fiction anthologies and one poetry anthology every year amidst her many writing projects. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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