Salvador Dali And Surrealism

Salvador Dali and Surrealism

Salvador Dali is a Spanish artist known for being a key figure in Surrealism, which began as a cultural movement before transitioning to an artistic movement. Surrealism was invented by a French poet, writer, and art critic named Guillaume Apollinaire. It was influenced by history because it was a product of an unstable time due to the First World War, which Guillaume Apollinaire fought in and used for inspiration (Bohn 1). Surrealism experimented with a new mode of expression which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious. It became an international intellectual and political movement (James 1). A famous psychologist concerned with the subconscious mind was Sigmund Freud. He was another

In his early childhood, he was known to have “fits of anger against his parents and classmates and received cruel treatment from them in response” (Encyclopedia 1). As he continued school at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, his troublesome ways did as well. He was suspended from the art school for criticizing his professors, and later permanently expelled for stating that the faculty was not competent enough to examine him. As the years went on, Dali’s style of the “dream world” began to be noticed. The “dream world” style is depicted as, “each object existed in strange contrast to other objects and was contained in a space that often appeared to tilt sharply upward. He applied bright colors to small objects set off against large patches of dull color” (Encyclopedia 1). The biggest influence on Dali’s paintings was the Surrealist movement which leads to smaller influences like history, science, and other artists. Through these influences Dali created many unique paintings such as: Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, The Persistence of Memory, and Portrait de Paul

1), there is a blue sky with yellow tinted clouds in a desert landscape. There appears to be a storm coming into the painting on the left side due to the darkening of colors and added yellow tint. The painting is a skewed reality, but in the foreground there appears to be a head of a man on top of what looks like to be the bone of a leg morphed into a knife. Dali uses texture in the head of the man with the lack of detail and sharpness to make hair. There is also a smooth texture created on the bones from blending the oil paints gently. But for the neck and hands, he has sharp lines to show strains in the muscles. There are also other body parts and bones of a man conjoining into each other to create a geometric figure. The geometric figure formed from the body parts creates implied line from the sharp straight lines of the bones. The implied line puts an emphasis on the bone that is shaped like a knife. The color of the bones also matches the yellow tint of the clouds adding to the decaying and eerie mood of the artwork. On some of the bones there are also boiled beans, and the geometric figure appears to be resting on a box or shed. Stepping back, the viewer notices a balance in the painting from the geometric figure with having the head of the man on one side and a heavier part of a bone on the