Salvador Dali As A Cultural Figure In 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. Through the influences of history, science, and other artists, Dali created many unique paintings such as: Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, The Persistence of Memory, and Portrait de Paul Eluard. Salvador Dali was born near Barcelona, Spain on May 11, 1904. 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” (Biography 1). His troublesome ways continued as he furthered school at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. He was suspended from the art school for criticizing his professors,

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