![]() ![]() The young Dali knew that this was the movement for him. Dali came across this movement in his early twenties and it changed his lifestyle and way of thinking forever. The Freudian theories where it was believed that all of us had an inner subconscious where our most private emotions, desires and our most severe fears are repressed, and that we should all express these emotions without censoring them – greatly influenced surrealist artists of the time. ![]() He talked of two realities coming together to form a single reality. This painting becomes completely Dali, with the lonely figure looking on at the scene as though detached from it.Įven though Dali bought surrealism into the limelight it was André Breton who invented the concept. ![]() The tranquillity of the giraffe, despite the fact that he is on fire might be symbolic of an animal’s harmony with the forces of nature, whereas the distorted female figures with the chest of drawers suggest that as humans we all have our hidden secrets, which can only be accessed through the subconscious. ‘Burning Giraffe,’ 1937, was not one of his most outstanding achievements, yet it brings out most of his motifs. Distorted figures, oversized enlarged body parts shows his fascination with the human body and the distortion of it seems to depict his innermost fears relating to life. There is a dark side to the paintings if one was to take a closer look at the harsh perspectives with distant figures, and desolate landscapes that spell out loneliness. It is said that Dali’s childhood was a troubled one and is reflected in many of his work. ![]() Dali personified surrealist dream worlds in most of his work and bought surrealism into the mainstream earning the titles of master, showman and inventor of 20th Century modern art, changing our perception of the absurd.ĭeath and life are two concepts that are present in Spanish art and Dali’s painting almost always personified both these and the fears and joys that come with life and death. Surrealism conjures a sense of the strange, the unexpected, the irrational and the out of the ordinary and it paints within our minds an almost dreamlike scenario. What most of us don’t know is that the backdrops of most of Dali’s paintings are found in Dali’s hometown in Catalonia, Spain, and that element of reality within the surreal alone serves to evoke a sense of curiosity within us. The answer to these questions lie in Dali’s paintings such as his most famous piece of work known today the ‘Persistence of Memory’ or better known as the ‘Melting Time’ or the ‘Soft Watches.’ It is in this dreamlike scenario Dali captures his fears, inhibitions and fantasies, which seem to be frozen in time, the melting of the clocks portray his fear of the inevitable passing of time. What is it about Salvador Dali’s paintings that excites or intrigues us? What is it about his work that makes us want to understand Dali, and why is it that we do not just dismiss him as a madman who paints outrageously bizarre scenario’s that at first glance seem really to be just so. ‘Persistence of memory’ better known as the ‘Soft watches,’ 1931 (museum modern art New York) ![]()
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