Salvador Dali is one of the best, original, different and unique artists in the world. Combining his experience as a writer, designer and his interest in science, philosophy and religion Dali’s genius provokes our modern world. He mixes good sense and paradox in such a manner that this introduces the spectator to a world full of aesthetic, imaginative and abstract objects and landscapes.
The influence of the place the artist was born in – Catalonia (Spain) and his personal life form Dali’s character and unique style and become a source of inspiration in his future works. As a surrealist he has shown what he has seen and felt in such a way that he ended up being misunderstood until the late 20th century. Dali’s work is an illustration of this vision of the world – a mixture of classic and baroque, of monarchy and anarchy. Also the abstraction and idealism are connected with mysticism which is something new for the art at that time. The still life and figure drawing occupy an important place of this Catalonian artist’s works. The influence of Impressionism is seen in Dali’s drawings up to 1919 where he transforms beings and things and thus developing his aesthetic style. Dali’s interest in methods of depicting spatial dimensions, the offshoot of optics and photography is noticed in his works. After understanding the value of his paintings Dali has explained that his style is based on being ‘ against’ simplicity, nature, ‘the Sun’, medicine, philosophy, skepticism, etc. In contrast he is ‘for’ complexity, aesthetics, ‘the Moon’, magic, religion, faith and so on. Another interesting concept in Dali’s art style is hidden in works like ‘Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire’, ‘Spain’, ‘Skull of Zurbaran’, ‘ The Endless Enigma’ and so on where a special viewpoint is necessary in order to be understood. This is a result of the influence of the Renaissance recognizable in the groups of figures used at that time by the artist to create double images in his paintings. Also the idea of mysticism, angelic world and cosmogonical space form another period in Dali’s art in which he is influenced by the discoveries in nuclear physics. It is obvious in paintings such as ‘Raphaelesque Head Exploding’, ‘ Galatea of the Spheres’ and so on.
In his life Dali has always been subdued to his own style and uniqueness. Like all the other artist this surrealistic personality has some main motives used in his works. One of them is connected with the image of a female. Dali is inspired by the image of the woman-wife, woman-mother and woman- freedom. In the painting ‘Spain’ the figure of the woman (made up of groups of Renaissance warriors) is leaning her elbow on a night stand and this symbolizes the Spanish Civil War. Another paintings such as ‘Imperial Monument to the Child-woman’, ‘My Mother, My Mother, My Mother’, The Great Mastrubator’, etc. prove the thesis that the idea of a female image is connected with his revelation in his works. Dali’s love – Gala has a great influence about that. Another interesting motive is the animals. For example snail – connected with human head, locusts – a symbol of waste and fear, the elephant – here it is a distortion in space. The egg is another common Dalisque image using it to symbolize a beginning, hope and love (‘The Great Mastrubator’, ‘Metamorphosis of Narcissus’ and so on. ‘The Persistence of Memory’ sometimes called soft watches or melting clocks is maybe the most famous and successful painting of Dali’s works. It’s main interpretation is that the soft watches are in close relation with time – rigid, deterministic, relative and the most – not fixed.
The imaged and ideas conceived by Dali don’t lend themselves to classification by the art-tired critic. The artist’s character, intuition and imagination are so developed that the word ‘genius’ is not good enough as a definition about his personality. Inspired by his love and passion for revealing the undiscovered Dali will never be subdued to the time of his ‘melting clocks’.
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