Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was a well known spanish artist. He was famous for his strange and realistic melting depictions. His style was better known as surrealism. His skill in painting was most often associated with the renaissance period artist he studied. Dali was not only a painter, though that is what he is best known for. He also ventured out into film, Photography and even sculpture. Dali had a wild imagination which served him well as an artist. He also had a reputation for indulging himself grandiose antics. Dali was very eccentric and his public actions sometimes drew more spectators than his art. Salvador Dali was born in Catalonia, Spain in 1904. His father Salvador Dali I Cusi, was a lawyer and was very strict. Dali had a strict home life, but his mother lessened the strict lifestyle and encouraged young Salvador to pursue his artistic talents.

In 1916 he drawing workshop in his city, also that same year while on a vacation trip with a local artist Dali learned the art of painting. He fell immediately in love, painting quickly became his passion. So much so that he devoted his whole life to it. Five years later in 1921, his mother died of breast cancer. Dali was devastated by the loss of his mother and at the age of 16 the loss of a parent is a tough ordeal. He stayed in Catalonia for only a short while longer before he moved to Madrid in 1922. It was here that Salvador moved into a student residence and began to study at the school of fine arts.

Dali studied several different styles of painting including cubism, which he never could fully grasp. In 1924, Dali, who was still an unknown at this time, illustrated a book for a poet and a friend he had got acquainted with at the art school. Dali received acclaim for his illustrations and his career began to take off. Two years later, Dali was expelled from the fine arts school for accusations of anarchy. It was later this same year that Dali made a his first trip to Paris. It was in Paris that he met Pablo Picasso. Dali loved Picasso’s work, most of Salvador's paintings were influenced by Picasso and Miro.

Dali spent 1949 on to his death in Spain. In 1959, Andre Breton put together and exhibition to pay homage to surrealism. Dali as well as Miro and others were a part of this glorious event. Dali work with his artistic gift until he became violently ill as a result of his wife dosing his cocktails with drugs. Dali would never be the same, he was unable to paint in his last days. In 1989 Salvador Dali died of heart failure at the age of 84. His works are still revered and Dali will always be remembered as one of the most influential artist to ever live.


List of Famous Works:

Landscape Near Figueras-1910

The Persistence of Memory- 1931

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee- 1944

Crucifixion- 1954