MacFormat 1996 July/macformat-039.iso/DATABASE/SHARED.DIR/01511_41.cap.txt

Text File | 1996-03-14 | 4.1 KB | 245 lines

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In 1930 Dali fell
in love with Gala
Diaronoff, the
Russian wife of
the Surrealist
poet, Paul Eluard.
She became his
muse and in 1935,
his wife. Much of
his later work
celebrated her
beauty and she
continued to be
the dominant
force in Dali's
life until
her death
#
In his
autobiography,
Dali wrote of the
death of his
parents' first-
born son, also
called Salvador,
three years
before his birth.
Dali attributed
his exhibitionism
to his desire "to
prove to myself
that I am not the
dead brother but
the living one"
#
Dali's place in
art history
has long been
questioned. In
the early Thirties
he, more than
any other artist,
represented the
spirit of
Surrealism, but by
the end of the
decade he seemed
to represent its
contradictions.
Innovation
gave way to
increasingly
bizarre money-
making antics
#
Dali always lived
his life in the
public eye, never
giving up the
extravagant style
of his youth. But
he had made his
life into art, and
he had made his
art a game. His
own comment
on this picture
was: "Like two
erect sentries,
my mustache
defends the
entrance to my
real self."
#
In later life Dali
continued to
work, experiment-
ing in Op and Pop
art, although he
was now more
renowned as an
eccentric than an
artist. He spent
much of his time
in well-publicised
seclusion in his
Cadaques studio,
receiving
internationally
fashionable people
#
Dali's cavalier attitude to his art meant the market became flooded
with fakes. By 1987 there were 400,000 fake prints in circulation.
The artist was past caring: in 1984 he was burned at his home, Pubol
Castle. He then shuffled off to live in a tower of the Dali Museum
#
Dali had great
flair for publicity
and scandal, and
these combined
with exceptional
academic skill
and a  streak
of cultivated
vulgarity, to
ensure his
reputation
during his
lifetime, if
not lifelong
critical acclaim
#
There came a time when Dali's flamboyance degenerated into cheap
exhibitionism. No-one would have taken any notice at all, were it not
for the artist's past glories and wide-spread international fame
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Surrealist art
was based on the
unsettling juxta-
position of dream-
like images. The
movement was
described by
Andre Breton as
"pure psychic
automatism... to
express verbally,
in writing or in
any other way
the true process
of thought". Dali
joined the
movement in
1929. His first
exhibition was
held in 1934
#
Surrealism
emerged from
Dada, an anti-art
movement which
challenged the
accepted
conventions of
art. One of
Dada's earliest
exponents was
Marcel Duchamp
who worked on
the principle that
anything could
be labelled art,
Duchamp
exhibited a
'signed' series
of 'ready-mades'
designed to pose
the question "Is
it art?"
#
By the time of
Dali's death
surrealism had
made its mark on
the popular arts.
The images which
had seemed so
disturbing and
bizarre in the
Twenties and
Thirties were by
now the common
currency of
advertising, pop
videos and
computer graphics
#
The Surrealist
movement
encompassed
many artists and
many trends.
Among them
were the Belgian
artist Rene
Magritte, whose
visual puns and
understated
jokes were a
world away
from the
outrageous
antics of Dali
#
Dali remained
indifferent to
the political
preoccupations
of his surrealist
colleagues and
of his country-
men. "What do
you think of
communist
growth during
the last hundred
years?" he was
asked for this
photograph.
"From the point
of view of hair
on the face," he
replied, "there
has been a
steady decline."
#
Shaken by Hiroshima, he proclaimed himself the "First Painter
of the Atomic Age". His work now combined his two preoccupations:
science and religion. In this carefully staged photo, "Atomicus",
each object appears to be suspended like an atom in space
#
Dali's religious
works of the
Fifties and
Sixties brought
his work to a
wider public.
This painting,
the subject of
controversy
when it was
bought by
Glasgow Art
Gallery in 1952,
was inspired by
a drawing of
Christ attributed
to the 16th
century Spanish
mystic, St John
of the Cross
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