Salvador Dali's Eccentric Art

Salvador Dalí is a Spanish surrealist painter who was born in Catalonia, Spain in 1904. He is well-known for his bizarre works as well as eccentric lifestyle. Many of his eccentric works are cited to have been inspired by his dreams, which was a result of Freudian influence. This method of delving into the unconscious for greater artistic creativity is called the Paranoiac critical method. In 1949, Dalí stayed in Catalonia and did works that would have an influence on pop art. He is said to have attempted suicide after the death of his wife, Gala. He died in 1989 of a heart failure.

Dalí's paintings from the earlier period (1910s-1920s) of his artistic career mostly appear as abiding to the conventions of Impressionism. I particularly like his paintings of a sailboat and of the dock of Portdogué. The Boat painting depicts a serene scenery of calm moonlight on calm water. Though Dalí used mostly cool colors, the white and yellow highlights of the moon's reflection provides an interesting contrast. The use of colors along with a steady rhythm creates a peaceful, almost melancholic atmosphere that calls to mind the 1^st two movements of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. In the painting of the Pordogué dock, Dalí's subject matter is once again a body of water, though the mood is entirely different. He had used mostly warm colors and abundant of light, which portrays a typical idyllic sunset evening usually seen in Spanish or Italian small towns. The rhythm of the painting is steady, though livelier than the Boat painting. Together these elements conjure an atmosphere that is peaceful yet cheerful, unlike the Boat painting which is peaceful but melancholic.

From 1930s onward, Dalí had deviated far from Impressionism and found his own Surrealistic style. These surrealist paintings embodied an illustrative element, as if to invite the viewers to think about the subject matter rather than just to feel the emotions in the works. A prime example of this type of paintings is Persistence of Memory (painted in the 1930s), which is viewed as an illustration of Einstein's theory of relativity, that time is malleable instead of fixed. Though Persistence of Memory is not as grotesque as most other works, it still evokes morbidly haunting, powerful emotions. In this painting, Dalí's use of color and blending techniques are very precise, which is critical in setting the mood for the paintings. The painting itself is dark despite the bright barren horizon in the upper part of the picture. Another similarly dark painting is Remorse (or Sunken Sphinx). This painting features a figure cut off at the torso burying its head in its hands, supposedly weeping toward a miniature mountains. The drab, muted colors along with a bright barren horizon resemble the same approach in Persistence of Memory. I find that Persistence of Memory and Remorse to be nightmarish and particularly in the Persistence of Memory, the nightmare is worse because the image of melting watches suggest that the nightmare would go on for eternity. To be trapped in such a place would be hellish. Similar to the two paintings examined, most of Dalí's works in this period carry a similar shocking effect, often depicting death, violence, perverted fantasies, and apocalyptic visions in a slow motion that goes on and on forever.

In the 1980s, Dalí began to paint works that contained surrealistic borderline cubist elements. He had painted a series featuring a cello and room furniture in a chaotic scene. Usually cubist paintings are static and fixed, but Dalí used many curve lines to give a sense of movement. I like the Cello paintings because of the graceful forms and movements of the objects in the picture. Even though the paintings depict violent and macabre scenes of furniture attacking the cello, I find these paintings to be more reassuring than the Persistence of Memory and Remorse, probably because it does not have the realistic qualities that threaten to materialize in reality. More than that, rather than a hellish vision that goes on and on perpetually, the Cello paintings captures a beautifully precise snap shot of the moment when these objects are perfectly poised on the edge of chaos.