Salvador Dalí

By Audrey and Iulia

Salvador Dalí was a surrealist painter that was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueres,Catalonia, Spain.

He produced over 1,500 works of art in his lifetime.

Surrealism is a style of painting which features the element of surprise.

Surrealist art is often out of the ordinary, or surreal, hence the name ‘surrealism’.

Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire. 1940 oil on canvas.

In Dalí’s work, the ant symbolizes death & decay, the snail is connected to the human head, the locust is a symbol of waste and fear, and the egg symbolizes love and hope.

The Persistence of Memory. 1931 oil on canvas.

(The symbolic ants make an appearance in this painting, swarming on the golden watch.)

Dalí’s art was inspired by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró. Dalí did a number of works inspired by Picasso and Miró.

Homage to Erik Satie. 1924.

Dalí developed his own surrealist technique in the early 1930s.

He described the paranoiac-critical method as a "spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based on the critical and systematic objectivity of the associations and interpretations of delirious phenomena."

Suburbs of a Paranoiac-Critical Town: Afternoon on the Outskirts of European History. 1936.

1937 oil on canvas.

1937 oil on canvas.

1956 oil on canvas.

1936 surrealist object.

Died of heart failure on January 23, 1989 at the age of 84

His art is still remembered worldwide today and is displayed in various galleries

In honour of Dalí, a film called Little Ashes is being made, starring Robert Pattinson as Dalí and Javier Beltran as Dalí’s friend Lorca Little Ashes, set to be released in 2009.

The title comes from one of Dali’s paintings, Cenicitas (Little Ashes.)

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dali

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_Salvador_Dali

http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/allworks_c.htm