Part of a series which introduces key artists and movements in art history,
this book deals with Salvador Dali. Each title in the series contains 48-full
page colour plates, accompanied by extensive notes, and numerous comparative
black and white illustrations.Salvador Dali (1904-89) is one of the most controversial and paradoxical
artists of the twentieth century. A painter of considerable virtuosity, he used
a traditional illusionistic style to create disturbing images filled with
references to violence, death, cannibalism and bizarre sexual practices, from
the extraordinary fluid watches in The Persistence of Memory to the gruesome
monster in Soft Construction with Boiled Beans and the fetishistic lobster in
the famous Lobster Telephone.; Born in Figueras, Spain, Dali started out as a Cubist, but subsequently
became involved with the Surrealists in Paris, the most revolutionary artists
of the time. They regarded his paintings as revealing the hidden world of the
unconscious. Indeed, the Surrealists' leader, Andre Breton, remarked: "It is
perhaps with Dali that for the first time the windows of the mind are opened
fully wide". However, Breton later expelled him from the group for his Fascist
sympathies and derided his commercial success in the United States, calling him
"Avida Dollars", an anagram of his name. Dali's response was equally curt: "The
difference between me will the Surrealists is that I am a Surrealist". Far from
restricting his interests to painting, Dali also wrote two autobiographies,
including "Diary of a Genius" (1965), designed sets and costumes for a play by
his friend Federico Garcia Lorca and collaborated with Luis Bunuel on the films
"Un Chien Andalou" (1929) and "L'Age d'or" (1931), a medium which proved
particularly apt for his provocative imagery.
