Essay on salvador dali

Submitted By sgonzalez031516
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There are a million different pieces of artwork, all in different shapes and sizes, but one that stood out to me the most was The Persistence Of Memory by Salvador Dali. Dali was a surrealist painter who was born in Figueres, Spain on May 11, 1904. Being a surrealist painter, Dali’s artwork can be interpreted in a number of different ways and none can be considered ethically wrong. He was well known for his dreamlike artwork and will continue to live through his artwork for years to come. Sometimes we look at artwork and we’re quick to judge, but we never really take the time to look within the painting, like what lead the artist to create such a piece. Salvador Dali was a surrealist painter who was born in Figures, Spain on May 11, 1904. He was the son to Salvador and Felipa Domenech Dali. His father was a notary and a lawyer. According to Dali’s autobiography, his childhood was filled with fists of anger against his father and schoolmates, and in return, received acts of cruelty from his father and more dominant students. At the age of 16, his mother Felipa died of breast cancer in 1929. Her death had a huge impact in his life, not only because his father later remarried his deceased wife’s sister, but because he feared that he would forget her; Which is why he vowed to never be forgotten. During this time, he was enrolled in the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid, Spain where he was expelled for confronting his professors and starting riots. In the same year, he made several trips to Spain where he met Joan Miro, the Spanish painter and sculptor who, along with poet Paul Eluard and painter Rene Magritte, introduced him to Surrealism. One Dali's major contributions to the Surrealist Movement was what he called the "paranoiac-critical method," a mental exercise of accessing the subconscious to enhance artistic creativity. In August 1929, he met Elena Dmitrievna Diakonova who was also referred to as Gala. She became his wife, muse, inspiration, and helped balance the creative forces in his life. From 1960 to 1974, Salvador Dalí dedicated much of his time to creating the Dalí Teatro Museo (Theater-Museum) in Figueres, Spain where he had his first public exhibition when he was 14. The same year as the opening of the Dalí Museum, Salvador removed his business relationship with manager Peter Moore resulting in loss of the rights to his collection along with much of his wealth. In 1980, Dalí was forced to retire from painting due to a motor disorder that caused permanent trembling and weakness in his hands. Two years later, Gala died which put Salvador into deep depression. On January 23, 1989, at the age of 84, he died of heart failure and was buried in his museum. One of his most famous paintings, and best-known surrealist work, was The Persistence of Memory. One of Salvador’s most famous pieces of artwork and most controversial, perhaps, is the Persistence of Memory, which was painted in 1931. The meaning behind this masterpiece is not easy to grasp. This painting, sometimes called Soft Watches, shows melting pocket watches in a deserted landscape setting by an ocean shore. Since the content of the Salvador Dali's clocks painting may seem illogical or irrational, one might be surprised by the very representational and nearly photographic quality of the painting, fitting well with Dali's own description of his art as being "hand-painted dream photographs." Coming up with the best visual representation of what it is like to be dreaming was one of the main goals of the Surrealists. In the beginning, Surrealism might seem a little crazy, but we've all had dreams where unrelated people, places, or objects come together in completely inexplicable ways. Understanding that Persistence of Memory most likely depicts a dream state is the first part of coming up with a meaning behind this painting. It has been said that this painting conveys several ideas within the image, primarily that time is rigid. The drooping pocket watches
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