The genius of Salvador Dalí

He is a great Catalan, undoubtedly a talented painter and sculptor, Salvador Dali, whose name is imprinted in the history of world art for an eternity.

“The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.”
​Salvador Dalí

In the paintings of this talented master, surrealism was embodied to the extent that it was not embodied in the canvases of any other artist. However, it was he who first left the surrealist ranks, slamming the door loudly, declaring “Surrealism is me.” The plots of his works are the interweaving of deep spiritual experiences, feelings, extraordinary understanding of the world. He himself is a storehouse of contradictions, loud exclamations, inadequate actions, and sharp movements.

In May 1904, a happy event occurred in the family of a wealthy notary from the Spanish province of Girona - a boy was born. Little Dali began to show his unstable nature from the early childhood. Salvador sought to stand out from the crowd by any means: he started fighting, behaved defiantly and was rude to those around him.

Noticing the child's ability to draw, the parents sent him to the municipal art school, and later he entered the Art Academy of San Fernando. During his studies, Salvador Dali created numerous paintings in the styles of cubism and dadaism and got acquainted with Pablo Picasso. The young artist did not succeed in graduating from the Academy of San Fernando: in the fourth year of study, he was expelled for his disrespectful and daring behavior, as well as arrogant attitude towards teachers.

After some time, Dali joined the ranks of the Surrealists. However, when General Franco came to power in Spain, the artist drew the painting “The Enigma of William Tell”, which, in fact, was a caricature of Lenin, deeply revered by surrealists. The latter drove Salvador Dali from their ranks, to which he responded with a phrase: "Surrealism is me."

In 1929, he met a woman who turned his life around. His goddess, muse, support and the only love, Gala or Elena Dyakonova. At that time she was the wife of Dali’s friend, French poet Paul Eluard. However, this did not prevent her from starting an affair with Dali, which ended with their secret wedding in 1934. Gala was everything for Salvador - lover, friend, helper. Her strong shrewd spirit complemented Dali's lack of will and stimulated him to work and create. The years with Elena Dyakonova can be noted as the period of the highest creative ascent for Dali.

Dali’s astonishing creations, such as The Persistence of Memory, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening, and many others, amaze with originality, inspire and give a shade of mystery to the surrounding world.
 
In his mature years, Salvador Dali not only painted, but also acted in commercials, collaborated with Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, made surreal short films, and was engaged in photography.

In 1982, Gala died. This was a real blow to the artist. Salvador begins to develop Parkinson’s disease, which makes it impossible for him to draw. In a short time, an artist who was bursting with health turned into a sullen, wicked old man, devoid of articulate speech. The agony lasted for seven years. In 1989, Salvador Dali died of a heart attack. His body was buried under the floor of one of the rooms in the Dali Museum House in Figueres, for he willed people to walk on his grave.
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Such geniuses as Salvador Dali are a rare phenomenon even in the world of art. His extraordinary and, of course, creative view of the world was reflected in the great heritage that the master left to his descendants. Dali himself looked like an image that came down from his own surrealistic canvases and therefore stood out so much against the background of real life.