 DALÍSalvador Dalí Domenech Figueras 1904 – Figueras 1989 Dali nude.-detail- (1954) Biography. |
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| Dalí Drawings page | ||
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| FISH STILL LIFE
(1923-24) (Bodegón de Peces) Oil on canvas. (50 x 55 cm.) Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg (Florida) Dalí, an expert in techniques and gifted with the the ability to draw, undertook every kind of study and drawing work. Academic realism was a good subject for him. This picture is a kind of still life which reflects the important supremacy of light and composition. |
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| CUBIST SELF PORTRAIT
(1923) (Autorretrato Cubista) Oil with cardboard collage on wood.(104 x 75 cm). Reina Sofía National Museum This cubist-style self portrait was painted by Dalí at the time he was being influenced by this trend. He was obviously influenced by Juan Gris: the newspapers, the pipe,… Dalí demonstrates his figurative tendency again and shows us it was very difficult for him to re-interpret reality . Dalí´s academicism led him to paint the point of reference as a conic perspective at the top of the picture, where all vertical lines joined. This was his justification of formal cubism. |
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| NUDE IN LANDSCAPE
(1923) (Desnudo en Paisaje) Oil on cardboard. (51 x 50 cm.) There are several more or less determined incursions in styles. This pseudo-impressionist example suggests the painter´s ease in experimenting with the different pictorial trends. He mastered the art of drawing with such ease, that he used different styles only as a means to add color to the sketches. With this ability and with his inexhaustible dedication, Dalí created innumerable works, more than 1,000 paintings. |
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| PORTRAIT OF LUIS BUÑUEL
(1924) (Retrato de Luis Buñuel) Oil on canvas (68,5 x 58,5 cm.) Reina Sofía National Museum Dalí met Buñuel two years earlier, and both were friends of Federico García Lorca. A few years later they were to collaborate in two surrealist films. In this portrait, Dalí gives an indication of his best artistic talents, with which he attained excellent marks at the Arts School. An impeccable portrait with a landscape, this one with surrealist tendencies and very well adapted in general. |
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| GIRL IN THE WINDOW
(1925) (Muchacha en la Ventana) Oil on stone- cardboard (105 x 74,5 cm.) Reina Sofía National Museum This is one of Dalí´s most famous pictures, painted when he was only 20. His contacts with surrealism were not yet influencing his paintings. He painted a piece of a mixture of colors and simplicity in this composition. The special feature in this canvas is the female model, his sister, who appears only from the back and we can´t see her face. We would think that she is contemplating the landscape, the same as the onlooker when he contemplates this painting. |
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| HARLEQUIN
(1927) (Arlequín) Oil on canvas (196,5 x 150 cm.) Reina Sofía National Museum This is a canvas in which Dalí tries to make an attack on cubism, in this style which he adorns with his special characteristics. The background is flat and real, onto which a shadow is projected which is reflected in the shape of a harlequin. Light divides the picture in two diagonal parts with colorist contrasts. |
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| STILL LIFE BY THE LIGTH OF THE MOON
(1927) (Bodegón al Claro de Luna) Oil on canvas (199 x 150 cm.) Reina Sofía National Museum Another pseudo-cubist picture of the same period. Dalí can´t escape including absolutely real objects, even if he only draws the lines. The still life, situated in the centre, is formally cubist, but the scene is painted in a figurist style and justifies the position of the table, the houses, the sea and the moon. |
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| FOUR CADAQUES FISHERMEN’S WIVES
(1928) (Cuatro Mujeres de Pescadores de Cadaqués) Oil on canvas (148 x 196 cm.) Reina Sofía National Museum This is one of the paintings which can be included in the momentary experiments which Dalí carried out before realizing his true lines of creation. It reminds us of works by Miró or Picasso, although Dalí was a less innovative artist and was soon to find his first defined style, surrealism. |
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| THE GREAT MASTURBATOR
(1929) (El Gran Masturbador) Oil on canvas (110 x 150 cm.) Reina Sofía National Museum This picture formally contains characteristics of all his surrealistic painting: the whole balanced unity despite the large number of subjects and the huge space that joins sky and ground in the distance. Dalí was himself surreal, which allowed him to portray his own life and all his obsessions in his works. One of them was sex. A deep and good judge of Freud’s theories, Dalí didn´t hide his personality nor his problems, which he showed both in his paintings and his interviews. This open personality made the difference between him and other surreal artists. In this picture everything, more or less, has its own ambiguous meaning. The central subject is his self portrait – which he would repeat in many other pictures, very stylized but recognizable: the big nose, the yellowish color and the large face. It seems clear that the alegory´s main character is he himself, and his figure appears surrounded by several objects with mixed meanings. The grasshopper, an animal that caused him terror, filled with ants that signify death. A fish hook as family ties, the lion as sexual desire, stones as his past, a lonely figure as solitude… Masturbation appears in modernist style with the woman who emerges from his portrait, her face close to the male genitals hidden in close-fitting underpants. Near the woman is an iris which simbolizes purity – a complicated way of defining masturbation as the purest sexual relationship. Gala appears here again, as frequently occurred, in this case in the embraced couple under the main figure. In this style of self-portrait, Dalí used large eyelashes to depict his hope of making his dreams come true. |
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| IMPERIAL MONUMENT TO WOMAN-CHILD
(1929) (Monumento Imperial a la Mujer Niña) Oil on canvas (140 x 81 cm.) Reina Sofía National Museum Subconscious images are the subjects Dalí tried to depict in his pictures. It’s what he called the paranoic-critical method, which he was to increasingly express as time went by. The paintings tried to liberate his own trauma, especially sexual ones. He comes back using his usual subjects for symbolizing sexual desire, tigers or lions. We see formal composition in almost every surrealist piece, that is to say, an infinite space with a diffused horizon in which the numerous subjects which make up the picture are used to unify the sections. |
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| CRUCIFIXION or CORPUS HIPERCUBICUS
(1930) (El Hombre Invisible) Oil on canvas (140 x 81 cm.) Reina Sofía National Museum Another painting with the same surrealist style. Here, the horizon is on the upper part and is more diffused because of the time of the day: late afternoon, which makes the blue color of the sky different from other paintings. Symbolism takes root in a desire for not being observed and seing everything at the same time. The invisible man’s figure is shaped by objects in different planes which make it necessary for the onlooker to see either the whole image or a specific object. |
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| THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY
(1931) (La Persistencia de la Memoria) Oil on canvas (24 x 33 cm.) Museum of Modern Art. New York A small but nevertheless famous picture from Dalí´s most surrealist age. The landscape has influences of those works he carried out, based on the sea, when he was young – it’s even possible to recognize Cape Creus in the upper right corner. His portrait appears once more, surrounded by folded and melted clocks. He is trying to show the irrelevance of time. The only clock which is not deformed is closed and full of ants, which symbolize death. |
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| ONE SECOND BEFORE AWAKENING FROM A DREAM CAUSED BY A FLIGHT OF A BEE AROUND A POMEGRANATE
(1944) (Sueño Causado por el Vuelo de una Abeja en Torno a una Granada un Segundo antes de Despertar) Oil on canvas (51 x 41 cm.) Foundation Thyssen-Bornemisza, Thyssen Museum, Madrid. Dalí was already changing style, turning towards a classical tendency in his paintings, but he still stayed a surrealist. Traditional elements of his previous period, big spaces, felines, floating objects mixed with a compact but delicate nude – Gala -, forming a contrast with the tigers´ fierceness and the aggressiveness of the gun. A picture of small dimensions with a lot of subjects, painted with great ability. The bee flying around a pomergranate is in the lower right part of the scene, almost without importance. |
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| GALARINA
(1944/45) Oil on canvas (64,1 x 50,2 cm.) Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueras Before converting completely to a “classic painter”, Dalí painted this excellent portrait of Gala, his muse. This portrait is seen to be the first step towards his next period. He spent more than six months in finishing this piece. The name of Galarina was chosen by Dalí to compare with “La Fontarina” by Raphael. The inclined pose, the dark background (contrasting with the figure) and the light make this picture the beginning of his next mystical trend. The atmosphere is deliberately broken by the semi-naked model and by his absolute admiration for Gala. |
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| ATOMIC LEDA
(1949) (Leda Atómica) Oil on canvas (60 x 44 cm.) Dalí Theatre-museum, Figueras. In 1949, Dalí had already come back from the United States and his style was “classic” but with his own characteristics: big spaces, far horizons, floating subjects, aggressive light… The anatomic studies of the swan and model (Gala) contrast with the irreality of the situation. Dalí remains symbolic in the use of his subjects, which return to his surrealistic past. |
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| CHRIST OF SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS
(1951) (El Cristo de San Juan de la Cruz) Óleo sobre lienzo (205 x 116 cm.) Art gallery, Glasgow. Perhaps this is the most famous of Dalí´s religious paintings. Curiously, Christ´s position isn´t the artist´s original idea, but he based his inspiration on a picture kept in the Encarnación Monastery in Avila, which was painted by Saint John of the Cross. This picture belongs to Dalí’s mystic-classical age that began in the 40’s and it has been critized by a many in the know, for its commercial intent. His paintings were carried out with absolute mastery of drawing, very thought out and with marvellous compositions. Picasso said of this period of Dalí´s: “…the only Renaissance painter left in the world…”, an opinion we share and value. In addition to crucified Jesus Christ, the picture includes a landscape of Port-Lligat, very illustrated, previously studied and in an almost infinite space. The perspective of Christ himself is based on the Renaissance Law of Divine Proportion. This positioning, together with the removal of any dramatic subject – blood, wounds, pain – and shape of serenity make Christ project his presence all over the earth. |
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| GALATEA OF THE SPHERES
(1952) (Galatea de las Esferas) Óleo sobre lienzo ( 65,2 x 53,2 cm.) Gala Salvador Dalí Foundation, Figueras In this painting, Dalí tries to reflect what he was still to write about in his “Mystic Manifest”: the spiritual – mystical portrait of Gala – and science – the spheres – are combined as a general Order of the Universe. This is an idea which Dalí was obsessed with and painted over and over. The background is simplified, basically the same, with only the sky and the sea. Making up any subject would only complicate the principal theme. |
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| CRUCIFIXION or CORPUS HIPERCUBICUS
(1954) (Crucifixión o Corpus Hipercubicus) Oil on canvas (194.5 x 124 cm.) Metropolitan Museum, New York This picture is defined by Dalí as “a sensational picture, an explosive, nuclear and hypercubic Christ, a metaphysical work…” There can be no doubt that this is one of his most worked out transcendental classic experiments, the portraying of a reverent Gala and the detail to her robes is reminiscent of Zurbaran or Murillo. The composition of the cross, its cubes, the position of Christ – displaced to make the shadow in the centre – and the other subjects have caused discussions about his intention. The only sure thing is Dalí’s fascination in combining spirituality and technique expressed as geometry or mathematics. |
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| THE LAST SUPPER
(1955) (La Última Cena) Oil on canvas (167 x 268 cm.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Dalí´s great talent as a sketcher is obvious in this realistic picture, which uses an exceptional technique. Symbolic-geometric elements are evident, the scene is a dodecahedron – an element formed by twelve pentagons, the number of apostles. The transcendental transparency – divinity – of Jesus Christ in contrast to the solid symmetry of the apostles, linked to the theme without detail and with a shining light makes this picture an example of mystic composition. Open-armed Christ crowning the painting could possibly be a reference to the Resurrection. |
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| YOUNG VIRGIN SELF-SODOMIZED BY HER OWN CASTITY
(1954) (Joven Virgen Autosodomizada por su Propia Castidad) Oil on canvas Playboy collection, Los Angeles Dalí is always surprising us. When his mystic classicism seemed to have reached its zenith with “The Crucifixion or “The Last Supper”, he raided into his past, filled with sexual obsessions. The Dalí of surrealist spirit in pictures – with symbolism even in its title – reappears. But every kind of public or criticism had been won over, there would always be a picture that everybody liked, no matter the onlooker’s personality. |
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Dalí Drawings page
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