The Surreal World of Salvador Dali: From Smithsonian Magazine

Meisler, Stanley. "The Surreal World of Salvador Dali."

Smithsonian Magazine April 2005. 01 Dec 2005 .

The author of this article, Stanley Meisler, wrote this article in advance of a new Salvador Dali exhibition that was held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in April and May of this year. The author first discusses that Dali spent much of his life trying to shock the world. Dali loved controversy and a sensation. Dali endorsed many products and seemed to love money and publicity.

The author maintains that this need for controversy obscured Dali's true genius. Many critics feel that Dali reached his peak in his 20's and 30's and sold out after that. The exhibition, the artist believes, will give people the opportunity to come to their own conclusions about Salvador Dali. Was he a genius or a madman?

Salvador Dali shares his name with an older brother who died nine months before the artist Salvador Dali was born. He also has a sister Ana Maria who is four years younger than Salvador. Dali's father was authoritarian and his mother came from a family that designed and decorated art objects like boxes and fans. His mother died when he was sixteen.

Dali's works were first exhibited when he was only fourteen years old. When he was seventeen he was admitted into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid, Spain. He believed his teachers were out of touch and claimed that he was infinitely more intelligent than they, and refused to take their exams, for which he was expelled.

Dali was attracted to the ideas of French surrealists who were trying to apply Sigmund Freud's theories to artwork. Joan Miro, a fellow artist introduced Dali to these French artists. Dali went to Paris to take place in filming a Spanish Film. That same year he met his future wife, Gala.