Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was a very important Spanish painter. He was born on May 11, 1904 in Figueras, Spain. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid and was expelled from the academy for indiscipline reasons in 1923. He as also a sculptor, graphic artist and a jewelry designer. His unusual pictures made him one of the most publicized figures in modern art. Dali passed through many phases of art. He painted his art in Cubisim, Futurism and Metaphysical painting, and he joined the Surrealists in 1929. He had a great talent for self-publicity which made him very famous. Throughout his life he cultivated eccentricity and exhibitionism. He claimed that he himself was the source of his creative energy. He claimed that this method should be used not only in artistic and poetical creation but also in the affairs of daily life. His paintings displayed a thorough academic technique that was contradicted by the unreal `dream' space he depicted and by the strangely fantacy characters of his imagination. He liked to describe his paintings as hand painted postcards. He was very famous for his human figure with half-open drawers protruding from it, burning giraffes, and watches bent and flowing as if made from melting wax. Being a painter of miraculous skill, he was capable of reproducing his myriad fantasies and hallucinations as visual illusions on canvas. Dali died on Jan. 25, 1989.

Salvador Dali had an amazing talent when it came to painting. His art work had a major impact on me when I began to study his work. One of his pieces that really caught my attention was the piece, "Girl Standing at the Window in 1925". The detail in the girl is so incredible. The way he established the lights and darks in her dress make it look like a photograph. The contrast of the whole painting is mind-boggling. The way he got the curtains to look so real and transparent is so remarkable. The manner of the girl looking over the windowsill looks so life like. The horizon is so beautiful the way he finished the colors so drearily. Over all, the whole painting is breathtaking. Another one of my favorites that he painted is "The Persistency of Memory" also known as "Melting clocks". This piece is absolutely astonishing the contrast and dullish colors make it look so real and interesting. Where did he get these crazy ideas of melting clocks? The colors of the sky are so cool and irregular. The whole painting