Salvador Dali Influences

Salvador Dali is a remarkable artist of the twentieth century. According to the editors of “Salvador Dali’s Biography,” “he was born in Figueres, Spain on May 11, 1904” (www.biography.com). He went to an art school in Madrid to create his own style after he mastered his mentors’. He was expelled from art school because he felt that there was not a single professor qualified to compete with his work. The mustachioed surrealist is known for his famous painting, “The Persistence of Memory,” also known as the melting clocks. Dali’s main influences were the theories of psychologist Sigmund Freud, the era of cubism, his surroundings, and events that partook in his life. Dali was around for the Spanish Civil War ||; a time period when fascist leader Franco expelled Dali from the surrealists, as if that was going to stop Dali and his creativity! Salvador Dali went to Paris, having the opportunity of meeting with artist like Picasso, Miro, and Rene Magritte the painters that introduced Dali to the practice of Surrealism. As mentioned in the article “The Face of War,” “Dalí’s major contribution to the Surrealist movement was what
In 1940, they resided in California, which is the birth place of “Visage de la Guerre,” translated to “Face Of War.” Quoted from the article “The Face of War ,“ “the miserable face of the corpse - the visage of war - sees only death, speaks only death, and reflected in his eyes are the corpses whose eyes and mouths are also filled with death” (theartistsalvadordali.com). Thousands of lives were lost during the three year period war. Before my research and reading the passage next to Dali’s painting, I honestly believed that the image was another one of his lucid dreams. Understanding the history of the Spanish Civil War, I was able to approach the painting differently with a broader perspective of what Dali was