Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali, one of the greatest surrealists of our time. There are so many things said about this great artist, but I think he is best known not only by his excellent work but also by his extravagant behavior. He was not only a painter but also a sculptor, filmmaker, writer and insane or just a genius who wanted people to believe that he was insane. People like his work, but I think that all of you will enjoy reading anecdotes, fun facts and some of his statements.
Salvador Dali used AKA: Avida Dollars, an anagram of his name meaning “Eager for dollars”.
Dali once took his pet ocelot with him to a New York restaurant and tethered it to a leg of the table while he ordered coffee. A middle-aged lady walked past and looked at the animal in horror. “What’s that?” she cried. “It’s only a cat,” said Dali scathingly. “I’ve painted it over with an op-art design.” The woman, embarrassed by her initial reaction, took a closer look and sighed with relief. “I can see now that’s what it is,” she said. “At first I thought it was a real ocelot.”
In 1936 Salvador Dali inadvertently caused more sensation than he had intended at the International Surrealist Exhibition at the new Burlington Galleries. On a hot summer day he made a dramatic entrance for a lecture he was due to give, holding in one hand two Russian wolfhounds on a leash and in another a billiard cue. On his head was a diving helmet. He strode on the stage and tried to remove the helmet but it had been bolted down. The audience waited, unaware that Dali was suffocating. He was finally rescued and practically dead when released. The audience applauded what it thought to be a humorous pantomime.
Here you can enjoy in some of his statements and give a judge if he is a genius, insane or something else.
“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”
“What is an elegant woman? An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and who has no hair under her arms.”
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.”
“Picasso is a painter, so am I; Picasso is Spanish, so am I; Picasso is a communist, neither am I.”
“The problem with the youth of today’ is that one is no longer part of it.”
“At the age of six years I wanted to be a chef. At the age of seven I wanted to be Napoleon. My ambitions have continued to grow at the same rate ever since.”
“Many people do not reach their eighties because they spend too much time in their forties.”
“I tried sex once with a woman and that woman was Gala. It was overrated. I tried sex once with a man and that man was the famous juggler Federico Garcia Lorca [the Spanish Surrealist poet]. It was very painful.”
“I do not take drugs. I am drugs.”
11 Responses to “Salvador Dali”
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Dali was a fake and a hack.
Dali a fake, or you an idiot, which is more likely… BTW calling him “one of the great surrealists of our time” is to pretty much insult him.
Wow, great, a weird person that made weird drawings and said weird things. I ask: How did this impact anyone else’s life other than those involved in “high art?”
I see countless ingenious and beautiful things every day. They don’t have to be labeled as art, or claimed to be created for the sake of art, or be created by an “artist.” They’re nice the way they are.
Somewhere along the way “high art” was created. All it does is marginalize the common man’s artistic creations while idolizing the chosen well-connected few. It pisses me off.
my god listen to you bunch, are you all armchair art critics or what?
Welcome to the criticism too Karl hehe. Now join us in discussing meaningless ego conscience talk of nothingness, yeah!
I’m on sober and self-induced drugs too Mr. Dali :P
I think his artwork is awesome. Not for the fact that he used numerous illicit substances, namely LSD when creating his paintings, but for the fact that they are different from every other painting that I have ever seen.
Yes, there are countless beautiful things in the world around us; so what’s wrong with pointing out the fact that she likes this artist and his eccentricities. It’s funny how many people on the internet consider themselves experts.
You don’t have to idolize the “elite” few artists, there are millions out there to enjoy. The terms that people apply to groups such as “elite,” are meaningless to me. I don’t care what other people think about this man’s art. I am not saying I like it because thousands have done so before me. I’m saying I like his art because I like his art. Everyone on the internet seems to forget that opinions can be posted on the internet and are not fact. Get over it, people have different opinions than you.
Dali does seem like a crazy man, whether he tries to be or is just naturally that eccentric. Why can’t you just accept it for what it is rather than trying to analyze it?
this is not here
Skee wrote “Not for the fact that he used numerous illicit substances, namely LSD when creating his paintings”. That statement is completely and utterly false. Dali NEVER took drugs. Read any biography of Dali and you will know that. Oh, perhaps I’ve just put my finger on the problem … you’re too dumb to do any basic research before you shoot your mouth off about something you now nothing about. Look up ignorant in the dictionary and your picture will be there.
LSD was discovered later on in history than Salvador Dali did his paintings…
IF he had ever done drugs (which he didn’t) he would’ve had to have used Mescaline or Psilocybin mushrooms or some other psychedelic substances, but he didn’t.
I did hear though, that he would deprive himself of food and sleep for days to create hallucinations.
The mind is an incredible tool.
Art is the only field that I can think of that the individual states that they are an artist. No training or liscense is required. I’m no artist, but I know what I like. I was once asked, after stating that” a picture of a rooster looked nothing like any rooster I’d ever seen”, Isn’t it more artistic to create something that has never been, than to copy something that exists? So that is a school of thought that most realists can’t understand. I don’t fully, but I’m trying and I’ve always liked Dali.
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