Salvador Dali was an extremely fascinating Spanish artist, born in Catalunyna in 1904. He
had many creative talents and shocked society with his unusual and outrageous personality.
He was one of the most versatile artists of his time, leading him great success. Throughout
his career he successfully worked with sculpture, fashion, theater, advertising, writing,
photography, film, and most famously painting (Dali 33). Dali experimented with many
different movements but it wasn’t until he discovered surrealism did he finally decide to
reside (Dali 40). From there he thrived on the idea of reveling the gap between the reality
and illusion in his paintings (Stanley 51). Dali was an unconventional, outrageous and
rebellious human being who could cultivate his eccentric fascinations and obsessions and
create undeniably talented masterpieces based on his dreams and hallucinations. The
subconscious is based on memories of the past, which Dali used to shape his career as an
artist.
Dali’s childhood was extremely influential in shaping him into the man he grew to be.
When Dali was five his parents took him to his brother’s grave who died nine months
before he was born and told him he was his brother’s reincarnation (Secrest 52). Dali was
convinced, he stated “…we resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had
different reflections.” He “was probably a first version of myself but conceived too much
in the absolute”(Dali 11). Dali went on the rest of his life with this idea concrete into his
brain. Throughout his art he symbolically incorporated many dark subjects to reflect on
that notion.
There were two women in his life that he loved so deeply that one could possibly say he
was obsessed. Dali particularly adored his mom partially because of the lack of
relationship he had with his father. When she past when he was only 16, he was absolutely
devastated and never was the same again (Secrest 72). He later stated in his autobiography,
“This was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life…I worshiped her…I swore to
myself that I would snatch my mother from death and destiny with the swords of light that
some day would savagely gleam around my glorious name”(Dali 33). The next and only
other woman Dali fell madly in love with was, Gala. It was love at first sight and oddly she
was perfect compatible with Dali’s rare breed (Bradley 612). She was the woman of his
childhood dreams. She was the woman he used to create in his paintings before they ever
