Salvador Dali: Profile of a Madman

Posted by Orlin Topalov

When I was in high school I once grabbed an outdated textbook on World History, that had been trashed and piled up for recycling by a cousin of mine. I was spontaneously attracted by the art piece on the front cover - “Geopoliticus Child” by Salvador Dali as I learned from the textbook comments. This is how I was introduced to the magnificent work of the Spanish master. Right way I started gathering digitized copies of his paintings and biographical bits of information. I had found no fine art compositions more visually appealing to me than Dali’s.

The art of Salvador Dali improved, enriched and preserved the 20th century surrealist art movement. Surrealism was defined by Dali in the way he lived his life - in a constant search for new aesthetic, new humankind and a new social order, as Andre Breton suggested in his “Manifeste du surrealisme” that rational thought was repressive to the powers of creativity and imagination. Dali was deeply influenced by the renowned psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who interpreted the dreams by exploring the vast universe of the subconscious. For this reason the objects in Dali’s paintings are distorted, fragmented, out of order and coherence, as in a dream.

Last spring I spent a whole day staring at his paintings on an exhibition in Prague, dedicated to him and another world-acclaimed artist - Alphonse Mucha. I was particularly interested in the paintings and I somehow ignored the myriad of his sculptures, ceramics and photographs. Sitting back and contemplating his most popular works - “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” and “The Persistence of Memory”, I got lost in the grander reality, in the “unnatural nature” he presented in his imagery.

The first thing one notices upon seeing the “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” from a distance is that the author has made two duplicates of an object in different hues. On closer inspection one realizes that there is much more than that. On one side there is a nude motionless woman sitting on her knees in a pond of water. On the other side a half-decayed arm, holding an egg, emerges from the ground, and a narcissus is growing through the cracks of the egg. The paradox of a female body, as a symbol of birth, standing lifeless and a dead flesh, bringing life to existence, is staggering. The vividness of the reddish lustrous shine upon the vacant female figure and dullness in colour of the hand are making the picture even more contradictory. The idea that life and death, hope and despair co-exist in harmony is central to this work. I find the painting positive-minded, because when I look at the flower sprouting from the broken egg shell, I see beauty emerging from the ugliness and the absurdity of our reality.

However, I got rather frustrated why Salvador Dali put an alternative title “Bulgarian Child Eating a Rat” to one of his darkest paintings - “Freud’s Perverse Polymorph”. In his autobiography Dali mentions that in his childhood he saw a little boy standing on a bridge and watching a dying rat being eaten by ants. The boy put it in his mouth, ants and all, and bit it almost in half. A nice story, but I still miss the Bulgarian connection!?

Salvador Dali is regarded as a madman by some. Paintings entitled “Necrophiliac Fountain Flow”, “The Great Masturbator”, “Masochistic Instrument”, “Cannibalism in Autumn” and “Hitler Masturbating” might not be well-accepted by the general public. Sayings like “At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.” or “I don’t take drugs: I am drugs.” are indisputably considered truly eccentric.

Although many critics and art lovers are bewildered by his nonconformist behaviour and bizarre paintings, I am fascinated by his attitude to art, business and life as a whole. He knew how to attract media attention and get solid commissions from wealthy clients - “Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism - Money is a glory.” he said. His works are among the most well-sold items in art auction houses today.