Salvador Dali and Surrealism Movement

Salvador Dali, the surrealist movement founder, was from the exemplary and great generation of Spanish painters, which included the likes of Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso. His reputation as an eccentric preceded him and his ego was probably as big as the fantastic images he created. Dalí was greatly under the influence of Sigmund Freud's writings. His paintings portray everyday objects and dream imagery and unusual form and style. The paintings of Dali are a pinnacle of punctilious draftsmanship, having naturalistic details. Dalí produced and designed Surrealist films, hand-crafted jewelry, illustrated books and developed theatrical sets and costume (AADS, pp.89-95).

Thesis Statement

“Salvador Dali was the main supporter, and had an important role to play in the surrealism movement”.

Dali was at the forefront of surrealism, the artistic and literary movement that expresses the subconscious through peculiar images. Surrealism is one of the preeminent art movements of the 20th century. The movement was proclaimed by André Breton in his Surrealist Manifesto of 1924. Like all art movements, Surrealism is a product of its historic period, yet it is not limited to the 1920s and 1930s. Art historians argue over the approximate date of the movement's completion. To many, Surrealism ended after World War II, when other modern art movements became popular. The death of André Breton in 1966 marks the end of the movement for others. However, there are many critics who believe that this movement continues to this day and is reflected in the work of contemporary artists.

Breton, in his Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, argues that the surrealism is as pure Psychic automatism by which one tries to express verbally, in writing, or by any other method; the actual process of thinking. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain heretofore neglected forms of associations, in the omnipotence of the dream, in the free-wheeling play of thought. It wants to bring about the ultimate destruction of all other psychic mechanisms and put itself in their place in order to solve the primary problems of life (McNeese & Dalí, pp. 65-78).

Critics argue that the surrealist movement, fed by fantasy flights, had unique innocence attached to it. According to Andre Breton when a mind soaks completely into Surrealism, it lives over the the same excitement, which one experiences in the best days of childhood. The same connotation can be taken for the built environment, especially built landscapes. The human developed landscape is an unconscious archaeology, which mines the collective and distant memory of the initial days of human civilization. On the contrary, surrealism did have a deep dark undertone, aggravated partially by the bizarre fear of World War I. The canvases of artists' and poems, more often than not, were desolation spaces.

Salvador Dali, the supreme self-publicist who gave surrealism respectability, showed great talent for painiting, even as a child. In 1917, he performed some work "home" such as Grandmother Ana Sewing. For 18 years, he was the part of the School of Fine Arts in ...