Salvador Dalí was the best exponent of surrealism that the 20th century gave us. Dalí was born in Spain in 1904 and when he was only ten years old, he made his first self-portrait, which he baptized ” The sick child”. A few years later, Salvador Dalí studied a painting course with the great Juan Nunez as a teacher, who taught him the techniques of engraving and chiaroscuro in art and painting that made his works so characteristic of him.
At the age of 18 he entered the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, where he met the illustrious writer Lorca.
Years later he meets Picasso and studies the Surrealist technique with him, joining a group of student painters. Although he was expelled shortly after.
The eccentric character of Salvador Dalí did not help him much during his early life, since due to that, he was expelled from several art schools.
His most transgressive work
This genius painter rose to fame with his work The Great Masturbator created in 1929, it is a painting that reflects nothing less than the sexual act.
All these works involve something in common and it is surrealism, a technique that is based on painting abstract shapes that symbolize reality. In this article you will see famous Dalí paintings.
What do you need
To understand Dalí’s work you need:
- Let yourself be carried away by your creativity: his technique has a lot to do with the logic of dreams. This type of painting draws an object that at first glance is real, but when looking closely at the work it describes something that is impossible.
- Get inspired by your dreams: Surrealism is a technique that is based on something that is not real. Therefore, what more inspiration than your dreams. Remember that this technique is identified by knowing how to interpret the magic of two worlds, the real and the unreal.
- One of the reasons that Salvador Dalí was a great painter was his ability to use the chiaroscuro technique in his works.
Instructions
The persistence of memory: it was created in 1931. It is one of Dalí’s most famous works. It is also known as the “soft watches”, or “the melting watches”. It is said that it is an interpretation of the painter on the theory of relativity. Like so many other works of his, it was the product of a dream. Dalí even commented that he had been inspired by a melted Camembert cheese.
- The Great Masturbator: he painted it in 1929 and stands out, in addition to the eccentricity of the subject, because it is a faithful psychological portrait that includes all of the author’s obsessions. And it is that Dalí was afraid of sex.
- The Hitler Enigma: refers to the Munich Conference, where England and France allowed Hitler to inavdir Czechosvaquia, exposing the democracies of the West.
- The Face of War: the Face of war. Painted in 1940, it represents a face floating in a barren desert. It represents misery and reflects the traumas of a Dalí who lived through the war.
- Geopolitical Child Observing the Birth of the New Man: it is a work that presents two opposing ideas, on the one hand the new and, on the other hand, the old. Conceived within the framework of the Second World War, it is a work that tries to reflect the birth of emerging countries, in the middle of a war.
- Soft construction with boiled beans: its name is already cartoonish and its most imaginative images are a premonition of the Civil War. Pick up a monstrous being with huge and deformed arms and legs, in a grotesque position.
- The Metamorphosis of Narcissus: its protagonist is the mythological Narcissus, he fell in love with his own reflection.
- The temptation of San Antonio: tries to reflect what are the most typical temptations of the human being. Pride, glory and victory are in the foreground. Of course, with images in the purest Dalinian
- Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before waking up: the artist wanted to reflect the world of dreams and, like the events experienced, they enter our dreams or influence our dream world.
- Burning Giraffe: he painted it during his voluntary exile from the Spanish Civil War. A woman with drawers and completely torn skin, which reflects helplessness. It is a work with a great psychoanalytic reading.
Tips
Are you interested in painting like Dalí? If you want to learn how to do it like him, follow these tips:
- If you are a beginner, familiarize yourself with the color wheel and color mixing will be easier for you.
- The important thing is to cultivate art, that we learn from the experiences that painting on a canvas offers us.
- To make a surreal painting you must have creativity, imagination must prevail above all.
- Be spontaneous and you will see that you will be surprised with your creation
- From each work, each painting you will learn something new in terms of technique, colors and style, you are your own teacher
- It is recommended to visit an art gallery to observe the techniques used by different authors. This will inspire you to create new paintings.
- If you decide to lean towards the technique of surrealism, take a look at some classic paintings by Salvador Dalí, a great representative of surrealism.
- Art is fun, relaxes and makes you know a part of yourself that you didn’t know, so what are you waiting for? Start the path of creation through the post How to mix colors !