Salvador Dali and his surreal paintings. Salvador Dali: the best works of artist C gave the face of war impressions

Surrealism is the complete freedom of a human being and the right to dream. I am not a surrealist, I am surrealism, - S. Dali.

The formation of Dali's artistic skill took place in the era of early modernity, when his contemporaries largely represented such new artistic movements as expressionism and cubism.

In 1929, the young artist joined the surrealists. This year marks an important turn in his life since Salvador Dali met Gala. She became his mistress, wife, muse, model and main inspiration.

Since he was a brilliant draftsman and colorist, Dali took a lot of inspiration from the old masters. But he used extravagant forms and inventive ways to compose an entirely new, modern and innovative style of art. His paintings are notable for the use of double imagery, ironic scenes, optical illusions, dreamy landscapes and deep symbolism.

Throughout his creative life, Dali was never limited to one direction. He worked with oil paints and watercolors, created drawings and sculptures, films and photographs. Even the variety of forms of execution was not alien to the artist, including the creation of jewelry and other works of applied art. As a screenwriter, Dalí collaborated with renowned director Luis Buñuel, who directed The Golden Age and The Andalusian Dog. They displayed unreal scenes, reminiscent of the revived paintings of a surrealist.

A prolific and extremely gifted artist, he left a huge legacy for future generations of artists and art lovers. The Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation launched an online project Catalog Raisonné of Salvador Dalí for a complete scientific cataloging of paintings created by Salvador Dali between 1910 and 1983. The catalog consists of five sections, broken down by timeline. It was conceived not only to provide comprehensive information about the artist's work, but also to determine the authorship of the works, since Salvador Dali is one of the most forged painters.

The fantastic talent, imagination and skill of the eccentric Salvador Dali are attested to by these 17 examples of his surreal paintings.

1. "The ghost of Vermeer Delft, which can be used as a table", 1934

This small painting with a rather long original title embodies Dali's admiration for the great 17th century Flemish master, Jan Vermeer. Vermeer's self-portrait is made taking into account Dali's surreal vision.

2. "The Great Masturbator", 1929

The painting depicts the inner struggle of feelings caused by the relationship to sexual intercourse. This perception of the artist arose as an awakened childhood memory when he saw a book left by his father, open on a page with depicted genitals affected by venereal diseases.

3. "Giraffe on Fire", 1937

The artist completed this work before moving to the United States in 1940. Although the master argued that the painting was apolitical, it, like many others, reflected the deep and unsettling feelings of unease and horror that Dali must have experienced during the turbulent period between the two world wars. Part of it reflects his internal struggles in relation to the Spanish Civil War, and also refers to Freud's method of psychological analysis.

4. "Face of War", 1940

The agony of war is also reflected in the work of Dali. He believed that his painting should contain omens of war, which we see in the deadly head stuffed with skulls.

5. "Dream", 1937

One of the surreal phenomena is depicted here - a dream. This is a fragile, unstable reality in the world of the subconscious.

6. "The phenomenon of a face and a bowl of fruit on the seashore", 1938

This fantastic painting is especially interesting, since in it the author uses double images that endow the image itself with a multi-level meaning. Metamorphoses, surprising juxtapositions of objects and hidden elements characterize Dali's surreal paintings.

7. "The Persistence of Memory", 1931

This is perhaps the most recognizable surreal painting by Salvador Dali, which embodies softness and hardness, symbolizes the relativity of space and time. It relies heavily on Einstein's theory of relativity, although Dali said that the idea for the painting was born at the sight of Camembert cheese melted in the sun.

8. "Three Sphinxes of Bikini Island", 1947

War is revived in this surreal depiction of Bikini Atoll. Three symbolic sphinxes occupy different planes: a human head, a shattered tree and a nuclear explosion mushroom that speaks of the horrors of war. The painting explores the relationship between three subjects.

9. "Galatea with spheres", 1952

The portrait of Dali's wife is presented through an array of spherical shapes. Gala looks like a portrait of Madonna. The artist, inspired by science, lifted Galatea above the tangible world into the upper etheric layers.

10. "Molten Clock", 1954

Another image of an object measuring time has received an ethereal softness, which is not typical for a hard pocket watch.

11. "My naked wife, contemplating her own flesh, turned into a staircase, into three vertebrae of a column, into the sky and into architecture", 1945

Gala from the back. This remarkable depiction has become one of Dali's most eclectic works, combining classics and surrealism, calmness and strangeness.

12. "Soft construction with boiled beans", 1936

The second title of the picture is "Premonition of the Civil War". It depicts the alleged horrors of the Spanish Civil War, as the artist painted it six months before the conflict began. This was one of the premonitions of Salvador Dali.

13. "The birth of liquid desires", 1931-32

We see one example of a paranoid-critical approach to art. The images of the father and possibly the mother are mixed with the grotesque, unreal image of the hermaphrodite in the middle. The picture is filled with symbolism.

14. "The riddle of desire: My mother, my mother, my mother", 1929

This work, created on Freudian principles, exemplifies Dali's relationship with his mother, whose distorted body appears in the Dalinian desert.

15. Untitled - Fresco painting design for Helena Rubinstein, 1942

The images were created for the interior decoration of the premises by order of Helena Rubinstein. This is a frankly surreal picture from the world of fantasy and dreams. The artist was inspired by classical mythology.

16. "Sodom self-gratification of an innocent virgin", 1954

The painting depicts a female figure and an abstract background. The artist studies the question of repressed sexuality, which follows from the title of the work and the phallic forms that often appear in Dali's work.

17. "Geopolitical Child Watching the Birth of a New Man", 1943

The artist expressed his skeptical views by painting this painting while in the United States. The shape of the ball seems to be a symbolic incubator of the "new" person, the person of the "new world".

Salvador Dali, thanks to his all-consuming talent, could turn everything he touched into a "museum exhibit", into a masterpiece, a heritage for future generations. Be it a photograph or a painting, a book or an advertisement - he managed to do everything at the highest level. He is a genius who felt cramped in his country, his works were ahead of their time and thanks to this the artist became “great” during his lifetime. Today, as you may have guessed, we will talk about the most famous representative of surrealism - Salvador Dali and about his best, most famous paintings.

“… I made up my mind and began to comprehend space-time by contemplating levitation, which destroys entropy” - the artist's words, said as a description to his painting depicting the process of loss of form. It was written in 1956. It is currently housed in the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg.

Landscape near Figueres is one of the artist's earliest works, which he painted at the age of 6 on a postcard in 1910. This is a striking example illustrating the impressionistic period of Dali's work. It is currently in the private collection of Albert Field in New York.

The Invisible Man or The Invisible Man is a painting painted by Salvador Dali between 1929 and 1933. Presented at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. This is an unfinished experimental work in which Dali practiced dual imagery. On it, the artist very exquisitely depicted the hidden meanings and contours of objects.

“The phenomenon of a face and a vase of fruit on the seashore” is another surreal painting that demonstrates metamorphoses, hidden meanings and outlines of objects. The semblance of a fruit bowl on the table and the landscape form the folded figure of a dog and the face of a man. This work was written in 1938. It is now in the Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.

In 1943, during the Second World War, Dali painted a picture of the birth of a new man. We see how a person is trying to hatch from an egg, which symbolizes the birth of a new force, and is also a symbol of the universe.

This work was painted in 1940, at the beginning of World War II in California, USA, where the artist lived for 8 years. Through his work, he condemns the horrors of war and the suffering of the people facing it. The painting is in the Boijmans-van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

"The dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate, a second before awakening" is one of the few paintings Dali painted in 1944. This is an example of Freud's influence on surreal art, as well as the artist's attempt to explore the world of dreams. Located in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.

The painting was painted in 1954. This is an unconventional, surrealistic depiction of Jesus Christ crucified in a tesseract - hypercube unfolded. The woman below - Gala - the wife of Salvador Dali. The artist, as it were, hints that Christ is crucified by the coldness of this world and heartlessness. The canvas is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Undoubtedly, this is one of the best and most famous paintings by Salvador Dali. It was written in 1931. Has three names - "Persistence of memory", "Persistence of memory" and "Soft watch". Interestingly, the idea of ​​its creation was inspired by the appearance of Camembert processed cheese. It depicts a person's experience of time and memory, which is revived by the area of ​​the unconscious, in the form of a flowing clock.

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"My name is Salvador - the Savior - a sign that in a time of threatening technology and the prosperity of mediocrity, which we have been privileged to endure, I am called to save art from emptiness."

Catalonia, spring 1970

The morning sun filled the poor little room, and in the bright, cheerful light, the beggarly atmosphere seemed even more squalid and pitiful. The dusty, dilapidated chest of drawers seemed to have wilted under the well-aimed sight of the rays, the shabby carpet shrank, the photographs in homemade frames evoked sadness, although the smiling people in the pictures seemed to correspond to the good weather.

Anna sat up abruptly in bed, the edge of the blanket, which had fallen out of the torn duvet cover, touched one of the frames on the scratched, paint-smeared table, and she flew to the floor. The glass was broken. Anna reluctantly bent down, fished out a photograph from the fragments and looked at it with almost disgust. Broke - and good. She no longer remembers when it was. And what difference does it make if this never happens.

Mother, father and she - Anna - stood, embracing, on the cathedral staircase and carelessly smiling at the spring sun, as bright as today. Mother - slender, pretty, in a long light dress with sleeves-lanterns, in shoes with low heels, with a lace kerchief casually thrown over her hair gathered in a strict bun and a rather large woven basket-bag in her hands, she looked like a young lady who had descended from Renoir's canvas. Father - tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in his only, but truly ceremonial suit with steamed lapels and shiny jacket buttons and delightfully straight trousers, with a perky look and an open snow-white smile with one hand carefully supported his wife under the elbow, with the other firmly pressed to my daughter. The daughter did not look into the lens. The girl lifted her head with a shock of cheerful dark curls, knocking out from a short braid with a huge bow, up and admired her parents. The girl was wearing a long white dress, shoes with a tiny, but still heel, and her shoes - silver buckles, entwined with garlands of sparkling beads. For the sake of these shoes, the mother handed over to the pawnshop an old brooch that she inherited from her grandmother - her only piece of jewelry besides a thin wedding ring. Anna would never have known if she had not overheard her mother complaining to her friend that if it had not been for her daughter's sacrament, she would have never ... She really wanted to hate the shoes and give them up. But alas! They were so beautiful and fabulously incredible among all the most ordinary and even rather poor clothes in her closet that it was beyond her strength to part with them. Anna whispered to her father about the brooch. He said nothing, only the faint wrinkle on his forehead became deeper and more expressive for a split second.

And then came that First Communion Day. Anna walked to the cathedral together with other equally proud and happy Girona boys and girls and thought that no one had such amazingly sparkling buckles. And when it was all over and they left the church, and the photographer had already said the sacramental: “Attention! I'm taking pictures! " - Father suddenly, apologizing, threw up his hand, asked to wait and, like a magician, fished that very old brooch out of his pocket! He pinned her on his mother's dress and stood still, supporting his wife and hugging his daughter. And Anna admired her parents. In the eyes of the amazed, amazed, delighted mother there was a mute question: "How?" Pride and complacency never left the face of his enamored father. And ten-year-old Anna just smiled, looking at them and not at all doubting that this would always be so.

Only eight years have passed, but it seems like an eternity. According to Anna's feelings, all this was in a past life. She disdainfully tossed the picture aside, trying to get the happy pictures of the past out of her head. All this is as if not about her. For a long time not about her. These same eight years are not about her.

The father was laid off at the factory. It came as a blow. Against the backdrop of constant talk about a finally growing economy, which was heard everywhere: from radios, in cafes, in the market, against the backdrop of screaming headlines about the economic boom in newspapers and magazines, job loss was even more depressing. Mother again pawned the brooch (the ransom was out of the question) and got twice as many orders. Mother was a good dressmaker and always earned a pretty penny. My father used to be proud of this, always with gusto put on the same ceremonial suit with shiny buttons and at every step told that this was the creation of his beloved Elena. And now he even smelled of irritation from his own failure because of his wife's back, constantly hunched over at the sewing machine. He was more and more silent, smiled less often, closed in on himself and lay on the sofa, his face turned to the wall.

- Is Daddy sick? - Anna for some reason avoided her father, who now seemed gloomy and embittered.

- A little, honey.

- And what hurts him?

- Clear. - Anna went to her room, took brushes and paints and painted daddy's sick soul - a dark whirlwind of a black-and-red storm rising from the ashes of broken illusions and going into the abyss of dark green swamp melancholy. Mother was frightened by these pictures.

- What are these stripes and circles? I'd rather draw something understandable. Apples, for example, or flowers. And why, in general, is this drawing. Better go - I'll teach you how to sew.

Anna did not work as a seamstress. She only pricked her hands painfully. There were many tears - little use, and her mother, in the end, left her alone. Their alliance collapsed. Mother now whiled away the time with a typewriter, father with a sofa, Anna at a homemade easel that her father had made for her several years ago. Anna spent all her free time at an art school, half listening to her mother's displeasure:

- Who needs this daub? And why did I take you there? Is an artist a profession? Whom does she feed?

- Salvador!

- Anna! Do not make me laugh! Where are you and where is Dali?

Anna did not dare to argue, avoided the conflict, but still whispered under her breath:

“At least we're both Catalans.

About a year later, my father got a job at a new factory, but this did not bring joy to the mother. A new place - new acquaintances who were absorbed in the idea of ​​Franco's dismissal. Father, on the contrary, perked up, straightened his shoulders, spoke in slogans and believed in a bright future. His mother, on the other hand, bent even more and quietly whispered that he would end his days in prison.

- Don't croak! - the father was indignant and peacefully asked to give birth to his second child.

“We can barely pull one,” the mother sighed and averted her eyes. She also wanted a second child: certainly a boy, and so that he would be as tall and smart, and, of course, then with an education, so that not like the parents. Well, not like a sister, of course, imagining herself an artist. What kind of artist in Girona, where, except for an art school, and there is nowhere to learn further? The boy wanted desperately, but it was incredibly difficult to decide. It seemed to the mother that if the father was not imprisoned, then they would certainly be fired again for radical views, and she would have to pull not one child alone, but two. And two children during Franco's time for a Spaniard, to be sure, is a real luxury, and for her family it is an unaffordable luxury. And yet maternal instinct prevailed. Anna was almost fifteen when she was informed about the imminent addition to the family. She, of course, was delighted. Not that she dreamed of a little brother or sister - she dreamed of drawing. And it seemed to her that the mother, with the appearance of the baby, would reconcile and let her, Anna, go to the Academy of Arts in Madrid. For a short while, an atmosphere of happy anticipation reigned in the house. Family dinners were once again idyllic and quiet. There were no father's revolutionary slogans, no mother's nervous tears, no Anna's desire to hide in her room and throw confusion on canvas. Parents constantly discussed male names, because "the girl simply cannot appear, there will certainly be a boy, we already know." Anna was a little offended, it seemed to her that she too had mistakenly taken the place of some boy, whom her mother wanted with the same incredible strength, but it did not happen. She ventured to voice her fears out loud, and in order to relieve her of anxiety, her parents even agreed to the name she had chosen for her brother, and her mother said, overpowering herself:

“After all, if there’s a girl again, you don’t have to worry about the name. Alejandro, Alejandra - what's the difference!

Alejandro is born. Alejandro was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. The father somehow immediately wilted, he avoided approaching the panting child and was in advance tuned in to an imminent end. The mother, on the other hand, seemed to be mad in her desire to outwit fate. With burning eyes, nervously fingering diapers and undershirts, she inspired Anna:

- Doctors say that with good care, he can live up to forty! You just need a lot of protein, and vitamins, and inhalations, yes, certainly inhalations, and, of course, antibiotics, because pneumonia will be almost constant. Both physical education and massage. Of course, all of this is so expensive. But the state helps, and we are working, and we are not old at all, we will raise the boy. And medicine is moving forward. Who knows what will happen in twenty years, perhaps they will find a cure. They are already talking about future lung transplantation, can you imagine?

Anna had no idea. That night she dreamed of a picture: a pair of lungs, entangled in a poisonous green web, burst out of the sternum. One aspired downward, where it raged intending to consume his flame, the other seemed to want to soar and disappear in the shark jaws approaching him from above. And around this terrifying confusion flies flew, snakes swarmed and grasshoppers jumped. In the lower right corner there was an autograph that Anna could not help but recognize. The signature "Dali" was written so clearly and read so clearly that the dream receded. No, no, Anna shook her head. A genius could not draw grasshoppers. This is one of his phobias, she herself read the interviews, like at school, knowing about his fear, classmates mocked El Salvador and put hated grasshoppers behind his collar. Dali would not paint them. This is her - Anna's - surrealism. The girl heard the booming, hoarse cough of a baby behind the thin wall and grinned. Oh no! This is her realism. She went to the canvas and painted her dream. The father will work, the mother will take care of her brother, and maybe they will still let Anna go to Madrid. After all, they didn't mind the art school that much. They loved to hear that their daughter had talent.

- Let him go. Moreover, the lessons are free - that's what the parents said. And although Anna remembered that they did not consider the profession of an artist a profession, she really hoped that she would be able to convince them, using free training as an argument. “You can go to the academy through a competition, but I won't get into other faculties - I have been drawing all my life and I can’t do anything else, and I don’t want to be able to do anything else” - such was the phrase she had prepared, which she intended to utter in two years.

Two years later, just before Anna's school graduation, her father suffered an industrial injury: an irreversible fracture of the spine. He was lying on the couch again, only he could not turn away. He couldn't do anything at all. Only cry when his wife and daughter turned his immobilized body over, trying to avoid bedsores. On the day when her father was discharged from the hospital for "living out", Anna took a picture from the easel, on which she worked for two months. It was a picture of the church in Figueres. She intended to send the work to the admissions office of Madrid - they needed a cityscape. She had to go to Figueres three or four times, and the landscape would be finished. Anna put the painting back on the wardrobe. She removed all the paintings, brushes and paints there. Everything! Not up to painting! Not to dream! Not up to life!

- Anna, think! Her elderly art school teacher could hardly hold back her tears. “Are these hands,” she squeezed the girl’s long, thin fingers, “designed to work in a factory? Your brushes were born to create paintings!

“I've already decided everything,” Anna insisted stubbornly. - We need money, but the plant needs people.

- Anna, this is wrong. What happened in your family is, of course, terrible, but sacrificing your dream is wrong.

If Anna had seen herself from the side at that moment, she would have noticed that just for a moment the same wrinkle flashed on her forehead as her father had when he heard about the pawned brooch.

- Time will tell, - answered Anna.

But time seemed to have stopped. Days passed, equally monotonous, fate seemed to mock Anna and her family. The girl worked as a ceramic tile stacker in a factory. Sometimes she looked into the art workshop and, holding her breath, watched the work of the artists for several seconds. They hand-applied a design invented by an important and strict designer on expensive tiles. Oh, if only Anna had a chance to become (no, of course, not a designer, she never dreamed of that) at least one of these artists who sat in one place for hours and solemnly wrote out curls, petals and twigs. A minimum of creativity, a minimum of imagination, but still they painted. And Anna came home half-dead, and she still had to sit with her father, wash him, feed him, after all, the mother was also completely exhausted - she was torn all day between two disabled people. Play with Alejandro - the kid is not to blame for anything, he is just a child who needs attention. So said her mother, and Anna did what was expected of her. She had already forgotten that she herself had recently been a child with her transcendental dreams and bright plans. It would be easier for her if the mother showed sympathy, pity, or at least asked what her daughter really wanted from life. But it seemed to the mother that no one in the world could have other tasks than to prolong the life of her precious son. And Anna continued humbly, without murmuring.

Prolonged as much as I could. Two years. Two long years of dust, dirt and heaviness. Two hardest years of constant coughing, inhalation, pills, injections. Two years of maternal hope and almost insane faith. They ended one day. Anna returned from work and by a mean tear that rolled down her father's silent cheek, she realized that it was all over. Mother was not at home. And Anna was even glad that for some time she could not cry and not moan. I didn't want to cry at all. She seemed to herself disgusting, disgusting, a person with an ugly, unmerciful soul. After all, a feeling of immense relief and heady freedom overwhelmed her much more than melancholy pity for her dead brother. “He doesn't care anymore,” her head pounded, “but I will live, live, live.”

The key turned in the lock. Anna wanted to rush to her mother, embrace her, cry on each other's shoulders, finally, talk about how incredibly difficult it all was and, perhaps even better, that what happened happened earlier than it could. But her mother got ahead of her:

- Are you satisfied?

Gray, unwashed strands hung like icicles along his face. Her eyes pierced Anna with a heavy, almost insane look.

“I don’t…” Anna covered her face with her hand, as if trying to protect herself from those eyes.

- Satisfied! - Mother shook her head and laughed hysterical laugh, more like crying. - You should be happy. You dreamed about it right away. Do you think I have not seen? Don't you think you understood?

- Mama! What are you saying ?! It was just hard for me, that's all.

- Hard?! What do you know about what is hard ?! It was my son who died! I have! I have! - Mother walked past Anna. - You took it away! Anna did not dare to utter another word. I stood in silence and thought about my father, who was forced to helplessly listen to all this and suffer from the impossibility of changing anything. - Do you think I did not notice with what longing you look at your stupid closet? I have long wanted to throw out all this art - it only collects dust, all hands did not reach, but nothing, I will deal with this, I still ...

- I'll finish painting you tomorrow.

* * *

Anna was going to keep her promise. She carefully placed the photograph, which she still held in her hands, on the dresser. "It's still good that the photo was not damaged." Yes, she hardly remembers those happy times. But there is photography, which means that Anna's happy childhood is not a mirage at all. She listened to the silence of the house. The only sound that came from the next room was the regular and stringy snoring of his father. The girl glanced at the simple alarm clock at the head of the bed. Eight hour. She slept for almost ten hours. When was the last time? She went to bed late, got up early, and at night every now and then woke up from the strained barking cough of her brother. Probably, my father was still asleep precisely because for the first time in two years no one and nothing disturbed his night sleep.

Anna looked out of her room. The blanket on my father's bed rose and fell to the accompaniment of hissing wheezing. Mother's bed remained intact.

- Mom? Anna tiptoed across the room and looked into the small kitchenette. It was empty. The girl flushed and bit her lip in anger. Well, of course! Mother decided to sink into grief: she went to wander around Girona, or shed tears in the hospital, or light candles in the cathedral. Wherever she is, it doesn't matter! The important thing is that she is not in the house. A great way to keep Anna from leaving. Mother knows very well that Anna will not dare to leave her father. Such a kind of punishment: if you want to leave the plant, stay at home. Can't you see, we have a helpless man here, and your business is to take care of him. Anna grimaced. Well, I do not! She will not leave anyone to leave, but leave for a while - why not? “Stop living someone else's life! She repeated the words of her master. - It's time to live yours! "

Half an hour later, Anna was in a hurry to the station. The father was washed and fed. There were fresh newspapers on the table next to his bed, there was a bottle of water, several sandwiches on a plate were covered with a napkin, the radio was humming softly in Raphael's voice. Anna's soul was calm. She had nothing to reproach herself with. Is it only that, just a few hours after her brother's death, she, almost dancing, walked down the street and also sang softly under her breath:

- Heart, it can't be! You don't want to kill me! A line from a song by the famous Spanish singer Raphael.

Anna herself did not understand why this romantic melody about unrequited love had become attached to her. Most likely, it was just a futile attempt to calm down so that the heart was not beating so hard. But it jumped, jumped, fluttered and sang. It sang when Anna in a trembling voice asked for a ticket to Figueres at the box office, sang when she ran onto the platform, sang when she got into the carriage, sang when the train started to move and, picking up speed, began to carry her farther and farther from Girona to where some- then with a sixth sense the girl hoped to meet a miracle.

Anna looked out the window at the rapidly changing landscape. The rather dusty, sun-dried and somewhat bleak surroundings of Girona soon gave way to the bright, dense green colors of almost French Catalonia. Looking at this amazingly tasty, attractive, as if unrealistic nature, the girl suddenly remembered the painting "Spain" The painting was painted in 1938. his beloved Dali. Yes, the artist depicted a country suffering from a civil war. But nevertheless, the colors he used on canvas were also common for the appearance of modern Spain: a sprawling Spanish plain the color of coffee with milk - a mixture of dirt, dust and chaos. The sky is on the horizon. But not bright and not blue, but some dull, gloomy, as if lifeless and dull from what the country has to experience. And in the center of the canvas is suffering Spain itself in the form of a strange pedestal with an open box, from which a bloody rag hangs, and a naked female hand, as if growing out of a horse's head and the figures of other animals and military, scurrying around the picture.

Spain has not been at war for a long time, but has it really changed? For Anna, not at all. She herself reminded herself of this image of dullness and dullness, dreary and joyless.

Under Figueres was a morning fog - a light, gentle haze, behind which one could guess the brightness of the sun, and the deep blue of the sky, and the juicy aroma of raging greenery everywhere, and the rustle of living mountain streams. Dali did not write such a Spain. He preferred to live in it. And write? What for? Idyll is a plot for limited minds. Well, Anna doesn't pretend to be a genius. She is also happy that she breathes the same air with El Salvador. And with pleasure he will write the Spain in which the maestro lives.

Figueres met the girl with the warm rays of the spring sun and the aroma of freshly baked croissants (the proximity of the French border made itself felt). Anna easily picked up an easel and a tuba with brushes and paints and walked quickly towards St. Peter's Church. For two years the landscape has not changed. Anna physically felt the exhaustion of a hungry man who had not been allowed to eat for too long, but now she was brought to a table laden with food and offered to make a choice. Where do you start? Painting deep clear skies or dealing with the unfinished west wing of the church? Or maybe add to the canvas this ginger cat, which is cheekily washing up right on the tavern table? Yeah why not? Great hint: the mundane is next to the divine. And this couple of old men who drink their morning coffee and smile at the sun, which has already conquered a piece of the square. We must hurry. In three hours it will fill the entire space, the light will change, and it will become too hot to work.

Anna decided to start from the wing of the church. She was afraid that she might lose the gift of accurate reproduction. Who knows if the eyes are blurry, or if your hands get confused after months of inactivity. The girl began to work exactly as a person is fed, who for a long time did without food. Unhurriedly, in small strokes, stopping, peering, feeling the wondrous taste of each stroke, Anna painted the stone outlines of the church on the canvas. Like any person keen on her work, she did not notice anything around. But it was impossible not to hear this exclamation. First, something banged on the left, then a loud indignant voice rang out:

- Manipulate! By whom? Me? Impermissible, outrageous and extremely reckless! What do they think of themselves ?!

Anna did not even understand what had caught her attention. These words, reaching consciousness, or the fact that the whole square froze at once and turned in the direction of the voice. The girl also looked in that direction and froze in mute amazement. No, there was nothing too shocking in a person who spoke loudly today. The usual dark suit. Unless the trousers are overly narrowed and the tie is deliberately bright so that it can be seen from everywhere. Her shoulder-length hair is carefully combed back and styled with gel, an elegant cane taps indignantly next to expensive shoes polished to a shine. Apparently, with this cane its owner knocked on the stone wall of the destroyed theater. Almost an ordinary, well-to-do Spaniard. Let there are not so many of them, such rich people, at present, but they are. And they probably wear expensive shoes, dandy jackets, bright ties and ironed pipes. But this citizen could not be confused with any of them. Not only Anna recognized him. The whole square glared at him, prepared to raise their hat or bow politely in greeting. Those eyes are slightly protruding, those long mustaches dashingly twisted upwards ... He said that he cuts off the ends, and then glues them back with honey. The mustache grows, dashingly curling upwards, and makes the appearance of its owner unique and easily recognizable everywhere.

- Senor Dali! - The arch of the destroyed theater seemed to vibrate from a loud voice, and a breathless man ran out of there. - Salvador! - He caught up with the famous artist and almost decided to touch his elbow, but changed his mind in time. The hand froze in the air, and the words in my throat. He still stood next to the man who had riveted everyone's attention, and kept repeating, as if he were a habit:

- Senor Dali, Salvador!

The artist was impatiently awaiting the continuation, tapping with his cane, and, without waiting, jokingly bowed either to his interlocutor, or to grateful spectators and loudly introduced himself:

- Salvador Domenech Felip Jacint Dali and Domenech, Marquis de Dalí de Pubol.

“Noooo,” Anna moaned too loudly, and the artist turned to her, raising an ironic eyebrow. He snapped his shoes, bowed his head and confirmed with a grin:

- Himself.

- Can not be! - This Anna has already uttered in a barely audible whisper. Lips stuck together, her throat was dry, it seemed to the girl that even the church on the canvas, and maybe on the square, was squinting in surprise. - Salvador Dali! - Anna squeezed her hand, which she held in her hand so that her knuckles turned white, her nails dug into her palm painfully.

If you look at it, this meeting was not so impossible. After all, Figueres is the artist's hometown. Here he was born, raised, his father lived here, probably his sister's family lives. And Dali himself may well have an apartment or even a house here. Although, as far as Anna remembered, the newspapers wrote that he had built a castle for his wife in Pubol. Perhaps they live there. Or, as before, in Port Lligat. Be that as it may, but all these places are very close to Figueres. Dali is a free man, much more free than others. And he certainly can afford to be where he pleases. Probably, if last year it was announced that Armstrong had landed on the moon together with the famous Catalan, Anna would have been less amazed. Although, of course, this assumption in itself is incredible and not at all in the spirit of the artist. Dali is very sensitive to his health, safety and self-preservation. He might well have decided that space is teeming with unexplored bacteria. But if he was persuaded to put on a spacesuit and explained that the flight would be the most grandiose event in the history of mankind (how could such a grandiose event do without Dali himself?), Then the king of outrageousness could use the offer for another dizzying exit. But the artist did not fly to the moon. But he stood here, in the center of Figueres, a few steps from Anna and her easel, casually leaning on a cane and looking at his companion with an expression of extreme displeasure. And this unexpected closeness of a genius, this wonderful moment, which Anna could not dream of even in her wildest dreams, seemed so unreal that the girl even had to close and open her eyes several times and painfully pinch her hand to believe: this is not a dream and not a mirage.

Having produced the proper effect, the artist forgot about the world around him and paid full attention to the man who stopped him. He said something quietly, hastily to Dali. Even at a distance, Anna could see how worried this elderly, rather plump man was: sweat appeared on his forehead, his face turned red, his hands were constantly moving in some kind of unrestrained dance, designed to convince the artist of the correctness of the interlocutor. It was impossible to make out the words, but Anna noticed how one of the dancing hands touched Dali's brush, and he immediately twitched with disgust, took out a snow-white handkerchief from his pocket and hastily wiped his palm (the artist felt a pathological fear of germs). However, the artist's interlocutor did not notice anything and continued to bombard him with unknown arguments. Anna understood that she was acting ugly, but she could not bring herself to look away and kept an eye on what was happening. She could not see the artist's face, but for some reason it seemed that he was listening inattentively and even scornfully. She was probably right, because very soon Dali waved his hands, as if trying to push the man away from him, and said quite sharply and loudly:

- It's outrageous! They want the impossible! Never! Do you hear ?! This will never happen!

Dali's interlocutor, obviously, tired of persuasion, he also switched to raised tones and recited in syllables throughout the square:

- Do-do-may, Sal-va-dor! You have been going to the e-th-mu for ten years. Boo-det o-bid-no, if ...

- Get out! - Dali screeched furiously and waved his cane, almost hitting his companion. The man staggered back and turned pale. Then he pulled himself together and, nodding briefly: "As you please" - turned abruptly and walked back to the theater. In a few seconds he had already disappeared behind the stone ruins. The artist was left alone.

The square was full of people. Eleven o'clock is coffee time for all of Spain. And even if the weather is good, the tables in street cafes will never be empty at this time. Even the cheeky ginger cat had to give up his place to the lovers of the magic drink. The mysterious morning silence was replaced by delicious smells, loud sounds, and a hurried mood. The town revived, hurried, bustled, and in this short pause at the shabby wooden tables under the rays of the spring sun no one cared about the thin man standing alone in the square. He looked around in confusion, as if looking for consolation. Anna felt pity for the artist spreading in her soul. As a rule, most famous personalities are attracted by inattention to their immodest personas, and Dali, such behavior of the public should have scared, annoyed and simply infuriated. He looked around with the dissatisfaction of a predator that had missed its prey. His intense gaze met Anna's pitiful eyes. The artist moved towards the girl. Her heart pounded. The blood rushed to my cheeks. "God help me! What to do?" Anna turned to her easel and began to paint random strokes on the canvas. At the same time, she understood that she was at risk of ruining the landscape, but she could not force her hand to stop.

“Eleven,” came a moment behind her. Anna did not dare to turn around, and the artist continued:

- Working at this time is a crime.

“I… I…” the girl bleated hesitantly, “I know.

She pulled herself together and, turning to the artist, explained:

“In an hour, the sun will change the light, and I won't have time to finish.

- So, finish another time, - Dali winced. - Time to drink coffee. And you have the most suitable company for this. - The artist tilted his head, confirming the invitation.

"Even if I die tomorrow, - suddenly flashed in Anna's head, - life has not been lived in vain." With shaking hands, she folded her easel and, unable to utter a word, stared at Dali, nodding hesitantly towards the full tavern.

- Pfft. Dali snorted into his mustache. - Dali ?! Here?! Follow me and hurry up. I am extremely upset and annoyed. What can I say: I'm beside myself! And I just need to speak out. Besides, I see that you understand something in painting ... So, the genius of Dali is familiar to you and you simply have to understand it.

Anna heard about the artist's habit of talking about himself in the third person. And now she wondered how organic it sounded. It does not hurt the ear at all and does not cause rejection. As if it should be. Indeed, you will say that you are a genius and will immediately cause displeasure and skepticism of those around you. And "Dali is a genius" is already an axiom that does not cause doubts.

The artist took her to the restaurant of the Duran hotel.

“This is the best wine list in town,” Dali announced boastfully, opening the door in front of Anna. At eleven, honey, you don't have to pump up coffee. It is quite possible to afford to have a glass. Choose a table. Just don’t borrow that one from the wine barrels. This is the territory of Gala, - a gasp was heard in the voice, his eyes brightened, - and it is inviolable.

- Maybe here? - Anna, barely breathing, pointed to the first table by the window. She didn't know how to take a step in this institution: snow-white tablecloths, heavy pendant chandeliers, chairs more reminiscent of thrones, walls strewn with ceramic plates. Unless the wine barrels filling the space allowed you to relax a little and said that she was not at a royal reception, but only in a restaurant. Even in one that you have never been, but never say never. "Stop! How is it not at the reception? She is at Maestro Dali's reception. She was so happy, and she is standing and looking at the restaurant. Who cares where she was told to come and sit, if Dali himself said it. And she was also offered to choose. "

The waiter was already hurrying to them, smiling and bowing. If Dali's companion surprised him, his professionalism did not give him away.

- Menu? He bowed politely.

- I just have coffee, - Anna was frightened.

- Try consommé. - Dali easily switched to you. - Gala adores him.

- I am not hungry. - Anna tried to calm her legs, which were shaking under the table.

- As you wish. Then you change your mind. If you are shy, you will never become a brilliant artist. You need to believe in your talent, and those around you will also believe in it. And if you look like a shy hare with trembling knees, you will remain an amateur who subscribes to churches on the square.

Anna did not even think to be offended. Well, who is she compared to Dali. An amateur is an amateur.

- I have "Botifaru" A traditional Spanish dish (sausage fried in caramel with bread, served with boiled sweet apples), which, according to the owner of the hotel and restaurant "Duran", Luis Duran, Dali liked to order. and a glass of Bina Real Plato. And, perhaps, I'm ready to eat a fresh orange, ”the artist ordered. “And coffee, I’m sure, is not useful at all. Quite the opposite. Cherry compote is much better.

The waiter walked away, and Dali immediately stunned the girl with the phrase:

- They are bastards and dullards!

- Who? - Anna was embarrassed, thinking about the waiter. He seemed to her quite amiable and not at all stupid.

“The Mayor's Office of Figueres and those awful bureaucrats in Madrid.

- O! - just said the girl.

- Imagine me ... Me! Dali! An errand boy who will do whatever he pleases. They decided that since I had been talking about the museum for ten years, I could be turned around like a novice hack. Gala will be beside herself!

Anna shifted in her chair and squeezed out:

- What happened?

- What?! The artist rolled his eyes. - She also asks what! It is not "what", it is "something." They finally agreed to sign the papers and let me create the Theater-Museum, but conditions, conditions! In indignation, he took his snow-white handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed his forehead. - They require the originals of the paintings!

- O! Anna said again. She could not be reproached for her eloquence. And what else to say, she did not know. Not to say that any museum has the right to count on the originals of works. And if the museum is created by the author himself, then why place copies there?

- Originals are much worse than photographs. - Dali seemed to have heard her question. - Photos are clearer and more modern. It is them that should be shown to the public. And in the originals, she still has time to be disappointed. For ten years the Mayor's Office of Figueros fought steadfastly with the General Directorate of Fine Arts in Madrid and persuaded these obstinate people to fund the project. Ten years of litigation, correspondence, endless waiting. Ten years of hope. Now what? They tell me: either the originals, or no museum for you.

- O! - Anna was already ready to hate herself for these senseless exclamations, but nothing smarter came to mind.

The waiter came up with coffee for Anna, an orange, apples and a bottle of mineral water.

“Wine, coffee, orange and apples for Botifara,” he announced, and putting an iron bowl on the table, began rinsing the fruit in it with the mineral water he had brought.

Anna almost uttered another surprised "Oh!"

- Never wash anything with tap water! - Dali strongly advised. - Typhus does not sleep, and other microbes too.

- Not everyone can afford to use mineral water like that. - Anna expected Dali to be ashamed, but it was Dali. He raised his eyes to the sky and said:

- Thank God I can! Drink your coffee. I hope there is boiled water in it. No, well, what are the scoundrels, eh ?! - He again returned to the topic of conversation, but immediately cut it off, suddenly asking:

- Why are you so sad?

And then he answered himself:

- Although, if I stood under the scorching sun and painted an unnecessary city landscape, I would also be sad.

One could argue, say, for example, that the cityscapes of Monet, Pissarro or Van Gogh are very valuable specimens. But instead, the girl announced:

- My brother died yesterday.

As soon as she said it out loud, Anna felt that she finally realized what had happened. Unexpected tears came to her eyes, she felt ashamed and bitter that she felt relief from the departure of little Alejandro.

The artist looked at her without blinking. In the look - no sympathy, no understanding.

“My brother is dead,” Anna repeated, already sobbing.

- Older? Dali asked sharply.

- Younger. Small at all. Two years old.

- A. - The artist casually waved his hand, as if he had lost all interest in the conversation, then he said: - Lucky you.

Anna, numb, dropped the spoon with which she was going to stir the sugar. Of course, Senor Dali is eccentric, but to such an extent ... The artist, not paying attention to the state of his companion, followed the flight of the spoon and continued as if nothing had happened:

- Lucky that the youngest. But in any case, I advise you not to delay and paint his portrait. It took me too many years and too much suffering to get rid of the ghost.

"Well, of course!" - Anna almost slapped herself on the forehead. "The artist's brother, who died before his birth." How did she not realize ?!

- My Salvador, - Dali leaned back in his chair and mournfully rolled his eyes to the sky, - left the world seven months before my birth. When I was born, I did not even suspect that they called me by his name. But it is so. My parents created me to rid themselves of suffering. They did not hide it. They took me to his grave, constantly compared us, and when I turned five, they even announced that I was his reincarnation. You imagine? Can you imagine what it means to be a copy of the deceased? - The artist jumped up, immediately sat down again and depicted on his face the stamp of irrepressible sadness. He sighed heavily and continued:

- Should I be surprised that I believed that I was him? But at the same time, I constantly wanted to get rid of his presence. For me, one El Salvador is much better than two. For which I am grateful to him, so it is for the name. It suits me incredibly. My parents thought I was sent by them to save the family. But I am the savior of the world. It is a heavy burden, but I carry it responsibly and I am not going to give up my mission. Salvador translated from Spanish means "savior"..

If Anna had not seen the artist's face at that moment, she would probably have allowed herself to laugh at such boasting. But Dali, sitting in front of her, was so sure of his chosenness that everyone who saw and heard him at such moments did not have to doubt her.

“It’s a heavy burden to carry a dead brother with you. I was weary of them and constantly wanted to get rid of, tried to do it through the subjects of my paintings. I've already talked about this. Did you hear?

- Something like that ... - Anna began uncertainly ...

- You couldn't hear anything! How old were you nine years ago in 61st? Seven or eight years? You couldn't have been at Dali's lecture at the École Polytechnique in Paris. And Dali confessed there: “All the eccentric acts that I am in the habit of doing, all these absurd antics are the tragic constant of my life. I want to prove to myself that I am not a dead brother, I am alive. As in the myth of Castor and Pollux: only by killing my brother, I gain immortality. " And only two years later, in the sixty-third, I finally realized what I must do in order to find peace. There was no need to kill anyone at all - I had to paint a portrait of my brother, show everyone that he has nothing to do with me, and finally calm down my fears. Why didn’t I guess earlier, why did I spend almost sixty years in agony and doubts? Even when García Lorca suggested writing poetry about it, I didn’t think that since the poet wants to express his feelings in poetry, the artist must find a way to get rid of it on canvas. And if the plots chosen earlier did not work, then they had to be changed. As soon as The Portrait of My Deceased Brother was released, I finally got rid of the non-existent double.

Anna, listening to the artist's monologue, recalled the picture. The face of a boy, much older than Dali's brother at the time of his death, is written in dots. It seems that this technique was quite common in pop art. And in this case, he also hinted at the ghostly nature of its owner. The face itself seemed to grow out of the sunset landscape. Strange figures with spears stepped on him in front, and on the left Dali depicted Millet's Angelus in miniature. It seems that the artist himself said that with the help of X-rays it is possible to prove that initially Millet wanted to depict not a basket, but a child's coffin. The idea of ​​death was also hinted at by the wings of a raven, as if growing from the head of a young man. A gloomy, heavy, hopeless picture.

- An unusually light work! - the artist stunned Anna.

Apparently, she could not wash off the genuine surprise from her face, because the maestro condescended to explain:

- Dali became light and easy. Dali became himself. And for seven years now, he has not known the fear of being swallowed up by a long-dead relative.

“I understand,” Anna nodded slowly.

- And you paint a portrait of your brother to get rid of grief and guilt. Feelings of guilt make life bland and dull. And there are a lot of colors in it, which no one should neglect. And even more so an artist!

Anna flushed. Dali called her an artist!

“Your Botifara, Senor Dali.

The artist pushed the dish towards him and meticulously examined it and sniffed it. The examination apparently satisfied him, since he cut off a small piece of sausage and, with a touching expression on his face, sent it into his mouth.

“Do you really think…” Anna began.

Dali threw the index finger of his right hand up, urging the girl to shut up, pricked another piece of sausage on a fork and closed his eyes. He enjoyed his dish very slowly for the next fifteen minutes. Silence reigned at the table.

Today, May 11, is the birthday of the great Spanish painter and sculptor Salvador Dali ... His legacy will forever remain with us, because in his works many find a part of themselves - the very "madness" without which life would be boring and monotonous.

« Surrealism is me", - the artist shamelessly asserted, and one cannot but agree with him. All his works are imbued with the spirit of surrealism - both paintings and photographs, which he created with unprecedented skill. Dali proclaimed complete freedom from any aesthetic or moral compulsion and went to the very limits in any creative experiment. He did not hesitate to bring to life the most provocative ideas and wrote everything: from love and the sexual revolution, history and technology to society and religion.

Great masturbator

Face of war

Splitting an atom

Hitler's riddle

Christ of Saint Juan de la Cruz

Dali began to take an early interest in art and while still at school took private painting lessons from the artist Nunez , professor of the Academy of Arts. Then, at the School of Fine Arts at the Academy of Arts, he became close to the literary and artistic circles of Madrid - in particular with Luis Buñuel and Federico Garcia Lorcoy ... However, he did not stay for long at the Academy - for some overly bold ideas he was expelled, which, however, did not prevent him from organizing the first small exhibition of his works and quickly becoming one of the most famous artists of Catalonia.

Young women

Self-portrait with Raphael Neck

Bread basket

Young woman seen from the back

After that Dali meets Gala, which became his " muse of surrealism". Arriving at Salvador Dali with her husband, she immediately became inflamed with a passion for the artist and left her husband for the sake of a genius. Dali however, absorbed in his feelings, as if he had not even noticed that his "muse" had not arrived alone. Gala becomes his life companion and source of inspiration. She also became the bridge connecting the genius with the entire avant-garde community - her tact and gentleness allowed him to maintain at least some kind of relationship with colleagues. The image of the beloved is reflected in many works Dali .

Portrait of Gala with two lamb ribs balancing on her shoulder

My wife, naked, looks at her own body, which has become a ladder, three vertebrae of the column, the sky and architecture

Galarina

Naked Dali, contemplating five ordered bodies that turn into carpuscles, from which Leda Leonardo is unexpectedly created, impregnated with the face of Gala

Of course, if we talk about painting Dali , one cannot but recall his most famous works:

A dream inspired by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate, a moment before awakening

The Persistence of Memory

Flaming giraffe

Swans reflected in elephants

Pliable Structure with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)

Anthropomorphic locker

Sodom self-gratification of an innocent maiden

Evening spider ... hope

The ghost of Vermeer Delft, capable of serving as a table

Sculptures Dali brought his surrealist talent to a new level - from the plane of the canvas, they jumped into three-dimensional space, taking shape and additional volume. Most of the works became intuitively familiar to the viewer - the master used the same images and ideas in them as in his canvases. To create sculptures Dali I had to do wax modeling for several hours, and then create molds for casting bronze figures. Some of them were later oversized.

Among other things, Dali was an excellent photographer, and in the age of the very beginning of the development of photography, together with Philip Halsman he managed to create absolutely incredible and surreal pictures.

Love art and enjoy the work of Salvador Dali!

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