Salvadore Dali and the Surrealist movement

Introduction

There have been a number of movements in the past that had a huge impact on the overall field of art. One of such very influential movements includes the Surrealist movement. It was an

avant-garde cultural movement by nature. Originated on the basis of the nihilistic ideas of the Dadaism, the movement influenced several different sub fields of art. The artists involved in the movement committed their time and their talents for the sake of exploring and discovering the reality of automatic drawing and writing. The artists achieved this aim thereby utilizing the images for the sake of expressing their feeling, views and emotions however without any rational corrections. The important thing to note that these emotions in the movement did not have to follow any particular reason or logic. There are a number of artists in that era who contributed chiefly towards the movements. One of the most remembered and acknowledged included Slavadore Dali.

Discussion

Born in Spain, Salvador Dali was undoubtedly the most well-known surrealist artist.

Dali is known to be a very talented draftsman, who is basically famous for the bizarre, striking and unique images or paintings in his famous surrealist work. However, Dali's paintings are also known to be influenced by the Renaissance patterns of paintings (Gerard, pp.47). The repertoire of Dalí's expansive artistic work encircles photography, films and sculptures that were created in association with a very wide range of artists belonging to a very wide range of mediums.

Techniques of Dali's work

Similar to the many other surrealist painters, Dali also explored the various means of uniting the unconscious and the conscious realms of his experience through art and more precisely painting. In addition, the paintings by Dali expressed his expressions and feelings fusing together the world of fantasy and dreams and the practical world of everyday rational matters resulting in outcome of absolute reality that can be called a surreality. Dali's work is highly imaginative. Moreover, his paintings also reflect his indulgence in grandiose and unusual behavior (Gibson, pp.90). The most appreciated and acknowledged piece of work by Dali is his painting competed in the year 1931 known as “The Persistence of Memory”.

There is no doubt that the painting reflects the extra-ordinary talent of Dali through the selection of bright colors for representing a unique idea. The extra ordinary brush strokes and a beautifully painted masterpiece, this is one of the best examples that can be used to explain and define the fundamentals of the surrealist movement. In addition, the painting also reflects another most commonly used technique by the Dali and that is Symbolism. He has always adapted extensive symbolism in many of his paintings. For example, the display and appearance of the melting watches in the above painting reflects the famous theory by Einstein that suggest that time is not fixed but rather relative (Fanes, pp. 113). According to Dali, the idea and inspiration of painting the functioning clocks symbolically in this particular pattern came to him on a ...