He had a close friendship with the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, a relationship that may have been homosexual (though this has never been confirmed). The painting shows a seductive woman rising out of a downward-facing head, which is suspended over a lotus swarming with ants (another popular motif in Dalí’s work). The positioning of the woman’smouth next to a thinly clad male crotch suggests fellatio, while the trickle of blood on the male figure’s thigh may represent castration.ĭalí’s sexuality is still a matter of debate. He also developed a fascination with buttocks (both male and female) and a pathological fear of castration. These obsessions - along with Dalí’s well-known terror of locusts - would find expression in many of his most famous paintings.ĭalí’s “The Great Masturbator” - considered his first significant work - highlights all three of these themes. He began to associate sex with putrefaction and decay.ĭalí soon became addicted to masturbation, reportedly the primary – if not the only – sexual activity in which he engaged throughout his life. These photos of grotesquely diseased genitalia fascinated and horrified Dalí. On reading a pornographic novel in which the protagonist said that he enjoyed “making women creak like a watermelon,” Dali worried he would never be able to do that himself.ĭuring Dalí’s youth, his father attempted to “educate” him with a book showing explicit photos of people suffering from advanced untreated venereal diseases . Explicit sexual themes, in particular, recur with a regularity seldom seen in mainstream art.Īs a schoolchild, Dalí compared his penis to those of his schoolmates and found it “small, pitiful and soft.” For a long time, he believed himself impotent. Salvador Dalí’s fears and obsessions inspired some of his most famous works. When he began to suffocate inside the soundproof suit, his audience thought it was part of an elaborate performance.Salvador Dalí, The Great Masturbator (1929) Dali decided to deliver his lecture at the 1936 London International Surrealist Exhibition dressed in an antique diving suit, representing him delving into the sea of his subconscious. Dali nearly suffocated while giving a lecture in a diving suitĭali was famed for his gregarious stunts – although one of his more ambitious almost resulted in the artist’s death. Sadomasochism is featured frequently in his work, including Un Chien Andalou, his famed collaboration with Luis Buñuel which featured a woman's eyeball being cut open. Shockingly, he once pushed his childhood friend off of a 15-foot bridge – as his friend lay injured, Dali apparently sat calmly eating cherries. As a child he enjoyed throwing himself down the stairs, explaining that “The pain was insignificant, the pleasure was immense”. Dali had an unscrupulous obsession with moneyĪ scene from 'Un Chien Andalou', a film by Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel Rex / Shutterstockĭali admitted on several occasions to having sadomasochistic tendencies. Dali was told by his parents at the age of five that he was the reincarnation of his brother, a belief he carried into his adult life. Nine months after the child’s death, the Salvador we know was born, and took his dead brother’s name. A penchant for sadomasochism, an obsession with Hitler, a crippling fear of both grasshoppers and castration and a very bizarre encounter with Brian Sewell, the list of Dali’s seriously strange exploits is as endless as his creativity… Dali believed he was the reincarnation of his dead brotherĭali’s mother gave birth to her first son in 1901, a child that she named Salvador and who died of gastroenteritis at 22 months old. Dali’s surreal exploits didn’t stop at his art his existence was equally surreal. Salvador Dali’s art is famed for its ground-breaking insight into the subconscious, a close relationship with Freudian psychoanalysis and examination into the madness of the human soul. Salvador Dali, Surrealist master and the quite possibly the most eccentric gentleman in history, would be celebrating his 112th birthday today.
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