Post-Impressionism

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech was born on May 11, 1904 at 8:45 am GMT[6] in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia, Spain.[7] Dalí's older brother, also named Salvador (born October 12, 1901), had died of gastroenteritis nine months earlier, on August 1, 1903. Also his father, Salvador Dalí i Cusí, was a middle-class lawyer and notary[8] whose strict disciplinary approach was tempered by his wife, Felipa Domenech Ferrés, who encouraged her son's artistic endeavors.[9] When he was five, Dalí was taken to his brother's grave and told by his parents that he was his brother's reincarnation,[10] a concept which he came to believe.[11] Of his brother, Dalí said, "...[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections."[12] He "was probably a first version of myself but conceived too much in the absolute."[12] Dalí also had a sister, Ana María, who was three years younger.[8] In 1949, she published a book about her brother, Dalí As Seen By His Sister.[13] His childhood friends included future FC Barcelona footballers Sagibarba and Josep Samitier. During holidays at the Catalan resort of Cadaqués, the trio played football together. Dalí attended drawing school. In 1916, Dalí also discovered modern painting on a summer vacation trip to Cadaqués with the family of Ramon Pichot, a local artist who made regular trips to Paris.[8] The next year, Dalí's father organized an exhibition of his charcoal drawings in their family home. He had his first public exhibition at the Municipal Theater in Figueres in 1919. In February 1921, Dalí's mother died of breast cancer. Dalí was 16 years old; he later said his mother's death "was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul."[14] After her death, Dalí's father married his deceased wife's sister. Dalí did not resent this marriage, because he had a great love and respect for his aunt.[8]

Wild-eyed antics of Dalí (left) and fellow surrealist artist Man Ray in Paris on June 16, 1934. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In 1922, Dalí moved into the Residencia de Estudiantes (Students' Residence) in Madrid[8] and studied at the Academia de San Fernando (School of Fine Arts). A lean 1.72 m (5 ft. 7¾ in.) tall,[15] Dalí already drew attention as an eccentric and dandy. He wore long hair and sideburns, coat, stockings, and knee breeches in the style of English aesthetes of the late 19th century. At the Residencia, he became close friends with (among others) Pepín Bello, Luis Buñuel, and Federico García Lorca. The friendship with Lorca had a strong element of mutual passion,[16] but Dalí rejected the poet's sexual advances.[17] However it was his paintings in which he experimented with Cubism that earned him the most attention from his fellow students. At the time of these early works, Dalí probably did not completely understand the Cubist movement. His only information on Cubist art came from magazine articles and a catalog given to him by Pichot, since there were no Cubist artists in Madrid at the time. In 1924, the still-unknown Salvador Dalí illustrated a book for the first time. It was a publication of the Catalan poem "Les bruixes de Llers" ("The Witches of Llers") by his friend and schoolmate, poet Carles Fages de Climent. Dalí also experimented with Dada, which influenced his work throughout his life. Dalí was expelled from the Academia in 1926, shortly before his final exams when he was accused of starting an unrest.[18] His mastery of painting skills was evidenced by his realistic Basket of Bread, painted in 1926.[19] That same year, he made his first visit to Paris, where he met Pablo Picasso, whom the young Dalí revered. Picasso had already heard favorable reports about Dalí from Joan Miró. As he developed his own style over the next few years Dalí made a number of works heavily influenced by Picasso and Miró. Some trends in Dalí's work that would continue throughout his life were already evident in the 1920s. Dalí devoured influences from many styles of art, ranging from the most academically classic, to the most cutting-edge avant garde.[20] His classical influences included Raphael, Bronzino, Francisco de Zurbarán, Vermeer, and Velázquez.[21] He used both classical and modernist techniques, sometimes in separate works, and sometimes combined. Exhibitions of his works in Barcelona attracted much attention along with mixtures of praise and puzzled debate from critics. Dalí grew a flamboyant moustache, influenced by 17th-century Spanish master painter Diego Velázquez. The moustache became an iconic trademark of his appearance for the rest of his life. [edit] 1929 to World War II In 1929, Dalí collaborated with surrealist film director Luis Buñuel on the short film Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog). His main contribution was to help Buñuel write the script for the film. Dalí later claimed to have also played a significant role in the filming of the project, but this is not substantiated by contemporary accounts.[22] Also, in August 1929, Dalí met his muse, inspiration, and future wife Gala,[23] born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. She was a Russian immigrant ten years his senior, who at that time was married to surrealist poet Paul Éluard. In the same year, Dalí had important professional exhibitions and officially joined the Surrealist group in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris. His work had already been heavily influenced by surrealism for two years. The Surrealists hailed what Dalí called the paranoiac-critical method of accessing the subconscious for greater artistic creativity.[8][9] Meanwhile, Dalí's relationship with his father was close to rupture. Don Salvador Dalí y Cusi strongly disapproved of his son's romance with Gala, and saw his connection to the Surrealists as a bad influence on his morals. The last straw was when Don Salvador read in a Barcelona newspaper that his son had recently exhibited in Paris a drawing of the "Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ", with a provocative inscription: "Sometimes, I spit for fun on my mother's portrait."[24] Outraged, Don Salvador demanded that his son recant publicly. Dalí refused, perhaps out of fear of expulsion from the Surrealist group, and was violently thrown out of his paternal home on December 28, 1929. His father told him that he would disinherit him, and that he should never set foot in Cadaquès again. The following summer, Dalí and Gala rented a small fisherman's cabin in a nearby bay at Port Lligat. He bought the place, and over the years enlarged it, gradually building his much beloved villa by the sea.

more visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD