Painter, sculptor, writer, film-maker, and all-round showman Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)was one of the twentieth century’s greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics. One of the first artists to apply the insights of Freudian psychoanalysis to art, he is celebrated in particular for his surrealist practice, with such conceits as the soft watches or the lobster telephone, now hallmarks of the surrealist enterprise, and of modernism in general.
Dalí frequently described his paintings as “hand-painted dream photographs.” Their tantalizing tension and interest resides in the precise rendering of bizarre elements and incongruous arrangements. As Dalí himself explained, he painted with “the most imperialist fury of precision,” but only “to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality.”
Revolutionizing the role of the artist, the mustache-twirling Dalí also had the intuition to parade a controversial persona in the public arena and, through printmaking, fashion, advertising, writing, and film, to create work that could be consumed and not just contemplated on a gallery wall.
This book explores both the painting and the personality of Dalí, introducing his technical skill as well as his provocative compositions and challenging themes of death, decay, and eroticism.
萨尔瓦多·多明哥·菲利普·哈辛托·达利·多梅内克，普波尔侯爵，一般简称萨尔瓦多·达利，是**的西班牙加泰罗尼亚画家，因为其超现实主义作品而闻名。达利是一位具有非凡才能和想像力的艺术家，他的作品把怪异梦境般的形象与**的绘图技术和受文艺复兴大师影响的绘画技巧令人惊奇地混合在一起。1982年西班牙国王胡安·卡洛斯一世封他为普波尔侯爵，与毕加索、马蒂斯一起被认为是二十世纪最有代表性的三个画家。
达利作为该运动在美术领域的主要代表，一直是人们关注和争论的对象。“我同疯子的**区别，在于我不是疯子”，“每天早晨醒来，我都在体验一次极度的快乐，那就是成为达利的快乐……”。不用看达利高高翘向天穹的胡子，不用观赏他充满奇思怪想的作品，单是这些不同凡响的妙语，就足使你想象得出他是个什么样的人。达利的盛誉主要归结于他自我推销的天分，但更应归功于他富于奇想的特殊才能。他的奇思怪想源自于生命中难以捕捉的素材，如性、死亡、变态、苍穹。他惯用不合逻辑地并列事物的方法。将受情感激发产生的灵感转变为创作过程，将自己内心的荒诞、怪异加入外在的客观世界，将人们熟悉的东西扭曲变形，再以精细的写真技术加以肯定，使幻想具有真实性。
Gilles Néret (1933–2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L'Œil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí: The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis.
