In Search of Dali Part 1 ( first posted on thebarefootfoodie.org on 25 Oct 2015 )

 

In Search of Dali Part 1

OCTOBER 25, 2015BAREFOOT TRAVELS, EUROPE

The Dali Theatre-Museum in Figueres

My journey in search of Dali, the man, the mystic, the works, the love of his life, the monuments, took place in the course of two trips to Spain over 5 years.

Dali  ( 1904 – 1989 )

 Salvador Dali was born in the Catalan town of Figueres, Spain. The Dali Theatre-Museum is a fitting tribute to him, as an extensive archive of his works, as well as a memorial where he is ultimately buried. ” I want my museum to be like a single block, a labyrinth, a great surrealist object. It will be a totally theatrical museum. The people who come to see it will leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream.”

The man had a “love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes…” As colorful and bizarre as his work was, so was his life. When he was born, his older brother, who was also named Salvador, had died of gastroenteritis nine months earlier. His father was a middle-class lawyer who was overly domineering, and his mother, by contrast, indulged him and encouraged his artistic ( and other ) endeavours. When he was five, Dali was taken to his brother’s grave and told by his parents that he was his brother’s reincarnation, a concept which he came to believe. When Dali was 16, his mother died of breast cancer. Dali worshipped her. After her death, his father married his deceased wife’s sister.

Dali met his beloved wife, Gala, ( Elena Ivanovna Diakonova , 1894 – 1982 ) while she was still married to his friend, French poet Paul Eluard, in 1929. Eluard diplmatically appeared as one of the witnesses at their wedding. The marriage offended Dali’s family, who disapproved of Gala being both a mother and some 10 years older than Dali. Dali was disinherited by his father as a result.Throughout their marriage, both parties would continue to have other lovers and distractions.

Torre Galatea, an annexed building of the Museum, named thus in honour of Gala

Gala’s boat and the black umbrella crown the biggest surrealist monument in the world

The Rainy Taxi

 

The Cuppola

Gala nude looking at the sea which at 18 m appears as President Lincoln

Leda Atomica

Inaugural Goose Flesh

Barcelona Mannequin

Galarina

Rotting Bird

Gala ( 1947 )

Poetry of America ( 1943 )

Painted Ceiling – Palace of the Wind

 

This is but a small selection of the entire works in Dali Theatre Museum but it sparked my interest in surrealist art, and led me back to his home in Cadaques, and to Gala Dali Castle built for his beloved Gala, 5 years later. ( More to come )