Don't miss this!! Salvadr Dali

Today I'm in an art mood and would like to talk about Salvador Dali.  For those who don't know who he is,  he is one of the greatest surrealists and personalities to ever live.  Beyond the amazing talent that he had he was one of the WEIRDEST people in the history of the art community.  I will get to that in a moment but this guy wasn't just a great painter:  He was also an amazing sculptor, writer, playwrite, costume designer, set designer, jewelery designer, film director, and ballet writer.  If it could be created, Dali did it, and extraordinarily well.

After the Spanish Civil War, his work incited riots and he actually had to flee to France so he wouldn't get killed.  He was once invited to speak at a local university, he accepted, and showed up in an old timey scuba suit.  He refused to come out of it after they asked him and threatened to leave shortly after.  The egomaniacal artist created a photography book devoted entirely to his mustache.  You can buy said book here if you're interested.  

Dali drew most of his inspiration from what he created and called "Paranoid Critical Transformation Method".  Dali defined this as "irrational knowledge" based on a "delirium of interpretation".  He would essentially go into  a self-induced paranoid state (without the use of drugs) and putting the hallucinations he had in the state on the canvas.  So imagine this; a guy who not only painted brilliantly based on hallucinations, but being able to write, and lecture with a straight face and complete seriousness on a technique he created where you have to go into a paranoid and hallucinogenic state, without drugs, and then after coming back out of that state and return to a "normal perspective", and paint or create what he envisioned there.  THAT is a motherfuckin artist!!

Dali was a self-adoring, egomaniac.  He never received a formal art degree although he is considered one of the greatest ever.  When he had to take his final exam when he was in college, he refused to take it because he claimed he knew more about art than all of his teachers. So they expelled him.  During his lifetime, he was also banned from just about every art institution and community.  Later in his life, the same people welcomed him as they realized just how brilliant he was.

This man was as brilliant as he was misunderstood, and as egomaniacal as he was strange.  But one thing is certain, this guy was awesome and everybody should know something about him or his work if you want to expand your mind.  If you ever go to Spain and are near Barcelona, be sure to go see the Dali Museum in Figueres.  It is an experience you will never forget. 

Now, I will leave you with something worth your while: Dali pictures and quotes.

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"There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane.  I know I am mad"

"I dont take drugs.  I am drugs."

"The two most fortunate things that can happen to a person are, first to be Spanish, and second, to be named  Salvador Dali.  These two things have happened to me".

"Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision. "

"What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust. "