Dali The Paintings — Gilles Neret

At the age of six Salvador Dalí 1904 1989 wanted to be a cook At the age of seven he wanted to be Napoleon Since then he later said my ambition has steadily grown and my megalomania with it Now I want only to be Salvador Dalí I have no greater wish Throughout his life Dalí was out to become Dalí that is one of the most significant artists and eccentrics of the 20th century This weighty volume is the most complete study of Dalí s painted works ever published After years of research Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret located painted works by the master that had been inaccessible for years so many in fact that almost half the featured illustrations appear in public for the first time in this book More than a catalogue raisonné this book contextualizes Dalí s oeuvre and its meanings by examining contemporary documents from writings and drawings to material from other facets of his work including ballet cinema fashion advertising and objets d art Without these crutches to support analysis the paintings would simply be a series of many images The study is divided into two parts the first examines Dalí s beginnings as an unknown artist We witness how the young Dalí deployed all the isms Impressionism Pointillism Cubism Fauvism Purism and Futurism with playful mastery and how he would borrow from prevailing trends before ridiculing and abandoning them The second part unveils the conclusions of Dalí s lifelong inquiries as well as the great legacy he left in works such as Tuna Fishing 1966 67 or Hallucinogenic Toreador 1970 It includes previously unpublished homages to Velázquez or Michelangelo painted to the same end as the variations on past masters done by his contemporary Picasso We discover how motivated by the desire to tease out the secrets of great works and become a Velázquez of the mid 20th century Dalí became Dalí Tanıtım Bülteninden