A R T I S T S I N T H E N E W S SALVADOR DALI You may be wondering, Salvador Dali is in the news?

Dali, the surrealist artist, came to my mind this month as another example of the "unreal" looking "real". Our Spotlight Artist, Schatz, creates paintings without paint or brushes and Salvador Dali painted unreal reality. This month also marked the 76th anniversary of the devastation of the atom bomb on Hiroshima which had a profound effect on Dali--- inspiring him to announce in a 1951 news conference that he was the “First Painter of the Atomic Age” and dismissed all his works until that point as

“merely evolution.” Uranium and Atomica Melancholica Idyll - 1945 - oil on canvas- Salvador Dali "The atomic explosion of August 6, 1945, shook me seismically,” Dalí declared. “...the atom is my favorite food for thought. Many of the landscapes painted in this period express the great fear inspired in me by the announcement of that explosion." In his 1945 painting, Uranium and Atomica Melancholica Idyll , the absolute destructive power of the atomic bomb is not conveyed through the usual, iconic symbol of the mushroom cloud, but rather through an accumulation of associative images, ranging from a stylized fireball-like explosion to American baseball players, warplanes as facial features, and elephants with insect-like legs, all of whom hit, drop or release deadly egg-shaped atom bombs. From Little League to "Little Boy" (code-name for the bomb) was not such a huge leap for Dalí’s Surrealist, elastic imagination. As Jean-Paul Sartre argued in his 1946 essay “War and Fear,” "...living with the threat of nuclear war was the beginning of the age of abstract mass murder. In other times, one risked one’s life against the lives of others; one saw one’s dead enemies in close proximity--- one could touch their wounds.” But today, atomic warfare means unleashing catastrophic destruction from afar. Without taking a risk, Sartre concluded,“one dies for nothing.” This form of existential angst is clearly discernible in Dalí’s melancholic painting. It references the living nightmare of the threat of instantaneous annihilation in a post- Hiroshima world. It is a somber work whose iconography remains indebted to Dali’s earlier Surrealist vocabulary of melting watches, burning giraffes and paranoiac- double images. It deftly illustrates the deadly and insular explosive force of energy released from indifferent and inhuman matter instead of man-to-man war combat.

Dali succumbed to mysticism: The painting below is a portrait of Gala Nuclear Mysticism. The Hiroshima explosion Dali, his wife and muse. Her face is coincided with his own classicist explosion. Art composed of densely populated spheres, News commented: "The possibility cannot be representing atomic particles, which give ruled out that Dali will be giving more attention a distinct 3-D effect. The title refers to a to the conscious realm from now on than to the sea-nymph in Classical Mythology named unconscious. If this does indeed be the case, Galatea who was known for her virtue. nothing need prevent him from becoming the Galatea of the Spheres is one of the most greatest academic painter of the twentieth renowned paintings from Dali’s Nuclear century." Mysticism period. After the Second World War, Dali did not immediately return to Europe. The change from the psychoanalysis Dali to the nuclear physics Dali was making heavy demands on him. In his Mystical Manifesto, "Many of the scenes I have painted in this period express the immense fear that took hold of me when I heard of the explosion of the bomb. I used my paranoiac- critical method to analyze the world. I want to perceive and understand the hidden powers and laws of things, in order to have them in my power."

Galatea of the Spheres -1952 - Salvador Dali I couldn't do a piece on Dali without including his most famous (and much-reproduced) work of art, The Persistence of Memory (1931) even though it was just 14 years before his "Nuclear Mysticism" period that's being featured in this article. I enjoy, as I hope you do, viewing and analyzing a great artist's works and Leda Atomica, 1949 - Salvador Dali how they evolved. Dali , true to his now "Nuclear Mysticism" and the discontinuity of matter, he incorporated a sense of levitation into his Leda Atomica. Just as atomic particles do not physically touch, so here Dali suspends even the water above the shore - an element that would figure into many other later works. Every object in the painting is carefully painted to be motionless in space, even though nothing in the painting is connected. Leda looks as if she is trying to touch the back of the swan's head, but doesn't do it. Many famous painters have The Persistence of Memory (1931) interpreted Greek mythology's "Leda and the Swan". But, What About the Man?

He believed that life is the greatest form of art, so he lived his life boldly, with extreme eccentricity, long hair, dandy clothes and a stylish mustache. Read on to find out more about this unpredictable character and take a long look at a few images that you'll be surprised to see --- since most people are only familiar with his surrealism.

He was Expelled from Art School Even though Dali studied for many years at the Special Painting, Sculpture and Engraving School of San Fernando in Madrid, he never graduated. That’s because, during his last exam at the school, he insulted a professor. He believed that the teachers weren’t qualified enough to test him. He was immediately expelled. But some good did come out of his college days---while there he met Le Corbusier, Einstein, Calder and Stravinsky,

Landscape near Figueres - Boat - (1918) Age 14 Still Life- (1918) Age 14 (1910) (Age 6) Dali was influenced by Freud Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his theories were what inspired Dali to capture images of dreams and hallucinations. Dali never used drugs and only drank alcohol in moderation. Quote: "I don't do drugs, I am drugs." He accessed his subconscious through the state between being awake and sleep. He believed he was reincarnated Dali’s parents had a son (also called Salvador) who died extremely young. So, when Dali was born 9 months to the day after the death of the first Dali child, the family believed that he was a reincarnation of his older brother. Dali worked with Disney After making surreal films in Paris with director Luis Buñuel, Dalí Self-Portrait- (1922) Age 18 went to Hollywood. His paintings were used in a dream sequence in the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film ‘Spellbound’ . A year later, he created a 10-minute film with Walt Disney called "Destino" - a beautiful trippy film that was not released until 2003. He was shunned by surrealists By 1930, Salvador Dalí had become a notorious figure of the Surrealist movement but he clashed with other members and was expelled from the group in 1934. Whether it was caused by his feud with Surrealist leader André Breton or due to his "counter- revolutionary activity” during WWII, we’ll never know. Even after leaving the Surrealist movement, Dalí continued to exhibit his work in international Surrealist shows. The melting clock keeps on ticking!