She has been described as Dalí’s “muse” and has been an influential factor in his paintings’ subject matter, especially related to his sexuality. Gala and Dalí hit it off, so to say, and started an affair she left Éluard and married Dalí in 1934. It was reportedly during August of 1929 when Gala and her husband, Paul Éluard, who was also a Surrealist and a poet, visited Dalí in Spain.
Salvidor dalih had a pathological fear of what full#
Going back to the year 1929, which was the year Dalí joined the Surrealists art group, the artist met a significant female figure who became, as he described her, his “oxygen” – Gala, whose full name was Elena Ivanovna Diakonova. Again, he leaves us visual clues about this in his artworks through various motifs like the insects mentioned above, but also others like eggs and explicit sexual imagery. This experience left a negative imprint on the artist’s mind, and he developed an aversion toward sexual intercourse and female genitalia. This also brings us to another childhood experience, when Dalí’s father reportedly showed him a book about venereal diseases. These also symbolized ideas of decay and the aversion towards sex and what has been extensively referred to as his “sexual anxiety”.Ī Salvador Dalí gallery in São Paulo, SP, Brasil paulisson miura from Cuiabá, Brasil, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
We will see some of these in The Great Masturbator painting for example, the ants and the grasshopper. These included insects like ants, grasshoppers, snails, crustaceans, and other animals like elephants, fish, and lions, among others. While these were not all he experienced, he left us visual clues through the many fantastical motifs in his Surrealism artworks. Salvador Dalí in 1939 Carl Van Vechten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Reportedly, when Dalí grew up he had a fear of grasshoppers and throughout his life, a phobia for insects crawling on his skin, otherwise known as “delusional parasitosis”. However, we will need to backtrack a few years earlier to Dalí’s childhood, where it all started. There were several notable experiences, or influences, that contributed to this painting and the many motifs that make it the Surrealist masterpiece it is today. When Salvador Dalí painted The Great Masturbator in 1929, he was 25 years old and seemingly steeped in a fantastical and phobia-filled life.
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, MadridĬontextual Analysis: A Brief Socio-Historical Overview
We will then explore a formal analysis, discussing Dalí’s subject matter and stylistic approaches to the artwork. The Great Masturbator (1929) by Salvador Dalí in Contextīelow we will discuss The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dalí in more detail, starting with a contextual analysis of the symbolism and influences behind his work and where he was in his life when he painted it. Portrait of Salvador Dalí, taken in Hôtel Meurice, Paris, 1972 Allan warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Throughout his art career her became famous for his fantastical and often perverted imagery as well as his eccentric personality, he held numerous exhibitions in Europe and America and published several books. He joined the Surrealism art group in 1929 but was dismissed in 1934. He was also significantly influenced by the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud. In 1929 he met Gala, whom he married.ĭalí immersed himself in a diversity of art, studying classical art as well as modern art. He traveled to Paris in 1926 and visited Pablo Picasso. Dalí started art at an early age and enrolled at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. He had two other siblings, a brother, and a sister, but his brother died before he was born. Salvador Dalí was born on May 11, 1904, in the Spanish town called Figueres. 5.3 What Is The Great Masturbator Painting About?.5.2 Where Is The Great Masturbator Painting?.3 Formal Analysis: A Brief Compositional Overview.2.1 Contextual Analysis: A Brief Socio-Historical Overview.2 The Great Masturbator (1929) by Salvador Dalí in Context.1 Artist Abstract: Who Was Salvador Dalí?.
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