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 It includes previously unpublished homages to Velázquez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.
