By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Like the weather, Dalí is hot, hot, hot! Have you noticed how Salvador Dalí is turning up just about everywhere these days? There’s a major feature biopic in production now about the Master, titled DalíLand, with Ben Kingsley playing Dalí in his later years, along with Leslie…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian The French term “plein air” means open air, and refers to the process of creating a work of art outdoors. Salvador Dalí loved the outdoors – most especially at his villa in Port Lligat, Spain, but even during the cold season, when he and Gala spent several decades…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Dalí the influencer…where to begin? Salvador Dalí has influenced, well, just about everything. There are so many areas of culture and society on which his extraordinary creativity has left its mark. It’s dizzying. One of today’s pop culture icons – the often unpredictable and flamboyant singer/musician Lady…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian So many of Salvador Dalí works truly leaves us in awe. The term “awesome” is way overused today. It’s become a tired cliché. Being in awe of something is to truly be transfixed and transformed by it. And that’s a rare occurrence. But it happens with astonishing…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Salvador Dalí was a master watercolorist. It’s a medium often overlooked when we consider Dalí’s genius as a painter. Oils…drawings…prints…sculpture, sure. But watercolors? I have a strong sense that few of us think of these washy works on paper when we consider the main man of surrealism. Yet…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian I remember, many years back – sometime in the 1960s, I think it was – seeing a short Associated Press wire service story in my hometown newspaper. It announced a seemingly outrageous new declaration from Salvador Dalí that the controversial Spanish artist was “planning to paint the sky.” The brief story…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To Salvador Dalí, everything was a potential canvas. He was known to even paint pictures on paper coffee cup covers! Some of Dalí’s best work was when he adopted the role of adaptor or modifier, taking existing images and…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian By now, surely everyone’s heard of the dubious phenomenon known as “fake news.” But it doesn’t just affect politics; it can also rear its head in the world of art. In the case of Salvador Dalí, it has – in several ways. One I’ve just come across, others…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian In some ways, painting is like writing. They’re both creative pursuits, and in either case you never quite know where, when and how the muse will strike. Today’s blog post evolved from my eating a tangerine and contemplating what I’d write about. The juicy, delicious fruit reminded…
By Paul Chimera Salvador Dalí Historian Today’s blog post is a little different. Its focus is on Dalí’s words more than his pictures. Indeed, many have contended that Salvador Dalí was an even better writer than painter. That could be debated until his soft watches turn hard, but such a deliberation would be pointless….