Meanings of the paintings of Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali , famous Spanish painter from 1904 to 1989. Though some argue that Salvador Dali had no symbolism and just painted for money ^[1] but many other sources believe that Dali had deep symbolism in all of his pieces of artwork. Dali tried to intimidate people and make them uncomfortable with both the way his artworks looked and the meanings behind him^[2] . In 1929 he began to work with surrealism which was his most symbolic movement ^[3] . He dealt with the paradox of everything looking very real in his paintings but in reality nothing in his paintings could be possible.

thumb|Figure in the Window by Salvador Dali, 1925 This painting Salvador Dali made of his sister Ana Maria looking out a window ^[4]. In all paintings he did of his sister he painted her looking out a window to show her always dreaming and looking out towards the world. This is also because it left her without psychological interest and emotionless because you could not see her face. This was part of the European avant-garde movement which included cubism futurism and purism ^[5]. This painting was much more tradition that many of his later paintings. And therefore this was less symbolic and more straight forward then his later paintings.^[6]

thumb|The Enigma of Desire by Salvador Dali, 1929

This painting was the true beginning of Salvador Dali’s surrealism movement^[7] . The background landscape represents Salvador Dali’s childhood. It is similar to a Catalonian landscape where Dali grew up ^[8]. The main structure in the middle is more similar to the rocks of Cadaques, a place where Dali visited often when he was a child ^[9] . This whole painting represents his childhood. This painting incorporated the words ‘ma mere’ meaning my mother in French ^[10]. Dali is quoted as saying “Sometimes I spit on the picture of my mother for the fun of it” ^[11]. The repetition of the word mother shows the obsessive nature of Dali's thought. He didn’t always like his childhood but this painting represents all of Salvador Dali’s childhood, both his mother and his homes growing up.^[12] Dali also brought a lion's head motif into this painting. There is both a lion growing out of the face and a lion growing out of the two figures embrassing in the background. ^[13]

thumb|Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War by Salvador Dali, 1936 Salvador Dali painted this 6 months before the Spanish Civil War had even begun and then claimed that he had know the War was going to happen and that he was a profit ^[14]. He wanted to seem profit like ^[15]. This painting was meant to show the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. The monster in this painting is self destructive just as a Civil War is ^[16]. This painting is not meant to choose sides but Dali had many reasons to choose sides in the Spanish Civil War because of his sister being tortured and imprisoned by communist soldiers fighting for the republic and his good friend from art school being murdered by the fascist firing squad ^[17]. Dali and his wife, Gala, where trapped in the middle of a general strike and an armed uprising by Catalanse paratists in 1934, and this may have also influenced his Spanish Civil War motif. Dali also made this painting look very realistic and yet continued to bring in surreal concepts. ^[18] Human's can not actually be shaped like the creatures in this painting, but it looks so real reminding the view that the ideas behind it are very real. Dali also brought in ideas of tradition in this peice with a beautiful Catalonian sky. This contracted with the idea of revolution. ^[19]