Salvador Dali was precise and detailed painful reality and, placed them inside

somber and depressing landscapes as in The persistence of Memory' in 1931

(Smith, 2002, 1/1). His paintings showed a surrealist maturity since he was twenty.
From 1926 to 1929, Dali begun making objects loaded with modern sexual symbols.
For example, showing a dirty figure filled with excrement as in 'The Lugubrious
Game' done in 1929. At this period, surrealists were very attracted to Salvador Dali
because of his strong personality and his violent works and paintings full of sexual
and excrements allusions (Neret, 2000, p.21). The trompe-l'oeuil photographs, by
Salvador Dali, took surrealist paintings to another level by using techniques never
used before. These paintings are filled with unusual shapes, double-sided figures
and, anamorphosis, that are distorted images that could be well understood only if
seen from a certain angle. They made him "a quarter century in advance, the
patron saint of American photo-realists" (Nret, 2000, p.27). They were used to
transcribe the image of Dali's dreams. This was a revelation in his surrealist
paintings mainly caused by a very special person in Dali's life called Gala. As a
person, Salvador Dali was very special and had a revelation in his life by meeting
Helena Diakonoff or Gala. It all begun by a visit of Andre Breton, Louis Aragon and,
Paul Eluard to Dali. They were three masterminds of the surrealism movement. At
this time, Gala was Paul Eluard's wife and the minute she entered Salvador's home
everything changed in his life. She was for Dali, "the woman of his childhood dream"
(qtd. in Nret's book, 2000, p.21). She was all the women he represented in his
paintings before meeting her. Dali announced that "the small of her back was
extremely feminine and pronounced [] and, the energetic leanness of her torso,
her delicate buttocks and, the slenderness of her waist enhanced and rendered
greatly more desirable" (qtd. in Nret's book, 2000, p.22). Dali had extremely

intense feelings towards Gala. Every time he started talking to her, he burst into
insane laughter and when she used to leave, Dali fell to the ground. He believed
that his love to Gala was perpetual and he declared that "she was destined to be my
Gradiva, my victory, my wife" (qtd. in Nret, 2000, p.24). He never felt that happy in
his life and stated that "the idea that in my own room where I was going to work
there might be a women, [], suddenly struck me as so seductive that it was
difficult for me to believe this could be realized" (qtd. in Nret, 2000, p.36). Once,
Dali asked Gala what she wants him to do. At that time, he had just read Jensen's
novel, Gradiva, in which the hero succeeds in healing the male protagonist
psychologically. She said she wants him to kill her. He then noted, "One of the
lightning ideas that flashed into my mind was to throw Gala from the top of the belltower" (qtd. in Nret, 2000, p.26). However, right then, Dali realized that Gala
weaned his crime and cured him, because he had reached the great trial of his life,
"the trial of love" (Ion,1994,p.36). At this point, he was healed from his hysterical
symptoms and was back to life again after Gala's psychological help. He claimed, "I
became master again of my laughter, of my smile, and of my gestures. A new
health, fresh as a rose, began to grow in the center of my spirit" (qtd. in Nret,
2000, p.26). As well as a person, Dali showed uniqueness as an artist especially
after the entrance of Gala in his life. From 1926 to 1929, Salvador showed lot of
excrements in his paintings. At this time, after meeting his wife, he introduced the
"elementary biological character" (Nret, 2000, p.22) of his future works. The sexual
symbols taking place in Dali's life over flew into his art. The passionate love Dali felt
towards Gala would dominate all of his works. After the phenomenal psychological
help from Gala we talked about, Dali sensed a deep change coming over him in his
works. He began doing the trompe-l'oeuil photographs that changed the whole

concept of surrealism. Finally, we saw how Salvador Dali took art and surrealism to
another level with outrageous concepts and techniques never used before. He also
had a gigantic revelation by meeting his wife Gala that changed him as a person
and, as an artist. All these steps and events made Dali a unique being in art history
and a major influence to all his following painters and surrealists.

Bibliography
Dali, Salvador. (1993). New Standard encyclopedia. Chicago: Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication.
Gibson I., Torroella R.S, Fares F., Ades D. & Vidal A.S. (1994). Salvador Dali: the early
years. Great Britain: Thames & Hudson Ltd, London.
Nret, G (2000). The Trial of Love. In C. Plant (Trans.), Dali (p.21). Germany:
Benedikt
Taschen Verlag.
Thames & Hudson (2001). ART20. [Online]. Available:
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/Dali.html [2004, December 1].
Smith (2002). The life of Salvador Dali. [Online]. Available:
http://www.virtualdali.com/#biography [2004, December 1].
Surrealism. (1993). New Standard encyclopedia. Chicago: Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication.