5 Things You Didn’t Know About Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí, or Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech if you’re keen, remains the most famous and influential surrealist painter. His legacy continues to inspire today, where not only artists attempt to mirror his artistry, but hit shows like La Casa de Papel were influenced by his unique visage. When he wasn’t hanging out with artist buddies, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró, he was busy creating a visual language to reproduce the masked corners of the human subconscious.
In honour of what would have been his 116th birthday, Artupia brings you five facts you didn’t know about the man behind the moustache.
1. He deliberately deprived himself of sleep for his art
Like that strange realm you find yourself in when you’re in one of those meetings that should have been an email, Dalí would force himself into that weird state between sleep and waking. Giving the concept of ‘tortured artist’ new meaning, Dalí would put a tin plate on the floor beside him and hold a spoon in his hand. As he drifted off into a peaceful slumber, the spoon would fall onto the plate and wake him with glorious cacophony. He claimed the images in this in between state were more vivid and colourful than normal, and it was worth the fatigue… whatever helps you sleep at night, Salvador (or not).
2. He had a pet anteater
Towering Haussmann buildings, plumes of cigarette smoke curling around café-goers, Salvador Dalí walking his anteater; these were some of the typical scenes of 1960s Paris. Named after friend and founding father of surrealism, André Breton, Dalí’s aphid-eating friend was a tribute to the writer of the Surrealist Manifesto…
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