The Great Masturbator

Salvador Dalí was born in 1904, in Figueras, Catalonia. He was one of the most well-known surrealist artists of the twentieth century, and he was a great experimenter of the pictorial, theatrical and cinematographic fields. His style is original and it is distinguishable due to the provocative subject matter. He was able to integrate the Freudian theory of dream analysis in his works, expressing the workings of the unconscious mind and associate words, images and thoughts to provoke a specific kind of emotion in the viewers, revealing also the artist’s darkest secrets and an alternative reality. Thanks to his expertise as a draftsman and a colorist, he used a variety of techniques and mediums to create his artwork, such as lithography, sculpting, oil painting, fashion designing and writing.                                                    Dalí’s work was inspired by Pablo Picasso, whom he met in Paris, and by an Italian painter, called Giorgio de Chirico. Since he used the themes of death, eroticism, childhood memories, dreams, his artworks can be viewed as modern, innovative, deep, symbolic and sometimes grotesque.