Dali (Mallard Fine Art Series)

February 26, 2008 | By Doug In Dali |

Dali (Mallard Fine Art Series)
Almost half Dal?’s illustrations in this book have rarely been seen

This publication presents the entire painted oeuvre of Salvador Dal? (1904-1989). After many years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles N?ret finally located all the paintings of this highly prolific artist. Many of the works had been inaccessible for years - in fact so many that almost half the illustrations in this book have rarely been seen.

Customer Review: Dali revealed
Dali (Mallard Fine Art Series) I have read this book cover to cover and enjoyed every word! Paul Moorhouse manages to give a great amount of information covering Dali’s life, his contribution to Surrealism, hidden aspects of his personality, his thinking and preferences at different periods in his life, thus allowing the reader to enter the magical world of Dali. The paintings selected span Dali’s lifetime and represent the major directions of his work at different points in his life. The explanation provided for each painting includes its symbolism, its relation to what the artist was going through personally at the time, as well as connections with the historical period and other influences. The only minus is the quality of the reproduction of a few of the paintings which is a bit disappointing. All in all a book I highly recommend.

Customer Review: Even better as a whole
The value of this book is in its 1600+ image reproductions. A few of them are photos of Dali or the people and places that inspired him. A very few show existing artworks to which Dali’s creations responded. The overwhelming majority, however, display Dali’s own paintings or the sketches related to them.

And the mass of imagery is overwhelming. The book traces Dali’s output from his early, formative periods onwards. Although Dali was productive in the 1920s, his familiar style emerged in the 1930s and simply expanded for the next half-century. The chronological organization of this book lets us see Dali’s art and personality develop. Among other things, we see how his sketching evolved from pen drawings early in his career to loose oil sketches later. This also seemed to complete some kind of cycle, from the relative crudity of his early work, to the crystalline finish of his best-known years, back to imprecision again, but with all of his mature expressiveness.

By its attempt at completeness, this presents aspects of Dali that other authors often ignore. For example, Dali was profoundly influenced by Catholic Christianity. Although his personal beliefs may be difficult to fathom, he produced some of the most beautiful images of Christ ever created.

Descharne’s commentary supports the images well, but it’s hard to read. I don’t mean that the text is badly written - quite the opposite, it is very helpful, especially in biographical notes that describe Dali’s life at the time of each work. Instead, I mean that my thoughts can’t stay on the words for long when the pictures take such command of my attention.

//wiredweird

Posters: Salvador Dali Poster Art Print - El Torero Hallucinogene (32 x 24 inches)

Dali (Mallard Fine Art Series)
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Customer Review: Excellent
An excellent overview of a wonderful artist. It certainly helps you look behind the well known pieces and see a tremendous amount of art work spanning many years.
Customer Review: dali was one who knows, but acts as as if he did not know!!!
every time i bring up the salvador dali people say oh but he was a madmen, a lunatic. and i say no dali was very sane and it is you who are mad (in the sense) you can not see straight. your vision is ascew. we would do well to remember that dali knew very cleary of his immortality, his spiritual roots so to speak. in one way he saw himself as a showmen (he loved the absurd) but there was also serious side to dali which shone thru in places such as his wonderful “the unspeakable confessions of salvador dali”. quotes such as ” that is true which we are strong enough to impose” in other words he knew we create reality. thankyou to kenneth grant for noticing this. another quote ” i fear i will die without heaven” some commentators have taken this to be dali’s conversion to catholisism, but what he is saying in his inimitable fashion is that he feared he would die without realising heaven on earth rather than dieing to the physical (dense,hard body) and ascending to one of the millions of heavens. again dali was no fool, you proberly are! ha ha ha