Salvador Dali died 23 years ago today. There can be little left to write about him that's new, but his influence continues unabated. A very quick look on a search engine will bring up hundreds of thousands of hits, several thousand of which will refer to people all over the world who have Dali permanently inked on their bodies.
A (Very) Brief Biography
Salvador Domènec Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol, was born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, on 11 May 1904. His older brother, also called Salvador, had died nine months earlier and Dali's parents encouraged him to believe he was his brother's reincarnation. Dali's mother Felipa died in 1921 and his father subsequently married Felipa's sister.
In 1922 Dali began his studies at the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, but he was expelled in 1926 before he could take his final exams. He didn't really need them - by that time he was already gaining recognition as an artist. On the suggestion of fellow artist Joan Miro he set himself up in Paris, holding his first solo show in 1929. That same year he met Gala Éluard, then married to a poet, who would go on to be his wife, muse and inspiration until her death in 1982.
Over the next 60 years Dali painted, illustrated, produced ballets, films and theatre productions, wrote books and had his work displayed all over the world. He died of heart failure on 23 January 1989.
Why Get a Dali Tattoo?
Wearers reasons for getting Dali tattoos are as disparate as the man's back catalogue.
On blogs there are plenty of people who have Dali tattoos simply because they are beautiful, or because he inspired their desires to be artists. There are a few more detailed explanations that are interesting, and perhaps demonstrate that Dali's flamboyance and willingness to share so much of himself means he resonates more with people than other, more private artists do.
On Carl Zimmer's fabulous blog, one respondent has written in to explain his Dali tattoo.
"This is a tattoo of Salvador Dali’s “The Swallow’s Tail,” the last painting Senor Dali completed before his death. Salvador had a rough couple of years, and through his depression he stumbled upon Rene Thom’s catastrophe theory, which inspired him to paint again. This particular painting is a representation of the swallowtail catastrophe (V = x5 + ax3 + bx2 + cx). In four dimensional phenomena, there are seven possible equilibrium surfaces and therefore seven possible discontinuities, and Thom called these the “elemental catastrophes.” In bifurcation theory, these are used to predict and model sudden shifts in behavior that result from small changes in circumstances. For a non-scientist, this is about as close to a complete explanation of my job and life as I may ever find. Salvador planned to do a series of all the possible catastrophes, and started with this one.
Sadly, he died right after he finished it. I’m not typically prone to drawing far-fetched parallels or finding metaphors where none exist, but still, this fact reminds me that my work will never, ever be done."
Another blogger discusses her Metamorphosis of Narcissus tattoo in light of her mental health. The word 'metamorphosis' describes a transformation, and the choice of tattoo alludes to the transformation she has been undergoing since a nervous breakdown in 2006. A print of the painting also acted as a fascinating and distracting aid to recovery.
Sports stars are not immune to the Dali bug. NBA player Drew Gooden, of the Milwaukee Bucks, has a Dali-style melting clock on his upper arm, set to 11:11 for good luck.
A Good Legacy?
Dali is such a well-known artist that enjoying his work has become a cliché of sorts. Ironic, when you consider that Dali was pretty harsh on cliché. He once said: "The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot."
He was, however, unashamedly narcissistic and self-obsessed; so would he mind his work inspiring such devotion that people are willing to pay a lot of money and go through a lot of pain to carry it with them always? Not knowing his views on tattooing as an art form, it's impossible to say for certain, but in this case perhaps imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery. After all, Dali did believe that "those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing".
Post-mortem Accomplishment
"Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy - the joy of being Salvador Dalí - and I ask myself in rapture: What wonderful things is this Salvador Dalí going to accomplish today?"
Two decades after Dali's death smart tattoo artists are breathing new life into his paintings, helping people to heal, to remember dreams and to celebrate loved ones. That's some accomplishment.
Jennie Gillions - Jennie Gillions has a History and Archaeology degree. She is a published writer with particular interests in art, history and mental ...
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