It is inevitable that the greatest cultural figures of all time are surrounded by myths, some are so outlandish they border on the macabre and morbid. The artist who painted the twentieth century with his eccentricity, madness, and enigmatic personality is no exception. Considered to be a genius by some and pathetic by others, the figure of Dalí has never escaped the spotlight. The diabolical dreamscape of his paintings, his expulsion from Breton and his surrealist group, and the way he ensnared his public make of this Catalan artist the focal point of the most delirious myths. He had an enthralling and egocentric personality and he rested on the laurels of luxury and excess. Every facet of this painter make him the embodiment of surrealism itself.
Profoundly influenced by psychoanalysis and Freud’s free association,
Dalí professed himself to be an ardent follower and he was one of the many artists who nurtured their art on the theories created by this Austrian psychiatrist.
His obsession with photography, his contempt for Picasso and the rise of the cubism movement turned him into a myth. His bizarre relationship with Gala, his muse, added another nuance to his personality. Violent, fascist, penny-pincher, and lover of luxury are some of the labels that are attached to the dark sides of one of the most prominent artist of twentieth century. What were the sexual fixations that inspired the dream-like and powerful paintings of
Dalí? Here are five depraved and sadistic secrets that defined his life and artistic work.
5. Dalí was addicted to masturbation.
When he was growing up, he discovered his sexuality in a profound way, filled with otherness and eroticism. As a child, the painter compared his penis with his colleagues, and he discovered that his was much smaller and softer. For many years, he believed himself to be impotent and developed an obsession with masturbation, to the point that he did over four times per day, according to him, in front of the mirror. Masturbation served as a tool for inspiration: however, it was insufficient to take him to the world of nonsense.
4. The Great Masturbator suffered during his whole life a lack of acceptance surrounding his sexuality.
This was caused by the ultraconservative education imparted by his father in his childhood. As he grew, his father stressed the evil and sin that arose when surrendering the body to sexual experimentation. On one occasion, he was forced to look at a book filled with images of terrible STIs, and disfigured sexual organs in the state of decomposition. The trauma was such that the genius grew up convinced that sexual acts were denigrating and decadent. This belief was reflected in his paintings, as shown above where a deformed woman is seen performing fellatio on a man whose knees are bleeding.
3. In his youth, the Catalan painter was emotionally involved with the poet, Federico García Lorca.
Both shared artistic points of view and socialized in the same social circles before the start of the Spanish Civil War. Some extra-official versions point out that Lorca tried to convince Dalí to spend a night together several times; however, the surrealist denied these statements in many interviews. Everything suggests that this eccentric artist was a virgin until his marriage with Gala, who in turn had an extensive sexual experience. Dalí became obsessed with her to the point, a love he maintained throughout his whole life.
2. The eccentricities of the Catalan painter were widely known throughout the twentieth century and have been well documented by biographers and historians.
It is a fact that Dalí was a voyeur and he enjoyed watching other couples having sex in his presence. He even asked Gala to have sex with other men in front of him to satisfy his sexual desires. As a young man, he documented his experiences as a voyeur in different orgies, which helped him create androgynous bodies that would soon turn into an obsession.
1. In 1980, Dalí had to retire from his great passion due to a motor disorder that caused permanent trembling and weakness in his hands.
The explosive character of ‘The Divino’, as he called himself, was in crescendo as the days passed. In the meantime, Gala was deeply enmeshed in the artistic sphere where she met countless artists and male lovers, in turn, Dalí’s jealousy grew. One afternoon, in a fit of madness and rage, Dalí hit Gala so hard he broke two of her ribs. The muse continued to care for him until his death, and in his last days, he required greater dosis of anxiety pills to remain calm.
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