Dali Paints a Dramatic Cry for His Deceased Mother

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

I’m not sure how many Dali scholars have connected the dots this way, but there’s really little wonder why the theme of death pervaded so much of the surrealism of Salvador Dali. First, the brother born a couple years before Dali – whom his parents had named Salvador (!) – died of meningitis.

A picture of the dead child hung prominently in the Dali family home, near a picture of the Crucifixion of Jesus. A lot to process for the young future artist/genius.

Then, when Dali was just 16 years old, his beloved mother died of uterine cancer. She was said to be a kind of counterpart to Dali’s father, in that, while Dali senior took issue with his son’s politics and personal choices, Dali’s mother lavished enormous attention on him and was devoted to the “second” Salvador unconditionally.

A poignant cry for the artist’s deceased mother.

Dali was devastated by the sudden loss of his mother, the woman to whom he vowed he would one day become a successful, famous artist. That devastation was memorialized in the superbly crafted but very bizarre surrealist canvas, “The Enigma of Desire,” painted when Dali was 25 years young.

A large palette-like structure merges with the well-known, ubiquitous “Great Masturbator” head – the head of Dali – on which a dense mass of ants appears – a symbol of decay and death.

Upwards of 70 elongated spaces (vaginal symbols? Intra-uterine symbols?) are carved into the gold, rocky structure, and in many of them appear the words, “Ma mere” (French for “My mother”). Dali was Spanish, of course, but he often wrote and spoke in French.

What a pictorial cry of anguish, loss, and desire!

It’s unimaginable to lose the person who generally loves us as no one else does – our mother – at such an impressionable, vulnerable age. You can practically hear Dali imploring a higher power to bring “My mother, my mother, my mother!” back to him.

Other unsettling details in “The Enigma of Desire” – a woman’s torso seen in a rocky opening in the middle distance; a configuration of anguished and violent activity at left – make this painting a real unvarnished, raw glimpse into the psyche and neuroses of a young Catalan painter destined to international greatness and historical legend.

It is not incidental that the lion’s head in the upper right portion of the painting had long symbolized the aggressive, authoritarian nature of Dali’s father. While Dali’s mother is appealed to in practically endless fashion in this almost desperate painting by a young man expressing loss and longing, Dali’s father – from whom he was now estranged – is accorded the nearly overlooked lion’s head.

Dali’s ‘Pieta’ of 1982 Features Hidden Double-Image…His Final One?

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

Today we’re taking a look at one of the final paintings by Salvador Dali, created in 1982 when the Surrealist master was 78 years old and in the throes of daunting health issues. Although we don’t know for certain, it’s probable that Dali had some help with this canvas by a studio assistant, given the increasing unsteadiness of Dali’s hand at the time.

Pieta, 1982

It seems fitting that Dali has yet again appropriated the motif of the landscape of his native Spanish countryside. The unique terrain of Port Lligat, Cape Creus and Cadaques was arguably his single most important source of inspiration in his paintings, in addition, of course, to his own imagination, aided and abetted by Freudian symbolism and fueled in part by the powerful presence of his wife, Gala, in his life.

Another rich wellspring of inspiration for Salvador Dali were the great Renaissance painters, whom Dali venerated and emulated throughout his career. Now, in what would be one of the very final paintings by Dali, he again chooses to nod toward one of the greatest sculptures of all time – the “Pieta” by Michelangelo.

One wonders if Dali, aware of his immortality now, and that surely he didn’t have many years left, had chosen this theme as a way of connecting spiritually to whatever future lay ahead for him. The dead Christ in the arms of his holy Mother therefore seemed an appropriate subject for him to visit.

And Dali’s interpretation brings me to two key points. First, as I mentioned earlier, is the landscape Dali so loved. Here, against a quite sketchy background, the figures of Jesus and his Mother in effect become part of the terrain. Holes appear where Mary’s breasts would be, and through Christ’s abdomen. Through them we get a glimpse of both the rocky coastline and the bay.

The actual draftsmanship here is a bit coarse, as if the figures were roughly hewn from rock, giving both a sculptural look to the subject while also suggesting the morphing of the rock formations into human figures – and thus completely consistent with a long-standing Dalinian motif.

The second key point I find fascinating, and I think you will too, is that this might be Dali’s final double-image painting. Look at the pointed rock formation that appears where Mary’s right breast would be – it is a second appearance of the face of the cradled Son!

Dali paid tribute to Michelangelo in several other paintings in his career, including one painted around this same late period in Dali’s life. He never lost interest in paying homage to the great, masterful precursors who helped make Dali one of history’s most prodigious and ingenious artists.

Dali Imagines an LSD Trip in ‘Trippy’ 1967 Painting

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

Here’s a Dali you’re more than likely not familiar with: “The Mountains of Cape Creus on the March (LSD Trip),” painted in 1967 at the height of the psychedelic, free love, acid-popping movement (not to mention the year this dali.com blogger graduated from high school).

“Mountains of Cape Creus on the March (LSD Trip)” – executed in watercolor and India ink – was painted the same year as another, far more famous psychedelic Dali work – the huge masterwork, “Tuna Fishing,” and both Dali paintings are owned by The Paul Ricard Foundation, Ile de Bendor, off the coast of France.

An LSD trip would likely make one believe mountains are moving!

In some ways “The Mountains of Cape Creus on the March (LSD Trip)” is untypical of the imagery and style we’re accustomed to expecting from the kingpin of Surrealism (though was anything he did every typical or predictable?). On the other hand, the work is indeed Daliesque: monumental animals on impossibly frail legs; dripping eye balls; riders on horseback; and more.

The title tells us pretty directly what we’re looking at: towering mountains from the Cape Creus region of Spain, where Dali lived all his life, and from which he drew enormous and continuous inspiration – and they’re in fact on the march. However, they’ve been transformed into a huge chicken at the rear and an equally massive elephant up-front, on whose head a wizard sits. The chicken’s head, meanwhile, is accompanied by that of a sorcerer with a curly beard. Several other human and animal forms are along for the ride as well, high above the Spanish landscape below, on which random tiny figures cavort.

All the while, dragon flies and bursting flowers and eyes with thick drops emerging, together with splashes of colors in red, yellow and blue, all conspire to give credence to the painting’s hallucinatory subtitle: LSD Trip.

Could this have actually been painted while Salvador Dali had taken LSD? While Dali dropped acid? Very, very unlikely, and here’s why:

First and foremost, Dali was something of a hypochondriac. From every indication, he was loathe to doing anything that would put his health in jeopardy. He was a virtual teetotaler, for instance, choosing mineral water over alcohol, with rare exception. It was also unlikely that Dali actually did or even tried LSD, because his approach to painting was always precise and deliberate; being on a “trip” would hardly be conducive to creating a carefully painted picture.

What’s more, do you really think the imagination of Salvador Dali required the assistance of mind-altering drugs? Little wonder Dali declared, “I don’t take drugs – I AM drugs!” And, adding a touch of rhyme, “Don’t take LSD – take Dali!”

Sheer Beauty Underpins Dali’s ‘Galatea of the Spheres’

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

“Galatea of the Spheres” (1952) brings together in a single oil on canvas a number of influences that informed Salvador Dali’s work and set the direction of his art when he was in his late 40s.

For this blogger, first and foremost, we get to see Dali, the painter of beauty – an informal title he proclaimed in protest to the destructiveness he lamented was evident in the current work of his Spanish countryman at the time, Pablo Picasso.

Simply put, “Galatea of the Spheres” is a lovely painting – hauntingly mysterious, lovingly delicate, masterfully painted.

The subject, of course, is once again Gala, Dali’s wife, muse, and leading model. Dali left no doubt as to his extreme reverence for the woman – but it seems little if anything was ever documented about what Gala herself thought of this veneration and immortalization of her by her celebrated husband.

In any case, as I said up top, Dali synthesized a number of influences to create this work, and one source he often mined was Roman and Greek mythology. In the present Dali painting the artist chose Galatea, the mythological sea nymph, and interpreted the scene through the lens of yet another important influence on him: mathematics and science. The spheres vanish at the middle distance, creating a dramatic and impressive perspective – a three-dimensional illusion that always fascinated Dali.

The spheres are not static, however; they’re “rumping and jumping about,” as Dali was known to have colorfully described the movement of atoms, after he was deeply moved by then-new discoveries in atomic physics. The atom-like spheres swirl about to form the hair, shoulders and other features of Madame Gala Dali.

Salvador Dali was to visit the theme of Gala as the sea nymph, Galatea, a few years later in his “Galatea,” a distinctively different painting from “Galatea of the Spheres,” yet with noticeable similarities, as you can see in the images provided.

“Galatea,” bearing similarities to “Galatea of the Spheres.”

I had the pleasure of seeing “Galatea” at the remarkable “Dali: The Late Work” exhibition in 2010 at the High Museum of Art, curated by Elliott King, Ph.D. I was surprised and delighted to see how the detailed little rhino horn particles making up Gala’s face had an impasto about them that made them look like bits of colorful candy – good enough to eat!

Meanwhile, in returning to “Galatea of the Spheres,” we’re reminded of how important Dali considered the illusion of powerful perspectives like the one created here. Dali was of course all about illusion, and I’ve said more than a few times that painting isn’t far from magic: what we think we see, and what is actually there, are two different things. Dali always made the unreal real!

Salvador Dali was able to create virtually any impression, any illusion he chose, primarily for two key reasons: he had an inventive imagination second to none, and he had the technical virtuosity of a Renaissance master.

Those qualities are plainly evident in “Galatea of the Spheres,” one of the most beautiful paintings ever created by Salvador Dali.

Dali Paid Homage to Raphael in ‘Madonna of the Birds’

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

Salvador Dali was a wonderful watercolorist, and a great illustration of this is found in his “Madonna of the Birds” of 1945, in the The Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

This Dali painting is a clear nod to the Renaissance master Raphael, whom Dali always included when naming his top three favorite painters, probably in this order: Velasquez, Raphael, and Vermeer.

Dali was never afraid to look back while moving forward as arguably the 20^th century’s greatest artist. Indeed, Dali embraced the debt he owed to the greats who came before him, and in the present case his homage to Raphael is a delicate little watercolor with which few people are familiar but which they really ought to get to know.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where Raphael’s “Alba Madonna” resides, writes about the work:

“Mary, Jesus, and John the Baptist are linked—by gaze, pose, and understanding—as they contemplate the cross Jesus takes in his hand. With calm gravity they apprehend the gesture’s significance: in this moment all see and accept Christ’s future sacrifice. But the limitlessness of the circular panel, its clear colors, and the Virgin’s radiant beauty hold out the promise of Grace.

“Seamless integration of form and meaning is a hallmark of the High Renaissance, a brief moment when a timeless, classical style balanced the perceptual and the conceptual attractions of art. Raphael reached this point of perfect counterpoise after assimilating lessons from Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the art of ancient Rome—all of which we see reflected in The Alba Madonna.”

Raphael’s “Alba Madonna,” which inspired Dali’s watercolor.

Dali’s reimagined “Madonna” – inspired, of course, by the Raphael masterpiece – bears some obvious similarities: the three principal figures, the cross, the foreground flora, and – most distinctively – the blue sandal on the foot of the Madonna. The third figure in Dali’s work, if presumably representative of John the Baptist, appears sexually ambiguous, and unlike the Raphael work, holds a dove.

Ingeniously, Dali adds mystery, movement, and a deeper sense of spirituality and ethereality to his work through the use of the double-image of birds in flight, which simultaneously form the face of the Virgin. This is one of the things that set Salvador Dali apart from others – this penchant for “seeing” in ways most of us never thought of.

“Madonna of the Birds” is literally that – she is “of the birds,” composed of birds that effectively double as her gentle countenance. This device was seen in several other lovely Dali creations, including another watercolor, “Dance of the Flower Maidens,” as well as the birds-face approach in one of the three oil panels Dali executed for Helena Rubinstein’s apartment in New York City, and his design for a Peace Medal cast in silver.

While many of us focus on Dali paintings, Dali drawings and Dali prints, I think it’s important to appreciate just how marvelous Salvador Dali was in the medium of watercolor. “Madonna of the Birds” is a superb example!

Dali’s ‘Royal Tiger’ a Departure Yet Still ‘Dalinian’!

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

There are a number of paintings by Salvador Dali that are something of a departure from what we’ve come to expect from the master of Surrealism. I think today’s look at the multi-faceted genius of Dali presents a great example of this: “Fifty Abstract Paintings which as Seen from Two Yards Change into Three Lenins Masquerading as Chinese and as Seen from Six Yards Appear as the Head of a Royal Bengal Tiger” of 1963.

Isn’t it kind of cool how some paintings just make you feel a certain way? There’s something about this work – sometimes shortened to the far more easily uttered title, “Royal Tiger” – that brings me visual pleasure even without knowing – or caring – what the images are, what they relate to, or what they might symbolize.

What I’m saying is that the work, for me, is simply aesthetically pleasing. Almost – dare I say it? – decorative. Don’t laugh, but I could see it as playful, bright wallpaper for certain fun rooms!

It is so Dali…and so not Dali.

But here’s what I find fascinating about the work: Dali, who pretty much deplored abstract art, cleverly thumbs his nose at that genre by actually painting all these seemingly abstract pictures – but with a big “but.” Dali ingeniously takes the sum of the whole’s parts to reveal the harlequin-like image of a Bengal tiger. The ferocious but beautiful animal is comprised of images of Vladimir Lenin, cloaked in a Chinese look, and a series of mainly yellow and nearly-black blocks that perhaps recall for some Dali aficionados works like “Corpus Hypercubus” and “Skull of Zurbaran.” (And, for lovers of mathematical challenges, Rubik’s Cube?)

Several painted tears in the large 79 inch by 90 inch canvas esoterically recall the same tromp l’ oil technique Dali employed in his “The Servant of the Disciples at Emmaus” of 1960.

“Fifty Abstract Paintings…”, in the collection of the Teatro-Museo Dali in Figueras, Spain, may also have a bit of political bite to it, insists Dali specialist, art history professor and author/curator Elliott King, Ph.D. “Pulling its subject from the day’s headlines, as was Dali’s fashion,” King wrote, “50 Abstract Paintings …playfully engages its audience with optical trickery whilst concurrently suggesting the seriously tenuous relations among the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China and the United States, all at the brink of nuclear war.”

I might add that the powerful tiger played a key role in another very popular Dali painting: “One Second Before Awakening from a Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate.” One of the two tigers in that picture was quoted directly from a P.T. Barnum circus poster.

The tiger in the present masterpiece emerges ethereally, mysteriously, surrealistically, and optically from Dali’s ingenious demonstration of how abstraction can leap to something far more thrilling!

‘Accidental’ Sighting Gives Birth to Dali’s ‘Paranoiac Face’

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

When we talk about an artist’s vision, we usually mean his or her sense of innovation or prescience. In the case of Salvador Dali, we also have to consider the concept of “vision” in a more literal sense – thanks to his unique Paranoiac-Critical creative method.

Put simply, the concept referred to Dali’s uncanny ability to see things that others did not – and successfully transcribe such visions to canvas, so others could share in Dali’s discernment.

Such is the case in the Dali painting I’m talking about today: “Paranoiac Face” of 1935. The story goes that Dali had spotted a postcard turned 90 degrees from the way it was meant to be viewed. Immediately he thought the image was some new painting by his esteemed countryman, Pablo Picasso. Because, to Dali’s special eye, the image conjured up a face that was at least partly Picasso-esque in form and style.

But that wasn’t it at all. It turned out the card was to be viewed horizontally, not vertically, and was simply a photo of African villagers seated in front of a hut and a thicket of trees.

Post card photo that inspired Dali’s painting.

It was the perfect jumping off point for Dali’s Paranoiac-Critical Method to rear its head.

The seated figures – their heads, their abdomens, their backs, a nearby clay pot, and the background trees – all suddenly converged for Dali to form a human head, the trees serving as the hair, one man’s head as the left eye, and another man’s naval as the right eye.

See it?

In a sense, this was an “accidental” Dali, not initially planned, not something that preoccupied Dali’s calculating mind. Instead, it came instantly to him – a kind of paranoiac delusional image that suddenly emerged from an essentially random sighting.

It reminds us of something that occurred decades later, when in 1969 Dali gazed upon a simple box of Venus drawing pencils and, in the images of the Venus di Milo on the cover, saw a “hidden” face formed of the Greek statue’s breast and a crease along her abdomen. That simple glance gave rise to one of Salvador Dali’s most impressive, important and popular paintings: “The Hallucinogenic Toreador” (1970) – a show-stopper in the permanent collection of The Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A.

To my knowledge, “Paranoiac Face” is the only Dali painting – or Dali watercolor, Dali drawing or Dali print – that requires a repositioning of the work in order to appreciate the double-imagery. And, unlike his other double-image works, “Paranoiac Face” is best appreciated when viewed alongside the original post card image.

Clearly one of the hallmarks of Dali’s genius was this inimitable ability to peer beyond the obvious, to discern what others would never see, to take the mundane and make it magnificent!

Did 1933 Dali Painting Anticipate Lady Gaga’s ‘Meat Dress’?

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

Did Dali think Gala was good enough to eat? Were her alluring beauty and inspiring presence as savory and seductively tempting as a sumptuously prepared meal? One would certainly think so, after contemplating “Portrait of Gala Balancing Two Lamb Chops on Her Shoulder,” painted when the artists was 29 years old.

Salvador Dali, for most of his adult life, had an almost impossible reverence for his Russian-born wife. Gala was the single most important thing to him, and the leading source of inspiration to his boundless creativity. To say he worshipped the woman – 10 years his senior – is an understatement.

I don’t know if anyone’s ever taken a count of the number of Dali paintings, Dali drawings, Dali watercolors and Dali prints that feature Gala, either as their primary subject or as an element in the composition. Of course, some of his most famous and important works – just a few examples include “Corpus Hypercbus,” “Galarina,” “The Madonna of Port Lligat,” and “The Virgin of Guadalupe” – saw Gala occupy exceptionally key roles in these masterpieces.

Only rarely did Dali choose to paint Gala in a manner that was patently amusing or even downright silly. Today’s work – “Portrait of Gala Balancing Two Lamb Chops on Her Shoulder” – tips us right off from its title that a bit of Daliesque hijinks is in store. Or at least something unconventional and, well, deliciously surrealistic.

The small canvas, in the collection of the Teatro-Museo Dali (Dali Theatre-Museum) in Figueres, Spain, features a lovely, dreamy portrait of a sleeping Gala (or perhaps of her just relaxing under the sun at Port Lligat), with background scenery that has been photographically documented as a real view near the couple’s villa on the Costa Brava.

But what do we find resting on Gala’s right shoulder but a pair of raw lamb chops! Is this to suggest something prurient? Even cannibalistic? Or was it intended as a milder metaphor? Dali spiced the matter up one time with a charming explanation, when asked about it: “I love my wife and I love chops. Why not paint them together?”

You’ve gotta love Dalinian logic!

In any case, the presence of the shoulder meat (did this anticipate Lady Gaga’s meat dress many decades later?) lends undeniable humor to the painting, and Dali’s sense of humor was never to be denied. He could be quite fun-loving – at the easel as well as away from it.

One of the truly outlandish examples of this taste for humor, again relating directly to Gala, was Dali’s “Portrait of Gala with Airplane Nose,” which he painted a year later. And which is privately owned, after having once been in the collection of Gala’s first husband, the poet Paul Eluard. And, yes, that’s a lobster on her head.

Dali’s ‘Enchanted Beach’ Shows Off his Unique Double-Imagery

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

During my tenure as publicity director of the original Salvador Dali Museum of Beachwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland – the museum subsequently relocated to St. Pete, Florida in 1982 – I found that museum visitors had a special affinity for “Enchanted Beach with Three Fluid Graces.”

The 1938 oil on canvas remains a crowd pleaser, and it’s easy to see why. First, that wonderful Dali technique: soft, precise, sensual, fluid – especially in a work of this subject matter.

One thing about virtually every Salvador Dali painting that cannot be denied is that its technical virtuosity alone is enough to impress people. This is not to knock abstract art, or more coarsely painted pictures. But I believe people hunger for the kind of special skill demonstrated in the paintings of Dali. There’s something undeniably fascinating in seeing images painted so precisely that even the unreal somehow appears real.

“Enchanted Beach with Three Fluid Graces,” in the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, also appeals to us because it’s yet another great example of something Salvador Dali was the undisputed twentieth century master at: double-imagery. The figure at left is formed by one of the dark rocks in the background; the middle figure from a horse and rider and other figures; and the third grace’s head and face are suggested by the distant rocky arch and landscape.

Mythology has presented the three graces – generally representing charm, beauty, and creativity – as a subject many artists have enjoyed exploring over the years. One of the most popular was that by Raphael, whom Dali greatly admired and listed among his three favorite artists: Raphael, Velasquez, and Vermeer.

From a broader perspective, I think we can also view “Enchanted Beach with Three Fluid Graces” as being something of a transitional painting for Dali. What I mean is that it was painted in 1938, just a few years before the artist turned away from pure surrealism to embrace an interest in more classical themes and his imminent Nuclear-Mystical period inspired by the atomic bomb and a new ethos it left in its wake.

Soon Dali would be leaving behind his signature soft watches and other surrealist props as he viewed the world through the lens of someone now aware of how discoveries in nuclear physics were changing everything. His fluid pictures such as the present one would be supplanted by dematerialization of his images, echoing the phenomenon of intra-atomic space. “Everything is rumping and jumping about,” as Dali put it in describing some of his Nuclear-Mystical compositions.

Alas, “Enchanted Beach with Three Fluid Graces” sort of brings us back to the basics of Dali’s inspiration: his native Spanish countryside, where open plains, beaches, and extraordinary rock formations fueled his imaginary impulses like nothing else. And yet it also becomes something of a transitional work, hinting at a more classical look Dali’s art would soon take on.

Dali Hits Death-Like Note in ‘Necrophiliac Fountain Flowing from a Grand Piano’

By Paul Chimera

Salvador Dali Historian

Salvador Dali looked at just about everything in his world – real or imagined – far differently than mere mortals! That might sound a touch dramatic, but it’s really not far from the truth. The fact is that Dali seemed destined from the very beginning to be, well, different. Different in how he conducted himself. Different in what he thought and how he viewed the world. Different in how he chose to convey his thoughts through his art.

“Necrophiliac Fountain Flowing from a Grand Piano” of 1933 is another of those quintessential Dali surrealist masterpieces. At first blush, it’s all about the bizarre and unforeseen juxtapositions we’ve come to expect from surrealism in general and Salvador Dali in particular.

It challenges our sense of what’s real and not, aided and abetted by Dali’s legendary photographic-like technique. He somehow seemed to give the impression that the unreal was real. There’s also an undeniable comical or amusing aura to works such as this privately owned canvas, when we see “crazy” occurrences like a cypress tree growing out of a piano and water flowing out of the instrument into a piano-shaped pool.

But it’s an awareness of some of the things that helped inform Dali’s early years that allows us to take a deeper, more meaningful drink here. Most important is the grand piano itself, which dominated a good number of Dali’s surrealist pictures of the 1930s. The appearance of the instrument owes to the influence of the Pichot family – friends of Dali’s parents and themselves musicians and artists.

It’s popularly known that the Pichots would often hold impromptu concerts among the rocks and distinctive terrain of Port Lligat and Cadaques, Spain. Young Dali would attend these open-air performances, and of course a grand piano was the centerpiece of the action.

But the lever that changed everything was Dali himself and his unique, perhaps neurotic mind, focused as it was so obsessively, and all his life, on serious issues, such as sex and, in the present case, the inevitability and specter of his own mortality.

So Dali, in his inimitable way, managed to put a twist on the pleasantness of the Pichot family’s al fresco concerts by making the grand piano look something like a stone sarcophagus. And while cypress trees were a common fixture of the Spanish landscape, they have long been symbolically associated with graveyards. A mysterious shrouded figure stands enigmatically behind the tree. A bat hovers in the dead ground space on which the piano lid-shaped pool appears, adding to the atmosphere of necrophilia that only a 29-year-old Dali would envision in musical scenes of his youth that others found redolent with jubilation.

Dali’s obsessive, neurotic attitude toward grand pianos was seen in a host of other works from this period, and biographers have pointed out how, on the family piano in Salvador’s home in Figueras, his father would keep an intimidating book on the ravages of venereal diseases opened to the most horrifying photographs. They clearly had a dubious and lasting impact on the future artist!