Diary of a Genius stands as one of the seminal texts of Surrealism, revealing the most astonishing and intimate workings of the mind of Salvador Dalí, the eccentric polymath genius who became the living embodiment of Surrealism, the 20th century's most intensely subversive, disturbing and influential art movement. Dalí's second volume of autobiography, Diary of a Genius covers his life from 1952 to 1963, during which years we learn of his amour fou for his wife Gala, and their relationship both at home in Cadaqués and during bizarre world travels. We also learn how Dalí draws inspiration from excrement, rotten fish and Vermeer's Lacemaker to enter his "rhinocerontic" period, preaching his post-holocaustal gospels of nuclear mysticism and cosmogenic atavism; and we follow the labyrinthine mental journeys that lead to the creation of such paintings as the Assumption, and his film script The Flesh Wheelbarrow. This new expanded edition includes a brilliant and revelatory essay on Salvador Dalí, and the importance of his art to the 20th century, by the author J. G. Ballard.
Author
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Púbol, was a Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, Catalonia. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Salvador Dalí's artistic repertoire also included film, sculpture, and photography. He collaborated with Walt Disney on the Academy Award-nominated short cartoon Destino, which was released posthumously in 2003. He also collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on Hitchcock's film Spellbound. Dalí insisted on his "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors who occupied Southern Spain for nearly 800 years (711-1492), and attributed to these origins, "my love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes." Widely considered to be greatly imaginative, Dalí had an affinity for doing unusual things to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric manner sometimes drew more public attention than his artwork. The purposefully-sought notoriety led to broad public recognition and many purchases of his works by people from all walks of life.
