Dalí

I never had such fun at a museum as I did at the permanent Dalí exhibit in St.Petersburg, Florida. It's a tiny museum with about 70 pieces, so you don't need to rush from one room to the next. The exhibit centered on the influence of Sigmund Freud and surrealism on Dalí's work. It was mesmerizing and bizarre, and played on my mind for days.

Here's some "did you know?" stuff that I found interesting -

* When Dali first met Gala, she was married to a surrealist poet and in a ménage à trois, not odd considering that the surrealist movement was anti-family. They met at a weekend party hosted by Dali, by the end of which, Gala had chosen to leave her husband and daughter to stay behind with Dali.
* There were nearly 300 instances of Gala in Dali's paintings, and he intertwined their names when he signed his paintings.
* Dalinean symbols such as the grasshopper, ants, water, elephants and keys appear repetitively through his work - symbolizing death, fear, sexual desire...
* Strangely, Dali was fixated with his brother's death although he was born 9 months after his brother died.

Two paintings that blew my mind - Gala contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at 20m becomes the portrait of Abraham Lincoln. There is so much to be said about all the little symbols he has inserted into the painting, but you need only to squint your eyes and see the profile of Lincoln to acknowledge Dali's talent.

The second painting is the Hallucinogenic Toreador. The Wiki entry describes it best:"Examined from a distance, the body of the second Venus reveals the face and torso of the toreador (bullfighter). Her breasts as his nose, while her arms transform into his mouth. Their long skirts make up his white shirt and red scarf of the Toreador. The green layer makes up his necktie. His eye is found within the face of the second Venus. The soft white area unveils a tear slipping from his eye."