Dali, Salvador Easter Egg - Self-Portraits

I'm writing a paper on the symbolism in Dali paintings, I have been a Dali fan since I was a child. masculine symbols include the cypress tree, the tower, the crutch, and the feminine, the piano, receptacles and symbols of maternity, such as milk. double images, hidden appearances, counter appearances Dali had a great phobia of insects, so the presence of a grasshopper in a painting such as Portrait of Paul Eluard for example would symbolise fear. When Dali was a child, he found a dead bat covered in ants, and since then always linked ants to death One of Dali’s obsessions throughout his works was a piece of art by another artist, called The Angelus by Jen- François Millet, painted in 1859. It shows a couple, praying in a barren field. Dali was always convinced they were praying over a dead child they had buried, and possibly this for his symbolised his parents He, himself, says he finds the crutch to be "the significance of life and death...a support for inadequacy." It is well known that Dali, for a long time, had a fetish about crutches, which stemmed from his youthful desire to place a crutch under the breast of a woman whom he saw working in the fields. Crutches can be supportive in Dali’s works, such as those in Sleep, or restrictive as if to cause pain or damage to that which it is propping up, such as Visions of Hell, or Spectre of Sex Appeal. Eyes have always been a symbol for Dali, particularly in his own polymorphic self-portraits. His paintings The First Days of Spring, Illuminated Pleasure, The Enigma of Desire and The Persistence of Memory all show a head, a face and a prominent eye. Those eyes, however, are all closed. The long extended eye in Vision of Hell, for example, is open, as if to say, the victim's eyes have been opened at death. Dali was a very egotistical man he adored himself and his, even from an early age, when he would delight in soiling the bed just so he could watch his parents change the sheets. Perhaps he uses so many versions of his face in works like this to show different sides of his character we would not see, perhaps he is so self obsessed, he doesn’t care. He used his wife’s image in hundreds of his works, Angelus of Gala, Galarina, Leda Atomica, The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, the list goes on and on. In fact, it would be considered unusual if a grown woman in a Dali painting wasn’t in the image of Gala.

He also had a huge fear of crickets, so there are crickets somewhere in most of his works.

There are other objects which show up in his paintings frequently. The self portrait is in almost every one of his paintings. It looks like a melting head with some kind of colored thing near his ear (hair, maybe?) Some others: -ants -open drawers -crutches (most prominent in "Sleep"

There's a really obvious one in that picture with the elephants and the swans (i forgot what it's called), he's on the left side, on the rocks.

There is also usually an image of his wife in his paintings as well.

I learnt a whole lot about Dali and 'his eggs' from a visit to the St Petersburg musuem in Florida. It was a true eye-opener to appreciating his art.

The ants which are in many of Dali's works are there because when he was young he had a pet bat (i think) and one day he found it dead with ants all over it. This disturbed him greatly and the ants became part of his surreal paintings. The stories behind the lobster, drawers and lady in white I'm not sure of. For the story about the melting clocks, go to the trivia page.

Also, in many pictures there is a man holding hands with a young child. This relates to Dali's childhood relationship with his father.

The bust of Voltaire is everywhere! Are you sure that you are not looking at the disappearing bust of Voltaire? Dali put it in most of the paintings that he did after "The Slave Trade and The Disappearing Bust of Voltaire". This image is in the "Surrealistic Torreador" for one, but also hidden in most of the other paintings that are hanging in St. Petersburg.

i did see the bust of voltaire in the hallucinogenic torreador...which is one of three prints i own. i think you people are missing the point. this is what the surrealism and dali is all about. to know that these things are in there isnt much of a find because it was obviously put in there, to know why they are in there is interesting however.

I too have been to the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, considering I've lived here my whole life :) I went on a guided tour with my class and it was so amazing, all the many different things hidden in his paintings. I mean, we're a bunch of teenage 8th-graders, going on a trip to some art museum...we all thought it was going to be boring us to death. Turns out we were all fascinated, mainly by the fact that all those hidden "eggs" were pointed out to us. We were also told about the history of his life, so we understood a lot more of it. Let me tell you, that is one disturbed man...wow.

There's one in Persistence Of Memory! That white thing on the ground with a watch draped over it is Dali's face. Towards the left you can clearly make out his nose and his closed eyelid and eyelash! WOoooOT!

also, in the painting "Soft Watch At First Explosion", if you look in the top right corner, there are parts of the watch the are shaped in the forms of "S D".

Dali's greatest friend the Spanish Poet Frederico Garcia Lorca also appears frequently in his paintings. There is one painting with a face (I think on a beach?!?) composed of two halves; one is Dali's face the other is Lorca's.

Actually the crutches in his paintings were there to reperesent aristocracy.

The title is "Swans Reflecting Elephants"

What I believe Dali was trying to express in The Persistence of Memory is that time will always be around and time will always go by and ,with time, we will all shrivel up and die. If you look closely to the clock that is melting off of the wall, platform, there is a fly on it. I believe that Dali was trying to say that time is flying. Another clock is on a shriveling creature, I believe this means that with time we will all shrivel up and begin to sleep (die). The third clock is hanging off of a dead tree representing that as time goes by we will die, death is upon us. The last clock is covered by ants, in which they are trying to destroy. Dali did have a bat when he was a young boy and he found the bat being eaten by ants. I believe this clock means that time can never be destroyed by what he thinks can destroy something (ants destroying the bat). In conclusion, as time flies (fly clock), we will shrivel up (creature clock) and die (dead tree clock) and that time can not be destroyed (ant clock).

I'm not questioning the intelligence of the guy who posted this... but if I'm not mistaken Leanardo Da Vinci NOT Dali did "The Last Supper" am I the only one who caught that?

4GiveMe4TheLewdness, you are wrong my friend. "Last Supper" is by Dali.I have it hanging in my house. DaVinci also has the "Last Supper:, and technically Dali's painting is called "The Sacrement of the Last Supper". Dali stated that this was an "arithmetic and philosophical cosmogony based on the paranoiac sublimity of the number twelve...the pentagon contains microcosmic man: Christ"