Espace Dali, Paris

I recently visited the Salvador Dali museum in Paris, Espace Dali. I didn't really know anything about the surrealist artist before I went and was suprised to find that I really liked his work and found it very interesting. Not long before I visited the Museum of Modern Art in the Pompidou Centre and had been really dissappointed by the works there so I was pleased to have my interest in art reinvigorated!

Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989) was particularly interested in the juxtaposition between the strength and fragility of life forms, in particular the snail, with it's tough outer shell protecting it's vulnerable, slug body.
"As Dalí believed that nothing occurred simply by accident, he was captivated when he saw a snail on a bicycle outside [Sigmund] Freud's house, connecting the snail with the image of a human head; more particularly, with the head of Freud. Dalí was also fascinated by the natural geometry of snail shells, and like the egg, the duality of its soft interior with its hard exterior." (Quoted from this site.) This is his sculpture, "The Snail and the Angel":Another animal that fascinated him was the elephant. Dali liked to exaggerate this contrast but giving the elephant long spindly legs in his pieces of art:


This work of art is particularly interesting as Dali has taken a proposal for the site of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to be used as the body and trunk of the elephant:" There was a pre-Napoleonic (1758) proposal by Charles Ribart for an elephant-shaped building on the location of the current arch." (Quoted from this site)

Here are some other items I photographed in the museum....

From his "Alice in Wonderland" series:
Sculptures:
Some of his furniture designs:


Espace Dali Website