After visiting the bodega, we headed into the nearby town of
Figures, where
Salvador Dali made his home. He was a Spanish surrealist painter, who was prolific, self absorbed, and extremely quirky. Here is the outside of his museum, which he designed and organized before his death, so it would be just as he wanted it to be for all time.
The eggs on top are a nice touch... of crazy.
Although we didn't see
this painting below at his museum (it's at MoMA in NYC) it's his most famous piece of art, and I'm sure you'll recognize it (or elements from it that have been reproduced in pop culture)
We honestly debated in front of the museum for about 20 minutes whether it was actually worth going into. It was one of those places where you walk into the (free) gift shop, see the reproductions of ALL the stuff you're going to see in the museum, and you wonder if it's really worth the 15 bucks to get in. But, since we had driven to the city specifically to see the museum, and we didn't really have anything else planned, we decided to go in and check things out.
Here's an excerpt from Rick Steve's travel guide about the place:
The Dali Museum is the essential Dalà sight and, if you like DalÃ, one of Europe's most enjoyable museums. Inaugurated in 1974, the museum is a work of art in itself. Dalà personally conceptualized, designed, decorated, and painted it. Ever the entertainer and promoter — this would showcase his life's work. The museum is also a kind of mausoleum to DalÃ's creative spirit. There's no logical order to the museum — that would be un-surrealistic. And, naturally, there's no audio guide. Dalà said there are two kinds of visitors: those who don't need a description and those who aren't worth a description. 
He used part of an old theater that had partially burned down (which he then restored) and created the addition you see above, with all the eggs. In the middle of the courtyard, there is this cadillac - and you can put a coin into a machine near the car, and it makes it rain inside the car! Here's another little excerpt about "The Rainy Taxi":
"... the famous Cadillac, of which six exist, that Dalà gave Gala (his wife and muse) as a present. One of them had belonged to President Roosevelt, another to Clark Gable, etc. This is the fourth reproduction of the famous Rainy Taxi, all now destroyed.
The first was exhibited, with great success, at the surrealist exhibition in Paris, the second at the World Exhibition in New York, and the third at the surrealist retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The fourth is this one on permanent exhibition at the Dalà Museum."
We might add that this Cadillac-Rainy Taxi was the central feature in the stalls section of the former municipal theatre of Figueres, now converted into the Dalà Theatre-Museum, and it has attracted the attention of the more than ten million people who have visited the museum to date. It is the Cadillac that Gala used to drive and in which the couple had, during their stay in the United States, driven from coast to coast.
And now he has it raining inside...
I wish that these pictures captured the pure craziness of what we were seeing there. It was honestly hard to capture it, but trust me when I say that I saw the sort of things that a first-year architecture student would cobble together and call art :)
One last excerpt from Rick Steves:
Was he on drugs? When asked, he said "I am the drug...take me." He was passionate about the dark side of things and, with Gala, he managed never to go off the deep end. You can spend hours here wondering, is it real or not real? Am I crazy or is it you? Beethoven is painted with the ink of squid applied by a shoe on a stormy night. Jesus is made with candle smoke and an eraser. It's fun to see the DalÃ-ization of art classics.
In conjunction with the main museum, there was a special gallery exhibiting several items of jewelry he created. These items were spectacular, unique, weird, and contrived out of his crazy mind. Can you see the little hands on the broach on the right? And the smiling mouth - rubies for lips and pearls for the teeth. Actually very cool. He also had created a heart out of rubies with a little crown on top of it, and it moved! The heart looked like it was beating....
On the left, a painting on the ceiling in one of the rooms - it was really detailed and fantastic. On the right is Mr. Dali himself, in all of his craziness. I'm thinking that one of our friends should grow their mustaches like his...
I'm looking back at what I've written so far, and I'm really sounding like I'm putting the guy down a lot. That's not my intention! I actually think that he is an incredible artist - his hand drawings in pencil and other mediums are spectacularly detailed and well organized - he often just chooses odd subject matter. If you have the time, Google him, and just see a sampling of his work - you'll find that its different than almost anything you've seen before, and that he really pushed some things to the limits. His artwork has continued to be influential throughout the years, and although I think he's a bit crazy, I still like his work.
After a couple of hours at the museum, we had enough of art, and headed back to our hotel for some relaxing and a good bottle of Spanish wine. Our next installation of the Semana Santa trip will be our last, as we drive back to Madrid!
Read more...
