Salvador Dalí - far more than a celebrated surrealist
- Hilda Steinkamp
- Dec 5, 2025
- 7 min read
His artistic range between "rivoluzione e tradizione" in the Palazzo Cipolla Roma
Dalí, the Surrealist
That's how I've known him since my visits in the 1990s to the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida , which has one of the most extensive collections outside of Europe, and to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
An artist situated between Picasso's Cubism and De Chirico's and Magritte's Surrealism. That's what I thought for a long time.
A selective perception. That's what I know now. After visiting the current Dalí exhibition in Rome. It's more than just an update to my perception of Dalí. It fills in the gaps in my understanding of this multifaceted, exceptional 20th-century artist. The same artist who, in his own self-promotion, claims there are only two Spanish geniuses in modern art:
"One is Picasso. The other one , that's me, Dalí." 
Later, after growing critical of Picasso and turning to the Maestri classici, Velázquez, Vermeer and Raphael, Dalí changed his point of reference, with an unbroken high level of self-confidence:
"One day, perhaps, without my wanting it, I will be seen as the Raphael of my time."
The exhibition in Rome traces the painter's artistic path: Dalí - revolution and tradition. And our lively group is following along. Federico Palmieri, as Consul at InterNations, whetted our appetite for this event and, in his insightful introduction, can hardly contain our enthusiasm for Dalí:
Dalí becomes revolutionary
In 1926, Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) exhibited his first works in Madrid and Barcelona. He was young, 22, and his paintings and drawings marked a clear break with contemporary painting. It was a time of upheaval in Europe after World War I, in politics, society, and art. Picasso, with his Cubist style, deconstructed reality and opened up new perspectives. Dalí was impressed and followed him, though not as a mentor, as his visit to Picasso in Paris in 1926 proved uninspiring. They silently showed each other their paintings for the next exhibition, without any appreciation. The old master and a young apprentice? Dalí was by no means working as a painter's apprentice, but rather developing his own artistic style from an early age. This style was not well received in the academic art scene. He defied the judgment of his professors, who wanted to train him to be an old-school art teacher, and was summarily dismissed from the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando di Madrid. And began a successful artistic career.
Dalí's still lifes ( nature morte ) elicited disparaging comments from audiences accustomed to naturalistic depictions, such as: "I see nothing. Neither living nor dead nature" and: "What is the value of these paintings?" One art critic, however, understood and explained Natura morta (ca. 1924) by the young Catalan painter as a work of art in the Cubist style: a fragment of reality, perhaps a meal, broken down into geometric forms, rearranged – as if by an architect, thus offering the viewer fresh perspectives.
Pierrot con chitarra (c. 1923), featuring Harlequin and guitar—typical motifs of painting, even in Picasso's Cubist style—shows more. Dalí supplements the work with additional elements, such as spoons and plates from his sister Anna Maria's toy kitchen, adding biographical fragments to create his own personal style.
In Ragazza di Figueres (1926), Dalí combines architectural and landscape elements of his birthplace, Figueres, in such a condensed form that the scene before the embroidering girl on the artist's balcony appears unreal. The painter's step into Surrealism was taken.
Dalí's Figures Lounging on the Sand (1926) continue his new style. With deformed and severed body parts of the outstretched sunbathers on the sand and a similarly fragmented waterscape, he creates an unreal-looking scene—a product of his imagination.
In Tavolo di fronte al mare. Omaggio a Eric Satie* (1926), the painter deconstructs reality into a geometric order: with a table and other domestic elements of a still life and elements of the sea. The overall composition takes on a figurative form, culminating in the severed head (a self-portrait of the painter). The harmony of forms and colors is a homage to Satie and his soothing piano pieces.
Dalí deals with tradition - in his own way
Dalí's turn, after his revolutionary beginnings under Picasso's influence, to Renaissance (Raphael) and Baroque (Velázquez, Vermeer) painters was not a nostalgic look back. He studied their painting techniques, incorporated them into his existing stylistic repertoire, and reinterpreted their paintings in a contemporary way.
He wanted to divert the attention of contemporary art consumers from the emptiness of modern art. Federico gets us in the mood for our museum visit: Dalí saw himself as art's savior. His first name, Salvador, means savior, redeemer – nomen est omen ? His parents had named him after his brother, who died young – savior of the family line.
In the 1950s, Dalí was interested in Raphael's (1483-1520) religious motifs. He also admired the perfection of Raphael's painting style and the Italian's physique. Dalí began his dialogue with the maestro as a young man. He adopted the elegant lines and powerful muscles of Raphael's neck ( Autoritratto , 1506) in his self-portrait (Autoritratto con il collo di Raffaello, 1921).
Things took a more serious turn when religious themes were explored. Inspired by the motif and painting Santa Caterina di Alessandria (1507-09) by the Renaissance artist, and also by post-war nuclear physics, Dalí created his Ascensione di Santa Cecilia in 1955, offering a contemporary interpretation of the saint. The face and body parts of the female figure are fragmented and lost amidst particles, which Dalí gives the shape of rhinoceros horns.
Rhinoceroses fascinated the painter, especially the perfect geometry of their spiral horns. He drew anatomical inspiration for his sketches from the Paris Zoo. He also discovered curved horn tips as a stylistic element in Raphael's paintings. However, in Raphael's work, they are harmoniously integrated into a religious cosmos, while Dalí uses them to illustrate the dissolution of the cult of saints in the worldview of his time.
Despite the aesthetic appeal of the spheres, which, like atoms, illustrate the molecular model in physics, La velocità massima della Madonna di Raffaello (1954) functions as a silent lament for the decay of spiritual life. The Madonna's face is fragmented, its individual parts moving upwards into the air at the speed of atomically disintegrated matter. This is not a Christian interpretation of the Virgin Mary, an Assumption as traditionally depicted. The atomic dynamics of material decomposition can only be controlled if humanity reconnects with spiritual dimensions. For this, the vision of the Old Masters is necessary. In this respect, Dalí places himself in a genealogical line with his famous predecessor: "I continue where Raphael left off." In the arrangement of his pictorial elements, the painter alludes to the spirally twisted structure of the DNA molecule, thus suggesting spirituality as the fundamental form of life. A counterpoint to the destruction by the atomic bomb in 1945.
The Delft artist Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) inspired Dalí as the inventor of color photography by a painter, long before its technical introduction around 1860.
In his comparison table (1947) with well-known figures from the history of painting, he places Vermeer with Velázquez and Raffaello at the top of the ranking, closely followed by himself, with Picasso far behind.
With fewer spatial and figurative details than Vermeer, but with his play of light and shadow, Dalí portrays Vermeer's letter reader in such a way that a double view is created: a woman reading and a profile portrait of Velázquez.
Dalí pushes the boundaries of reality—and thus Vermeer's bourgeois living space—even further in Enigmatic Elements in a Landscape (1934). Here, architectural and botanical elements populate a landscape dominated by empty spaces and a luminous, bright sky. In the foreground, he includes a miniature version of Vermeer at his easel (from his painting Allegoria della pittura, 1666), and far behind him, himself as a tiny child. He calls his arrangement in the airy space Enigmatic Elements , irrational images from his dream world, logically inexplicable.
Dalí maintained a lifelong artistic dialogue with the Spaniard Diego Velázquez (1599-1660). This began with Dalí cultivating Velázquez's twirled mustache as his own trademark.
Velázquez's masterpiece Las Meninas (The Ladies-in-Waiting, 1656), an unconventional glimpse into family life at the Spanish court, motivated Dalí to create various artistic designs. Using new techniques, holography and stereoscopy from optical physics, he transformed his painting style and the original message of his greatest role model.
In 1960, the Catalan artist departed from the photographic reality of Velázquez's original work with his re-creation, Senza titolo. Da "Las Meninas" di Velázquez. Using cubic forms, he deprived the individuals in the royal family portrait of their individuality.
In 1972, Dalí attempted to render objects three-dimensionally in Holos! Holos! Velázquez! Gabor!, similar to holography (invented by Dennis Gabor). Card players advertise a beer brand in front of Infanta Margarita from Velázquez's painting.
In 1975/76, two 2D images with slightly altered colors and a reduced number of Velázquez figures (Untitled. From Velázquez's "Las Maninas") were intended, according to Dalí's vision, to create a 3D spatial image. The instructions in the exhibition space at Palazzo Cipolla stated that this would be achieved by standing close enough and perceiving both images separately with the left and right eye. We, the average viewers, tried this several times. With limited success.
A second attempt at stereoscopic viewing was more successful with Dalí's double portrait with his wife and muse Gala:
In 1981, Dalí depicted the main figure from Velázquez's court painting as La Perla. Faceless, yet timelessly beautiful – the pearl and Dalí's figurative representation elevate the Infanta into a visionary, cosmic realm.
Dalí's visual and visionary experiments demanded our full attention, stimulating and exhausting us in equal measure. We're taking a breather to recharge our batteries.
Then we move on to Dalí's late work.
Dalí "In Search of the Fourth Dimension"
In a mythical landscape, iconic elements from the paintings of his highly esteemed Renaissance masters merge with Dalí's own visual language: cypress trees, a loaf of bread, a fried egg, a melting clock. Why 4D? A new perspective on his fleeting lifespan? Dream images from the unconscious? Or an iconographic realization of his art-theoretical vision?
"The only way to create an original work of art is to add something to the tradition", Dalí declared in 1951. Mere imitation of the Old Masters was plagiarism to him.
He lived this conviction with dedication – as a painter and art theorist (1947), as a lecturer in the USA and at the Sorbonne in Paris. And we experienced it vividly at the Palazzo Cipolla in Rome.
Relaxing finale at Vivi's ...
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