People love or hate Salvador Dali (1904-1989) but he certainly leaves no one indifferent. He was with André Breton the emblematic figure of Surrealism after World War I. This artistic movement, in the name of liberty, desire and revolution protests against social, moral and logical conventions and proposes the values of imagination, dream and automatic writing that, according to their founders, uplift the « real mechanism of thought.

On his way by train from Spain to France, Dali used to feel his inspiration as he came closer to Perpignan. He said: “A few kilometers before (Perpignan), already at Le Boulou, my brain starts to work, and when I reach the railway station of Perpignan, it is the occasion of a real mental ejaculation that then reaches the greatest and most sublime speculative heights”.

The gatepost in the Perpignan railway station says: « Perpignan Railway Station always fascinated Salvador Dali. Passing in its vicinity, he is said to exclaim: « Suddenly, I saw it with the brightness of lightning : in front of me I saw the Centre of the Universe ». Whenever he spoke about the railway station, he referred to it in flattering terms or used dithyrambic expressions like « a fountain of illumination » or « the cathedral of intuitions ». On the 29th August, 1965 he came to Perpignan in a cattle truck and he went through the city in a horse-drawn carriage. The station is present in a painting made in 1967 ».

Perpignan Railway Station. Dali is on top like in the painting.

Image source: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Gare_perpignan.jpg

The painting is kept in the Museum Ludwig in Düsseldorf, Germany. It, namely, shows a very surrealistic cattle truck floating above « The Angelus » by Millet. Is this wagon a reminder of the Deportation by the Nazis? It measures 2,95m x 4,02m. Dali is in the centre and at the top, like at the Perpignan railway station, in the same position. The painting offers several symmetry axes and a lot of symbolism concerning respect, work, lust, sacrifice (the Christ), and death. The colours from dark brown to light yellow were used on purpose and can be indefinitely declined. The cross in the centre of the picture totally radiates with the Christ. The beams show the power of man despite death.

This painting is considered the masterpiece of Surrealism. The Perpignan railway station was decorated inside by Salvador Dali .

Why did Dali think that this particular railway station was the Cosmic Centre of the Universe? He never said, or he simply forgot to add that it really was but when he was present…

The Perpignan Railway Station by Dali. 1965. Museum Ludwig, Düsseldorf, Germany.

Copyright:

http://www.museenkoeln.de/ausstellungen/mlu_0601_dali/_img/hi/01.jpg

I propose a few quotations from the great artist Salvador Dali. My purpose is not to comment, everybody is free to have their own judgement on them.

« Do not fear to reach perfection, you will never succeed »

« There are days when I think I’m going to die with an overdose of self-satisfaction »

« Picasso is responsible for the generalized ugliness of modern art »

« When I was 2, I wanted to be Dali and since then my ambition never decreased »

« The painter is not the one who is inspired but the one who inspires other ones »

« The happiest two things that may happen to a contemporary painter: first, to be Spanish, second: to be called Dali. Both things happened to me »

« The difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am Surrealist »

« Those who do not wish to imitate anybody never create anything »

Salvador Dali by Arno Brecker.

Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arno_Breker_Dali_(1975).jpg

Salvador Dali, photo by Carl van Vechten.

Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dali3.jpg

Please check out my related article: http://www.quazen.com/arts/visual-arts/salvador-dalis-forbidden-love/