The Secret Life of Salvador Dali: Spoiled to Success

It’s nearing the time of life when I should tackle writing a memoir, and casually picking up The Secret Life of Salvador Dali from my daughter’s nightstand was an inspiring reminder to do so. I committed to absorbing the entire book after reading the first line: “At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.” While it would certainly be intolerable to spend an extended amount of time with Dali, I would have been delighted by the opportunity to sit down with him once for dinner and conversation.

While the stories from Dali’s early life are supposedly made up, the insights into his privileged childhood align so accurately with his pretentious attitudes that they must carry a hint of truth. The sense of humor that stems from Dali’s self-obsession would not have been possible without those who spoiled him. Dali writes that he enjoyed tormenting his maids, stuffing himself with an infinite amount of sweets, and only answering to the title “king.” From a young age, he had a desire to give orders and take none. His intense, yet short lived obsessions also shed a humorous light. He writes about his infatuation with a Russian girl, which he quickly replaced with an even deeper obsession for a young boy. This boy became his enemy a short while later.

Dali shamelessly advertises his narcissism, revealing attitudes that most would never admit-let alone publish-in an autobiography. “Since my earliest childhood,” he writes, “ I have desperately striven to be at the ‘top.’ I have reached it, and now that I am there I shall remain there till I die.” Dali got away with being inordinately confident because it was imperative to his artistic success; he had enough faith in his brilliance to pursue his outrageous ideas.

Traces of Dali’s hatred for conformity emerge as he navigates through his schooling. He was fortunate to have received a high quality art education, thanks to his father who placed no spending limits on anything that would support his only son’s career. When training with Señor Nunez at night school in 1916, Dali made sure to do the complete opposite of what was directed. When asked to approach a drawing more delicately, Dalí responded by violently smudging and marking the paper with intense black streaks until the initial subject was indistinguishable, infuriating the professor just as he had intended. After much trial and error, he derived his own methods to successfully complete the drawing by scratching and spitting on the paper until the subject became clear again. This anecdote sums up his life motto that Dali knows best.

While Dali’s defiance got him kicked out of art school, it was also an essential ingredient for success. Brattiness growing up segued into artistic genius. Unlike many artists who used their craft as an escape from a depressing past, Salvador Dalí’s privileged childhood suggests that his artistic inspiration came from somewhere else: his eccentric, outsized imagination.

Originally published at https://markfasciano.com.