Dalí quotes

Author: Chen Xunming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: This book, "Dalí Quotations," selected from the articles and speeches of Dalí across different periods, including "Fifty Painting Secrets," not only presents a genius who is both shocking and renowned, but also a painter who treats art as life, despises laziness, and willingly suffers for it. His madness is better seen as a conscious effort to turn life into art. Life is a grand stage, and most people are unconscious actors—clearly performing, yet unwilling to admit it. Dalí, however, not only recognized himself as an actor but insisted on performing his own written scripts, playing roles as he designed them with exceptional seriousness, which made him stand out and be labeled as a madman by the world. Not only are the Chinese interested in Dalí, but Dalí is also interested in the Chinese. However, his interest lies not in ordinary Chinese people but in the great leader Mao Zedong. He not only illustrated his works in 1967 but also hoped to receive the Gold Medal of Mao Zedong. Additionally, certain quotations from this extremely hardworking and utterly mad Spanish genius bear astonishing similarities to some conversations of the equally hardworking but utterly unmad Chinese genius Qi Baishi. Dalí said, "The meaning of my writings far exceeds my paintings." Qi Baishi also claimed, "Poetry is first, calligraphy second, painting third." These "confessions" from the two painting masters, made without consultation, were they self-deprecation or self-praise?