For readers who have little time to spare and are averse to art-world jargon, this series aims to provide an entertaining guide to individual artists and pop culture. Each volume presents an account of the artist's life, personal and professional anecdotes, concise definitions of cultural and social movements that shaped the artist's work, and colour reproductions. This study of Salvador Dali investigates the reasons for his fame and popular appeal, and tells the story behind the drooping watches; the tabloid gossip, the money and the excess; the reputation as genius, fraud, madman, egomaniac; and the mix of religious and sexual imagery.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
If you've ever doubted that good things come in small packages, take a look at the pocket-sized books in the Essentials series, which include volumes devoted to Salvador Dali, Vincent Van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, and Edward Hopper. It's clear that the book's designers had some fun with the material, both visual and textural. Key words are italicized for the student reader. Quotations labeled "sound bytes" are highlighted with strips of color. There are rubrics every few paragraphs, so you can review "What's So Great About Salvador Dali" or "Phalluses, Crutches, William Tell: Authority Figures," if you're looking for something to toss into a conversation at a gallery opening. The pictures range from one-inch reproductions of not-so-important images to clear, large details of key works.
Salvador Dali, the Spanish surrealist who died in 1989 after a long period of misery, comes off as a truly tortured soul in Robert Goff's sympathetic text. The book is designed to give a quick dip into the sea of surrealism, and its manic design is perfect for the artistic Cliff Notes crowd--smart teens discovering culture, young professionals looking for more than stock quotes in their lives, or even cognoscenti with gaps in their art history education. But Goff goes deeper than all of that. He accurately and kindly conveys Dali's prodigious natural talent, his psychosexual torment, his obsession with masturbation, his heterosexual ambivalence, and his profound attachment to his beloved wife, Gala, described as a shrew and a trollop. In the end, the book succeeds in giving a rounded view of an artist whose surrealist antics sometimes obscured his strange genius. --Peggy Moorman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Small, Affordable, and Surprisingly Dense with Paintings,
By
This review is from: The Essential Salvador Dali (Hardcover)
If you're looking for an introduction to Dali's works, this is a fine starting point. It features most of his most popular works, and a biography of his life. It's a wonderful teaching tool, and it's also a great gift for the artistically inclined. If you know a Dali fan, but you are working on a budget, this is the perfect book for you.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Biographical Bravo!,
This review is from: The Essential Salvador Dali (Hardcover)
The Essential Salvador Dali is exactly what the title stresses; everything that you need to know about the life and times of Dali without all the drab fillings that seem to thrive in recently written biographical reference titles. The book makes a point of telling the reader the important facts about Dali's life as well as analyzing some of his more important paintings and placing in various qoutes and facts to keep the reader interested. It also gives a clear explanation of the terms that would otherwise be unfamiliar to those who were not exactly surrealist veterans. The book will indeed prove itself a worthy resource for study as well as an entertaining tabletop reader.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dali true,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Essential Salvador Dali (Hardcover)
This is a book for anyone who want to begin to explore the interesting word of Surrealism. The book is informative, clear and greatly written. A great book to have.
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