Salvador Dali, or the Art of Spitting on Your Mother’s Portrait

Among the many books written on or by Salvador Dali, this is the first to give a complete, well-documented picture of his life and art. Carlos Rojas’s approach to Dali is somewhere between biography, Freudian analysis, and art and literary interpretation. Dali is haunted from earliest childhood by the specter of his elder brother who died as a toddler shortly before Dali was conceived (both brothers and the father bore the same name), as he is haunted by the devouring phantom of his mother, that praying mantis on whose portrait he would like to spit. Dali is seen as endlessly struggling to affirm his identity and existence. A combination of genius, madman, neurotic, and spoiled brat, Dali is illuminated by his work, while the known facts of his life, his own writings, those of his sister, and of others, are used to analyze the paintings, which are described in considerable detail. Rojas also provides sustained analyses of Dali’s relationships, including his influential amorous and intellectual affair with Federico Garcia Lorca.