Years ago, with misgivings and low expectations, I visited the place. It's not that big, and, lo and behold, I was there for almost four hours....completely enthralled.
I took the edifying tour around the galleries with the group guide....then went back alone for further and more leisurely study of the artiste's works.
I was almost mesmerized. Dali was a conventional artist as well as a surrealist. His paintings as a child show early genius. As an adult he did little painted cameos and huge two-story epic hangings. He concocted fun "fool the eye" works. His fertile brain created the weird, the wonder-ful, the conventional, the insane, the mesmerizing, the bad, the beautiful and the sublime.
Ostensibly, he was as nutty as a fruitcake, but I don't buy it. He was a genius in his various genres, canny with money and personal PR, maybe close to the edge of madness in some peoples' eyes....but his work is never dull, dated, trite or easily categorized.
If you ever get to St. Pete, by all means, hit the Dali Museum. I would not steer you wrong...and, unless you don't appreciate art at all, you will thank me for the referral and you'll find it an afternoon extremely well spent. Bring the kids, too, for a real cultural learning experience.
I intend to return there to drink it all in again as soon as possible...and to again enjoy searching for the devil and the sublime in all the details of Dali's canvases.
Leni
The Dali Museum in St. Pete is a feast for the eyes. Fascinating. It is the second largest collection of Dali paintings outside of Spain. Not to be missed. What a mind trip some of his paintings are. Like Picasso, Dali, when young, showed himself to be a painting prodigy, and his representative paintings from his youth show what skill he had very early in life, before he started tripping the light fantastic on canvas.
If you see early Picasso paintings when he was into realism and portraiture, you see the same genius in painting skills, before he too went outside the norm for his times and cubed his paintings up.
Bottom line, don’t miss the Dali Museum in St. Pete if you get the chance to go to it; you won’t regret it.
Great review Leni one day I will have to make the trek down there to see it
Thank you so much for the detailed description and the advice.
I’ll do that, dearest Leni, if I ever visit St Pete!
Wasn’t he contracted to paint the posters of all the events of one winter olympics?