Salvador Dali on Portraits

The enormous ego that Dali had concerning himself, his work, and his personal style, is no secret of course. I think if Dali could have convinced subjects to somehow more resemble their portraits he absolutely would have.

"The reason that some portraits don't look true to life is that some people make no effort to resemble their pictures."

-Salvador Dali

Thank Goddess Dali never had this power, else we would have some very unnaturally strange people walking around, (which might be fun for us, but certainly not for the person themselves). Looking back at Dali's life and work; I find his enormous ego funny and endearing at times, other times it is simply overbearing and distracts from his paintings. As I have said in my other quotes from Dali, my humble opinion is that I don't think surrealism (the movement Dali helped pioneer) was at the forefront of modern art. I am much more a Duchamp fan myself, and wonder what kind of work Dali would have done had he been a tad more conceptual. Let's not forget though that surrealism gave us in many ways what is an unmatched contribution to the world that is still reverberating, an unparalleled commitment to the imagination, and for that I am forever grateful.