The People Who Influenced Salvador Dali
             The extraordinary Salvador Dali has been described as flamboyant, egocentric and enigmatic. Few art critics would deny that this talented and brilliant man is considered today to be one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Paintings such as The Persistence of Memory and The Sacrament of the Last Supper reflect various artistic influences. Although considered to be the great surrealist, Dali was influenced by much more than just the Surrealism movement. From the moment of his birth, this unusual individual would draw from himself and his acquaintances some of the most memorable art the world would ever see.
             Salvador Dali was born on May 11, 1904. He was named after his brother, the first Salvador Dali, who died August 1, 1903, at the age of twenty-one months. Dali himself has claimed "that his parents had committed a 'subconscious crime' by giving him the same name as his brother and thereby forcing him to live up to an impossible ideal"(qtd. in Gibson 52). He created a tribute to his brother in 1963 when he painted Portrait of My Dead Brother, but remained resentful of being made to live in the shadow of a brother he never met. Throughout his life, Dali would behave like two different people; the hardworking artist locked up in his studio for days at a time in casual clothes and then, the very public avant-garde flashy Dali, with heavily waxed mustache, purple cape, and cane. Dali's obsession with double images also appears in several of his paintings throughout his career, most notably being The Hallucinogenic Salvador.
             His parents, recognizing his growing artistic abilities, sent him to stay at the Muli de la Torre with the family of Ramon Pitchot. Pitchot was a gifted painter and provided Dali with a large, whitewashed room as a studio. The Pitchot family was considerably talented and left a deep impression on Dali. During his stay with...