Salvador' Dali's art was typically
surrealist. This is implied by its depiction of
dream-like states, with confused
foregrounds and
symbolism, thought to have been spurred by the era's recent
delve into the uncoscious mind, with writings from men like
Freud sparking up artists' imaginations.
The attempt to show glimpses of the psyche is clear in Dali's art - tortured, weird and often remarkably creative, his style is somewhat reminiscent of Hieronymous Bosch, inolving outlandish morphing figures, monsters and lonely landscapes.
Certain icons repeat themselves frequently in Dali's art, One such is the image of an elephant with tapered, impoossibly long legs. Another is the icon of the clock, many times depicted in what Dali referred to as a 'soft' state, referring to the melted appearance of these clocks. This recurring theme of 'softness' and 'hardness' was a prominent feature in Dali's art. he liked to depict himself in a soft manner - where as paintings of his wife, whom he says kept him from insanity, were always drawn as 'hard'. Mae west apparently fascinated this master for a while, because he featured her in a painting, as well as designing a sofa in the shape of her lips.
Dali liked to put 'crutches' into many of his paintings, making them support things. the idea for these weird instruments came to him, Dali said, when once as a child he'd watched a field worker leaning over in a pasture, and saw her breasts sag and visualised himself putting a crutch beneath those breast.
Incidentally, since so much fuss was made in the other nodes on Dali about his moustache, it might be intersting to point out that the waxed, pointed facial hair bears a striking resemblence to the crutch shape that Dali so liked to paint.
The image of drawers is also frequent - often Dali would display a figure of a woman, with drawers emerging from her body. This also recurs in his sculpture - for Dali was a sculptor too, and had many impressive works containing all of his above mentioned favourite themes.
Nudity and sexual imagery, reminiscent of Freud, are consistent in Dali's art. huge penile shapes and female forms are typical - he used to call himself 'totally impotent', however this is no sure truth, because together with the fearful, febrile sexual paintings one also finds paintings that seem to suggest quite the opposite (example, The invisible Harp).
Finally, anyone can say anyone they want about Dali, about his supposed madness or commercial eccentricity. He has turned into somewhat of an 'Oscar Wilde', with all sorts of quotes and weird traits attributed to him that are doubtfully true. The most amusing one I heard about him is him being incontinent, and often shitting himself. I think one can say little about his mind except that it must have been brilliant, to produce works of such outstanding originality.