Why George Orwell called Salvador Dali a "disgusting human being"

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/23/why-george-orwell-called-salva.html

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Why Ansel Adams called William Mortensen The Antichrist.

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Third rate graphic artist who got away with calling himself a painter is an awful person.

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The stuff nightmares are made of.

Was not aware Dali had such a history, definitely puts some perspective into his art and who he was as a person. Not that i looked up to Dali, so finding out he was disturbed and prone to violence (and more than likely a terrible human being) i think does give some needed context i find useful.

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Please, educate me: What sort of qualifications must one obtain before they can rightfully call themselves a painter?

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Uh, be one.

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And how does one become a painter, in your estimation?

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Boys, boys, you’re both pretty.

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By making paintings.
The very best thing that I can imagine saying about this guys work is: Oh… trippy.
And I can only imagine saying it when I was both young and stoned.

If you admire his work, and I take it that you do, all I got is, you be you.

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I wouldn’t call myself an admirer exactly, but Dali knew how to paint.

I am going to assume you haven’t actually seen many works by him, past the two or three most notorious.

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Went to the Dali museum a while back, quite bizarre. Not surprised he might have a dark side or sides, perhaps many sides…

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an ongoing joke in my family is that when someone refers to a family or friend as an artist that is codeword for terrible asshole.

/pushes nikon bodies and lenses farther away

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He also tossed cats

He also did paintings in 3D stereo pairs. I converted some for viewing on a 3DS years ago. Didn’t know about this side to him, though.

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I realize this gets asked a lot in the wake of Harvey Weinstein and everything that followed, but is it ever possible to separate an artist’s work from who they are in real life? For me, I cannot draw an ideological line in the sand – the work is forever tainted by my revulsion of who they are and/or what they did.

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That googled out pretty interesting. Thanks!

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In person? I think that I’ve seen the one you posted, or perhaps another like it.
And a few others. You say he knew how to paint. I would say he knew ho to render.
Rendering is not really the job of a painter.

See, I’m a big admirer of surrealism.
This guy and Magritte marked it’s death.
Surrealism as fashion.

Here’s my guy, well, one of them…


Psst…Max Ernst

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So the disturbing images came from a disturbed mind? I can’t say that it is all that shocking. This is Salvador Dali we are talking about, not Claude Monet. This is about as shocking as learning that Phillip K. Dick had a disorder that made it difficult to separate fiction from reality.

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