Diary of a Geniusstands as one of the seminal texts of Surrealism, revealing the most astonishing and intimate workings of the mind of Salvador Dal , the eccentric polymath genius who became the living embodiment of Surrealism, the 20th century's most intensely subversive,disturbing and influential art movement. Dal 's second volume of autobiography, Diary of a Genius covers his life from 1952 to 1963, during which years we learn of his amour fou for his wife Gala, and their relationship both at home in Cadaqu s and during bizarre world travels. We also learn how Dal draws inspiration from excrement, rotten fish and Vermeer's Lacemaker to enter his "rhinocerontic" period, preaching his post-holocaustal gospels of nuclear mysticism and cosmogenic atavism; and we follow the labyrinthine mental journeys that lead to the creation of such paintings as the Assumption, and his film script The Flesh Wheelbarrow.
This new expanded edition includes a brilliant and revelatory essay on Salvador Dal , and the importance of his art to the 20th century, by the author J. G. Ballard.