Dalí and Gaudí: Two Eccentric Catalan Geniuses and the Renaixença

by Norman Berdichevsky (April 2011)

At the beginning of the 1880s, Barcelona was a city of about 350,000 people and had only knocked down its medieval walls twenty years earlier. The new city had ambitious plans for expansion and the inclusions of all the latest technological developments such as electricity, sewage systems, elevators, running water and gas. The city fathers wanted a new city that would rival Madrid, especially in view of the forthcoming World Exposition to be held in the city in 1888.

After finishing his studies in 1878 at the age of 26 and following several successful commissions for private homes, he was put in charge of the planning and development of what had been the suburb of Gracia.

Casa Milá (better known as La Pedrera), Barcelona 

None of his houses had regular straight lines. He imitated trees, flowers, beetles, ancient Mexican and Hindu gods, leaves, shells, reptiles, rocks and the landscape of the nearby Montserrat dolomite mountains. All these can best be seen in the magnificent Guell Park in Barcelona. He achieved an amazing synthesis through his combination of glass, wrought iron, wood and stone.

In 1929, he met a young Russian girl, Helena Diakonova, known by her nickname of Gala who was ten years his senior and would from that time on become his muse, inspiration, model and girlfriend. She was born in 1894 in Kazan, Russia and was sent by her parents to a Swiss sanatorium to be cured of tuberculosis. There she met the French poet Paul Eluard whom she married in 1917 and, under the influence of her husband, she entered the avante garde Parisian Surrealist Movement.

The Last Supper by Salvador Dalí

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