What Are Salvador Dalí’s Composition Techniques?

The viewer is always rewarded when they look at Salvador Dalí’s artwork. Society could label him a genius and cease to look further. It would be easy to lose sight of how he created his masterpieces. However, exploring his techniques doesn’t remove the magnificence of what he achieved. It merely allows us to appreciate his work through a different lens.

Dalí was a Surrealist, so his works are full of the weird imagery you could find in a dream. If we look at the positioning of the color blue here, we can see that it stretches across the top of the canvas. That blue must be balanced. The easiest way to do this is by adding a line of blue to the bottom of the image. That symmetry in the positioning would immediately create balance. It’s clear that Dalí understood this because he places blue in the bottom left, and then instead of adding blue to the bottom right, he adds green—another cool color. This suggests that instead of isolating a single color, he viewed them as warm and cold colors. In this image, he grouped them to create a balanced composition.

The diagram above reduces the composition to its basic structure. Two shapes repeat—these are highlighted in green. That repetition balances both sides of the canvas because you have the same structure on both sides of the image. However, you don’t have the same details. Dalí could have altered the shape of the person sitting in the lake and made the repetition less obvious, but he wasn’t aiming for subtlety. He wanted the viewer to see the structure. If he were repeating a simple shape, that technique would make the image seem basic, obvious, and minimal. The shape highlighted in green certainly isn’t basic, so we see the repetition of something complex, which creates an interesting painting.

The cool colors dominate the image. There are places where highlights of warmth have been added to the canvas. Warm colors are balanced by cold colors. However, this tilt towards muted colors doesn’t make the composition unbalanced. Dali was creating an emotional feel for the image. The colors are muted, so they are quiet on the canvas. The imagery shows the handset to a phone, but it isn’t connected.

There is synchronicity between the color and the imagery. Dalí has created a composition where every aspect works towards the same objective. The ideal balance for a composition isn’t the same for every painting. When the artist wants to convey meaning, they must select a finished composition that works towards their objective. Dalí constantly adapted the composition to fit the narrative he was trying to convey.

The diagram simplifies the painting to its basic structure. The main detail in the image occurs inside the space indicated by the purple lines. The structure has a wave motion to it. Those curves balance the horizontal lines. There isn’t much detail in the top half of the image. That space helps to convey the silence that’s depicted in the work. Dalí understood that space at the top of the image creates a successful composition. This is true when you’re using a landscape format canvas. On a portrait format canvas, a composition is often improved when the space is on the bottom part of the canvas.

3. Birth of Liquid Desires

This painting is a good example of how Dalí balanced realistic elements and abstract forms. Surrealism relied on abstraction but did not fit into that category. The figures are depicted realistically, but the abstract forms are more dominant in this image than they are in a lot of his other artwork.

It’s documented that the large yellow form has a shape that is similar to a musical instrument or some of the weathered rocks in eastern Spain. Dalí was fascinated with William Tell, which suggests the abstract shape is an apple, and the figure on the left enters the apple like a worm. Through abstraction, an object can have multiple properties and meanings.

In the previous images we looked at, we could do a composition analysis in isolation of the story behind the work, but in this case, we need to know what the William Tell story represents for Dalí. Lucy Flint wrote that William Tell represented for the artist the archetypal theme of paternal assault. The subject occurs frequently in his paintings from 1929 when he entered into a liaison with Gala Eluard against his father’s wishes.

At first glance, the image has a weak composition. That central figure and that dark abstract form in the top right completely change what would be a serene composition. A peaceful blue sky with elegant curves and horizontal ground. Notice the two squares in the diagram. Dalí makes the disruptive elements the focal point because it’s everything from one square to another. This aesthetically imperfect composition tells Dalí’s story perfectly.

The Persistence of Memory is the most famous work by Salvador Dalí. The focal point of the image is the three melting clocks. Notice their placement. Drawing a line from one to the other would form the shape of a triangle. The positioning has a simple structure, so we see them as a group. One of the clocks has a metallic gold rim, and the others have a silver rim.

Dali chose his colors carefully. The gold rim of the clock is the same color as the mountains on the top right. Diagonally, it ties together those two parts of the canvas. The silver is placed diagonally in the opposite direction. This diagonal position of color makes the composition more cohesive. If all the clocks had the same colors, the image would have a weaker composition.

The diagram shows a simplified version of the composition. The triangle illustrates the positioning of the clocks. This is the main focal point in the painting. The blue oval represents the closed clock covered with insects. The viewer will look at this part of the image because the colors and detail differ from everything else on the canvas, making the object stand out. The object doesn’t cause imbalance because it’s next to the edge of the box. A line that immediately takes the viewer’s eyes back up to the clocks. The viewer can look at the mountains on the top left, and their shape will point them back to the clocks. The diagram has a purple line that highlights the curve of detail that points toward the main focus point, the triangle of clocks.

Years later, Dalí returned to the imagery of The Persistence of Memory and created another image called The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. It shares a lot of the symbolism of the original image. The composition has been adapted to create something new. The curve of the bottom of the lake separates the upper part of the image. The blocks are in the lower part of the image. In between is a gap, and the clock in the center is the main focal point. The canvas is separated into three areas, a composition different from The Persistence of Memory. If you look at this work with The Persistence of Memory in mind, it will challenge your expectations.

The diagram shows how the composition from The Persistence of Memory has been adapted to support the new composition used in The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. The colors highlight the same elements as the previous diagram. The clocks are highlighted in green, and their positioning is indicated by a red line. The clocks flow in a line from the top of the image. The curve highlighted by the purple line is still present. Those lines cross at the main focal point, the central clock. His composition in The Persistence of Memory has been altered to support the new focal point. It’s slightly less impactful because it loses the triangular structure that framed the focal point in the first painting. Still, it’s a sophisticated composition executed with great skill.

The surrealist style allowed Dalí to pick and combine various things in any way he chose. However, that freedom is only possible if you have the skill to integrate them successfully and Dalí certainly had the necessary skills. He needed to see everything as a shape and how those shapes combine. In an image of a face and a dish, he would’ve needed to consider the similarities and differences between the shape of a face and a bowl. Then, he needed to capture and portray that relationship in his artwork.

The diagram reduces the composition to its basic structure. The objects on the left are slightly diagonal, parallel to the surface’s edge on the canvas’s right side. The green lines show how the painting includes the structure of a parallelogram. Incorporating basic shapes into the structure does improve the composition. The blue highlights a curved line that travels from the left to the right of the image. It’s a prominent aspect of the structure. Shaping the objects in this way balances both sides of the canvas. The face is the main focal point because that’s where the blue line dips on the canvas. Elsewhere, it is high in the image. The bottom of the face is also surrounded by space, leading the viewer to focus on that area.