Salvador Dali
I am a senior in high school in Taipei. I'm in my last year of finishing the IB diploma. In order to reach the completion I need to submit a 4000 word extended essay concerning a special field of studies. My choice came down to Art/Psychology. The artist I'm basing my research on is Salvador Dali. What I'm trying to do is to analyze Dali with the Psychoanalytic method. Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with the arts of psychoanalysis and all I really could do is introspect on some general knowledge.
So far, I have came to the obvious conclusion that Dali suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. That was easy because he practically writes the syndromes on his forehead. Now, looking at his limited amount of data concerning his childhood, I think his superego didn't go through a strong reinforcement from his parents. His eccentricity has allowed him wiggle out of most judicial situations when he had openly displayed aggression against other classmates in school. Throughout this period of time he had allowed his ego to compromise with his id to the point where they are nearly indistinguishable.
Now so far, all I have said are blatant facts about him. I've made attempts to read through his diary only to have myself hopelessly confused. My problem is that I cannot relate all these syndromes to his art work since I don't know which ones' to pick. Also, I will need to be able to analyze Dali fully first, before I can even begin the pictorial process. HELP!!!