Salvador Dalí had quite a cracked out youth. Many of the things that he experienced during his childhood had a profound effect on his paintings.

Before he was born, his mom gave birth to another child who she ended up naming Salvador Dalí. This Dalí did not live for long. Only nine months after the first Salvador Dalí's death, the next Salvador Dalí was born.

Dalí's parents treated him as if he were a reincarnation of his brother. Dalí felt as if he had to live for both himself and his brother. This caused Dalí to have very disturbing mental images, which eventually showed up in his paintings.

Dalí did not fit in at school. He was the butt of many jokes. The teasing became so extreme that other children would throw bugs at him. This teasing caused one of the most obvious motifs in Dalí's paintings. He paints bugs, especially grasshoppers, into many of his paintings.

Although the effects of the events below are not as profound in Dalí's paintings, I would have to imagine that they affected him somehow.

  • Dalí's mother used to sleep with him to get away from his sometimes abusive father. When Dalí was assured that his mom was asleep, he would take off all of his clothes and go back into bed.
  • To make his dad angry, Dalí used to poop and pee randomly throughout the house.
  • Dalí would fall down stairs at school randomly just to see the look on peoples' faces.
And that is only a mere glimpse into the "abnormal" life of Dalí.