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During his years in America Dali did not limit his activities solely to painting. He designed advertisements, wrote an autobiography, worked on cinema and designed for theatre and ballet productions. His first design for the ballet was Bachannale (originally named in German "Venusberg"), for which he also wrote the scenario and designed the costumes. It was a Metropolitan Opera production, choreographed by Leonide Massine for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The ballet was set to the music of Richard Wagner, whose insane patron, king Ludwig II, was portrayed in the scenario. Here is the Winged Swan which Dali illustrated at prominent center of the stage set.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK: During his years in America Dali did not limit his activities solely to painting. He designed advertisements, wrote an autobiography, worked on cinema and designed for theatre and ballet productions.

ABOUT THE ART PERIOD: Dali sublimated his life in his art of painting. Relying on great craftsmanship, acquired in all sorts of art experiments, he lifted surrealism, in an inimitable self-willed manner, to exceptional heights. He photographed, as it were, associatively what was enacted in his mind. Incited by, at the time, new psychological insights he tried to fix his subconscious with images, and to visualise his dreams in all their inscrutable symbolism. It was for this purpose that he developed his famous "paranoid-critical" method. To us, one dimensional mortal souls, only the paintings and other expressions remain as fascinating witnesses to a literally unbelievably intense and active life. Perhaps we are so drawn to them because not only do they allow us to have a look inside Dali's subconscious, but they also are a mirror reflecting our own souls.