Salvador Dalí’s references from Catalonia and the Empordà

Resum

Salvador Dalí was born in Figueres, an open-minded city with republican ideals at a time when the myth of the Empordà as the heart of Catalonia, as the poet Joan Maragall described this place, was being forged. The friends of his father, the notary Salvador Dalí Cusí, commissioned his first works, which bore the symbols of the Empordà, such as sardanes (the traditional circle dance). Figueres is also where the revolutionary Dalí emerged, a close friend of Martí Vilanova and Jaume Miravitlles. And the landscape of the Empordà, with its clear blue sky, is the driver behind his creative works. Referents to Catalonia and the Empordà appear throughout his entire career and become the essence of his oeuvre; today, many of them have become universally recognised thanks to this genius from the Empordà. In this paper, we shall reveal these referents.