Salvador Dalí’s references from Catalonia and the Empordà

Salvador Dali was born in Figueres, an open-minded city with republican ideals at a time when the myth of the Emporda as the heart of Catalonia, as the poet Joan Maragall described this place, was being forged. The friends of his father, the notary Salvador Dali Cusi, commissioned his first works, which bore the symbols of the Emporda, such as sardanes (the traditional circle dance). Figueres is also where the revolutionary Dali emerged, a close friend of Marti Vilanova and Jaume Miravitlles. And the landscape of the Emporda, with its clear blue sky, is the driver behind his creative works. Referents to Catalonia and the Emporda 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 Emporda. In this paper, we shall reveal these referents.