They affirm most explicitly Surrealism's first article of faith: that the uncontrollable forces of the unconscious discovered by Freud were the true governors of reality. His serene yet nightmarish combinations of pristine planes and sudden eruptions of deformed bodies and tortured flesh are famously fraught with sexual anxiety and obsessions: onanism, scatology and fear of impotence. That is less the case these days, however, when artists recycle dead styles with aplomb, narrative and form are not seen as mutually exclusive and sexuality is no longer considered an either/or proposition. The Renaissance perspective and jewel-like rendering, combined with an aggressive sexual polymorphism, has sometimes seemed reactionary, literary and, well, sick. The mixture of radical and conservative forces in his art is also confusing. There are entire genres of popular culture and kitsch that seem almost unimaginable without DalГ, including horror movies, science-fiction book covers and cartoons. It is all but de rigueur to say that it has been obscured by his flamboyant temperament and indefatigable self-promotion, and further trivialized by his pervasive influence - unequaled even by Picasso - that is not restricted to just legions of subsequent artists.

Be prepared to catch a good case of DalГ delirium.ДalГ's achievement can be hard to grasp. At times, as one gallery follows another, the show begins to feel like a Surrealist labyrinth.

It fills 20 galleries, many quite large, with nearly 200 works of art, many quite small and so stupefyingly detailed that they require close study. PHILADELPHIA - THE Philadelphia Museum of Art's retrospective of the work of Salvador DalГ, the megalomaniacal Surrealist painter and every teenager's favorite artist, is a visual and psychic marathon.

Surreal self portrait painter