Salvador Dalí
was born and lived the early part of his life in Figueres. His good friend Ramon Reig had a house in
nearby Vilabertran and he went there often on weekends. When there, he spent a fair amount of time
painting.
On the way to Vilabertran you pass a stand of trees off to
one side that seem to hide a house. I’ve
always been curious about that house which I figured was probably an old
farmhouse and maybe one of those beautiful old stone constructions. But there is no evident way to get to
it. There is one small path that cuts off in that direction, but then it is cut off by a wall. I learned that near the house there
is a spring.
As it turns out, that is the old path that Dalí would take when he went
to Vilabertran. Indeed, Jaume used to go
there as a kid for picnics at the spring. As happens
here, someone who later owned the property put up walls so that people could no
longer pass through. But it turns out
that the right-of-way is public, and the local governments have sued to have
the path reopened. This may even happen
sometime soon.
In the village there is also a small lake, much talked about
by Dalí and his
sister, and much painted by the two boys.
But we couldn’t see that either.
Some other property owner has walled that off. Peeking over the top, it seems to be a
jungle, but the wall is too high to
actually see inside. We did, however,
see images of the paintings done all those years ago when, evidently, there
weren’t as many walls about.
We visited the church and cloister of Santa Maria, a
beautiful medieval compound. Of course Dalí must have been familiar
with it, but I don’t recall any concrete reason for our visit except that it is
the jewel of the village and is home to a rather impressive, large, gilded cross.
Dalí’s
friend Ramon Reig, a youngster his own age, had inherited from an uncle the
impressive modernist villa that still stands and that is now the Vilabertran
city hall. Reig was also a painter and
when they were together, while the rest of the family chatted, ate, and drank,
the two boys spent their time painting.
It was interesting, on our walk, to see images of a few of their
paintings from that time, side by side.
It’s not like you would have any idea which ones were by the
genius. He had a long way to go before adopting
surrealism as his way of expressing himself in art and in life.
