As a one of the foremost painters of the 20th century, Dali , like Picasso and Warhol, can boast of having overturned the art of the previous century and directed contemporary art toward its present incarnation. As irrational as he was surrealist, this genius diver ted objects from their original meanings, plunging them into the acid of his constantly churning imagination. A megalomaniac and an artist who above all understood the force of marketing and publicity, Dali disorients the viewer in order to draw him into the artist's world. On his canvases, images and colours crash together to expres