info on Dali

This info was taken from a book titled 'DALI', 2004, published by Grange Books, no author's name.
Salvador Dali, born in Spain on May 11th, 1904. Died in 1989.
His student days were in Madrid. The early years of his fame were in Paris, up to his leaving to go to the USA in 1940, when Dali was 37.
Dali received his first lessons in painting and drawing at a private catholic school of the French 'La Salle' order when he was eight years old. (page 10).
Dali's oldest existing works date from 1914. They are small-format watercolours, landscape studies of the area around Figueras. (page 10).
Oil paintings by the eleven-year-ol Dali also exist. Mostly as copies of masterpieces which he found in his father's well-stocked collection of art books. (page 14).

We all recognise that Dali was eccentric, I wonder if the following insight into his childhood might explain a few things? These are quotes from Dali's autobiography taken from above book.

'Dali's life is overshadowed by the death of his brother. On August 1st, 1903, the first born child of the family, scarcely two years old, died from gasrtoenteritis.' (page 5).

'Throughout the whole of my childhood and youth I lived with the perception that I was a part of my dead brother. That is, in my body and my soul, I carried the clinging carcass of this dead brother because my parents were constantly speaking about the other Salvador' (page 10).

As a child Dali liked to dress up, as a king, and in other costumes too.
"I started to test myself and to observe; as I performed hilarious eye-winking antics accompanied by a subliminal spiteful smile, at the edge of my mind, I knew, vague as it was, that I was in the process of playing the role of a genius. Ah Salvador Dali! You know it now; if you play the role of a genius, you will also become one!" (page 14).
- Later Dali analysed his behaviour:
"In order to wrest myself from my dead brother, I had to play the genius so as to ensure that at every moment I was not in fact him, that I was not dead; as such, I was forced to put on all sorts of eccentric poses". (page 14).