Look at his art. BTW - we are all artists in some way. Art is anything that anybody creates, everybody got they own art, man. And, producing "real art" does not preclude one from promoting oneself in a way some may deem distasteful. Sometimes there is no difference; Crazy genius painter = flamboyent charisma. Also, consider that a lot of artists don't have much say in how they are marketed - that's usually in the hands of an agent - talent agents have had a long history here in the US! In fact, it was Dali who created the dream sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945). So, ya - there were many hands with a stake in that pot. We could suppose all day long - and never really know unless we could meet him face to face and chat it up a bit. That won't happen anytime soon, so I'm gonna set this one on the back burner for now.

Art is just the name of some cat I once knew. Any discussion about art and artists involves people arguing back and forth, sometimes for decades, about whether 'X' is an artist, an 'artist', a genious, or a hack. Such arguments have no solution in most cases. Some people claim that art is in the eye of the beholder. Some think everything anyone does is art, but the dictionary would disagree. Some hold out for those who are formally trained and approved by 22 of the world's 23 most important art critics. If Dali hits your 'art button', feel free to think of him as an artist. He was highly creative and most certainly a flamboyant self-promoter, but he is in good company there. He was more flamboyant than most and this rubs some people the wrong way. Artists are supposed to be dedicated to a noble craft, starve in a garret, and be discovered as creative geniouses after they die in poverty. (After which the art dealers can make the profits they refused the artist in life.) Dali was anything but. His imagery is often disturbing and this produces a negative reaction in some. Art is supposed to be beautiful and uplifting, after all. In short, Dali was a 'real' artist AND he was a flamboyant self-promoter. The latter does not negate the former.

He was both! He had a gift which compelled him to produce some extremely bizarre imagery, and to produce it in a range of technical skill levels if you will. His behavior flew in the face of common, conservative ideas about what an artist should or shouldn't be doing, and so because of this, you could say he pushed the envelope of what defines art for us today. He was merely another agent of the constant evolution of that elusive term, "ART" and what it's perceived to be throughout history. It seems that whenever society gets too smug and complacent with its perceptions, someone comes along and totally shatters them to keep the concept alive and growing. The day we conclusively define what art and artists are, is the day they both die! Of course, that day will never come.