“Compared to Velázquez, I am nothing,” Salvador Dalí said in 1960. Despite his Surrealist inventions, the 20th-century artist stayed rooted in tradition. He continued to study and draw inspiration from his artistic forefathers, painters like Diego Velázquez, El Greco, and Orazio Gentileschi. Dalí’s The Pearl, painted in 1981, is a strange but telling homage. This exhibition at the MFA Boston places 30 of Dalí’s paintings and prints alongside works by Spanish and Italian artists who came before him, setting up an eloquent visual dialogue. —Jeanne Malle