Untitled (Composition with Skeleton Figure) from 'Les Chants de Maldoror'
About this artwork
This work is from the series of prints Dalí produced for an illustrated revision of Comte de Lautréamont’s poetic novel, Les Chants de Maldoror, in 1934. A kneeling skeletal figure is depicted in the same pose as appears in several other prints. This imagery is almost certainly inspired by two contrasting sources: the illustrations in anatomical treatises from the 16th to 19th centuries, which were much prized by the Surrealists for their equivocal beauty, and also the sculptural ‘bone’ drawings and paintings made by Pablo Picasso between 1928 and 1932, when he was in close contact with the Surrealist movement. Set in a deserted landscape, there is a distinctly ominous feeling to the scene, with the malleable, slug-like forms contrasting with the weakened, crumbling bones.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Salvador Dalí (1904 - 1989) Spanish
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title:Untitled (Composition with Skeleton Figure) from 'Les Chants de Maldoror'
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date created:1934
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materials:Heliogravure with drypoint on paper
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measurements:29.80 x 18.60 cm (paper 33.20 x 25.20 cm)
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object type:
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credit line:Bequeathed by Gabrielle Keiller 1995
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accession number:GMA 3955
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gallery:
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subject:
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Dalí was born in Figueres, Spain. After being thrown out of art school in Madrid in 1923, he experimented with a range of styles. By 1927 he began to move away from Cubism towards Surrealism. He was a keen follower of developments in surrealist art and literature and met Miró, a fellow Catalan and...