Salvador Dali

Don Quichotte – Horseman

Pencil on Canvas.

Inspired by the Spanish novel 'The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha' written by Miguel de Cervantes (1605) - a work heralded as the foundation to modern Western literature, and the inspiration for such stories as The Three Musketeers.

Dali depicts the novel's protagonist, Don Quixote, sat gallant atop his workhorse, Rocinante, both entwined through a flurry of energetic linework. In the distance is a structure considered to be the remains of the windmill he once jousted, having imagined it as a terrible giant.

Both horse and rider are comparatively enormous to the men at their feet, symbolic of Don Quixote's inflated perception of self and the acts of 'heroism' he undertook.