Dada Muse presents: Dante's Divine Comedy - a complete suite of 100 authentic water-colour works on paper by Salvador Dali, based on Dante Alighieri's literary classic of the same name. Over 3500 woodblock carvings are said to have been used in the printing process.
This display occupies both lower and upper galleries, organised such that visitors may experience the artworks in narrative order, beginning from 'Inferno' (Hell) on Level 1 before ascending to Paradise (Heaven) on Level 2, with 'Purgatory' in between.
As usual, upper floor access is $10 per person. This exhibition is anticipated to run until March 2025.
A BIT OF BACKSTORY
In 1949 Pope Pius XII had granted Dali a private audience and subsequently consented to Dali painting the Immaculate Conception, “The Madonna of Port Ligat” becoming one of Dali’s masterpieces. It marked a turnaround for Dali who had proclaimed himself “a surrealist void of all moral values” during his ‘blasphemous period in Paris in 1929 under Andre Breton’s surrealist group. During WWII Dali had been moving away from surrealism to his own neo-classicism style inspired by Raphael (1483-1520) who was an avid reader and commentator of Dante.
In 1950 the Italian government sought to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s birth by commissioning Dali to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy. According to some in government it was a crime against the state, leading the Italian Parliament to terminate The National Library’s contract with Dali.
Undeterred, Dali offered the project to French Publisher, Joseph Foret who agreed in 1959 to purchase the 100 watercolours Dali had painted starting in 1951 and completed in 1960 along with the copyrights for publication. Dali’s watercolours explored the many myths and elements of Dante’s magnificent literature work.
It was Dante’s intention to place the challenging moral and political issues of his day into an ethical and metaphysical framework structured by specific theories of vision. The main influence was that of St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE), who converted to Christianity in mid-life, and became a bishop in North Africa. Indeed, it is possible to read the Divine Comedy as a reiteration of Augustine’s own spiritual journey from depression and acedia to the joy of redemption and inner peace. In his Confessions, a very influential model for medieval writers, Augustine examined the meaning of his existence, as Dante did. Augustine insisted on the devastating death of a dear friend: “My heart was utterly darkened, and whatever I looked upon was death (Confessions IV, 9).
Similarly, halfway through his life, Dante found himself wandering alone “in a dark forest, having lost my way on the true path” (Inferno, 1). Augustine eventually accepted God, “an unchangeable Light above the same eye of my soul” (Confessions VII, 10.). Dante experiences God not as an old, bearded patriarch, but as the overwhelming radiance of Truth. Aristotle (384–322 BCE), to whom “sight, more than all the other senses, helps us to know things and reveals many distinctions"—in particular, the distinction between good and evil, true and false, natural and unnatural. Thus, the sense of sight is closely connected with insight. Moral rhetoric consists in bringing values before the eyes of the audience by way of plot (mythos), characters (psychology), the music of words, and some visual apparatus (opsis = sight, but also spectacle.) Dante called his poem a comedy. In classic terminology, a comedy is a work that begins in misery or deep confusion and ends in elation or happiness. In Shakespearean comedy, the play often begins in confusion — couples breaking up or separating but ends with everyone finding the right partner. In other words, a comedy is not something one would laugh about, but an ascension from a low state of confusion to one where all people are combined for the greatest happiness.
The illustrations are considered by many Dali’s most creative total body of work, representing the Journey Dante took in 1300. Dante becomes lost in a dark wood on Good Friday and is attacked by three beasts: a panther, a lion and a she-wolf. Dante’s platonic love Beatrice sends the Roman poet Virgil to protect and guide Dante on his trip through Hell (inferno), Purgatory, and Paradise - Dante’s Divine Comedy. Dali achieves what words alone cannot through his surreal imagination, interpreting explaining and reconciling Dante’s 14,000 verses. Taking more than half a decade, Divine Comedy planted Dali firmly as one of the great illustrators of all time - embellishing but never overwhelming the text. As Man Ray wrote of Dali in his 1963 autobiography Self Portrait: “He knew that he could outrage the sensibilities of the surrealists by his apology of fascism and later his adoption of religious themes. Since he saw eye to eye with the group it may have been a form of masochism on his part” Dali was apolitical EVEN WITH THE ASSASINATION OF LORCA SAYGIN “I BELEIVED NEITHER IN THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION NOR THE NAITONAL SOCIALIST REVOLUTION … I BELEIVED ONLY IN THE SUPREME REALITY OF TRADITION (SECRET LIFE) “THE SECRET LIF OF DALI 1942, is entirely unreliable as a document of historical fact.
On the other hand, as self-revelation and a dramatic (if exaggerated) exposure of personal obsession and desire provides considerable insight into his art” It seems likely that Dali and Gala’s relationship was largely asexual, except int eh various and repeated rituals that they substituted for actual intercourse (Gala had her string of young men friends who filled her sexual needs). Dali’s surprising practice of masturbating during the theatrical spectacles he created presumably in the beginning with Gala’s encouragement as a collaborator, may have been the extent of their conjugal erotic life. Dali gratefully claimed Gala saved him by introducing him to normal sex (whatever that meant). Dali wrote “I am totally happy if i can be present at a successful act of sodomy (oral or anal sex). For me everything that matters happens via the eye.