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Lot Essay
Galatée is a large and important de-materialised portrait of Gala Dali in the guise of the classical Greek beauty Galatea that Salvador Dali worked on for two years between 1954 and 1956. Like many of the artist's most important paintings from the mid-1950s, this painting presents a fusion of religious iconography, 'nuclear mysticism' and Dali's own confused personal self-identification with that of his wife and muse, Gala.
A play on words, Galatée derives from two separate Greek myths; the story of the unrequited love the one-eyed Cyclops Polyphemus had for the sea nymph or Nereid Galatea and that of the artist Pygmalion who fell in love with his own sculptural creation that came to life in the form of a beautiful woman called Galatea. In presenting his own muse as the mythic Galatea Dali reveals Gala simultaneously as both a beatific object of devotion emerging from the sea like the nymph and, like Pygmalion's Galatea, as his own projected vision of holiness and perfection.
In this respect, Galatée is but one of a series of important paintings Dali made at this time in which sacred and mythological are presented - often through the figure of Gala - as simultaneously both revelatory apparitions and as projections of the artist's mind. The characteristically dualistic Dali was, in the 1950s, maintaining himself to be both a keen Roman Catholic and an agnostic. In paintings such as Leda Atomica (1949), two versions of The Madonna of Port Lligat, Assumpta Corpuscularia Lapislazulina (1952) and Corpus Hypercubus (1954), Dali presents a saintly or divine Gala as an iconic and metaphysical means through which an understanding and awareness of divine spirituality is attained.
The religious fervour that Dali demonstrates in these pictures had recently been reawakened in him by the news of the atomic bomb. The dawning of the Nuclear age prompted in Dali an appreciation of the innate immateriality of matter and an understanding of how, as Heraclitus had once explained, matter existed in a constant and mysterious state of flux and disintegration. This revelation, for Dali, affirmed what he subsequently declared to be 'the spirituality of all matter,' and led to his embracing of an innate mysticism at the heart of existence - a mysticism which in turn began to manifest itself in his paintings through predominantly Roman Catholic imagery.
'The atomic explosion of the 6 August 1945 shook me seismically,' Dali explained, 'thenceforth, the atom was my favourite food for thought. Many of the landscapes painted in this period express the great fear inspired in me by the announcement of that explosion. I applied my paranoiac-critical method to exploring the world. I want to see and understand the forces and hidden laws of things, obviously so as to master them. To penetrate to the heart of things, I know by intuitive genius that I have an exceptional means: mysticism. - that is to say, the profound intuitive knowledge of what is, direct communication with the all, absolute vision by the grace of Truth, by the grace of God... Mine the ecstasy! I cry. The ecstasy of God and Man. Mine the perfection, the beauty that I might gaze into its eyes! Death to academicism, to the bureaucratic rules of art, to decorative plagiarism, to the witless incoherence of African art ! Mine, St Teresa of Avila!...In this state of intense prophesy it became clear to me that means of pictorial expression achieved their greatest perfection and effectiveness in the Renaissance, and that the decadence of modern painting was a consequence of scepticism and lack of faith, the result of mechanistic materialism. By reviving Spanish mysticism, I, Dali shall use my work to demonstrate the unity of the universe by showing the spirituality of all substance.' (Salvador Dali cited in R. Descharnes & G. Neret, Dali 1904-1989, Cologne, 1994, p. 407)
The pictorial language Dali adopted to express these essentially spiritual ideas was largely mythological and religious. Dali's 'Nuclear Mysticism' often involved the paraphrasing of Renaissance masterpieces with Gala stepping into the Madonna role whereby her spiritual presence appeared to expose the innate immateriality of objects which, released from all sense of gravity were usually to be seen levitating around her. These often symbolic objects are also often shown partially disintegrated or manifesting themselves through an exploding geometry of particalised form. Galatée is an ambitious painting that follows a sequence of works depicting angels and Raphaelesque Madonnas with exploding heads and including an earlier painting from 1952 entitled Galatea of the Spheres in which a paranoiac-critical illusion of Gala's features were depicted emerging from a cuboid made up of coloured spheres.
In Galatée Gala's Madonna-like features are again shown in an exploding formation, here, magically levitating in space over the bay of Port Lligat. The sea, as in many of Dali's works from this period, is shown as a solid material surface, its skin opening into a boat-like interior with a dead fish. At the centre of Gala's forehead is an egg, again levitating in space in a manner reminiscent of both Piero della Francesca's Montefeltro Altarpiece and his two paintings of Gala as The Madonna of Port Lligat. The egg was for Dali also a symbol of his twin nature with Gala and of the dualistic nature of his self-identification with her. Gala in the guise of both the Madonna or as Leda is the mother of divine children - in Leda's case this is the twins Castor and Pollux who were born from an egg. Dali considered he and Gala to be like the twins Castor and Pollux in that, as in the myth, each could substitute him or herself for the other. This reflective dualism and substituting of Gala for Dali and Dali for Gala takes place throughout much of Dali's art and his portraits of her. It is often prefaced or accompanied by the image of an egg as for example in his famous painting 'The Metamorphosis of Narcissus in which the egg splits into a flower that Dali described in his poem on the work as giving birth to 'Gala, my Narcissus'.
Galatée appears to be an open acknowledgement of this reflective dualism between Dali and his muse/twin/idol/saviour/self in paint. Incorporating the dematerialising pictorial language of his 'Nuclear mysticism', he paints Gala as his own Pygmalion-like creation, Galatea, invoking not just a sense of the mystical immateriality and transmutability of all matter but that also of his own self. Gala as Galatea is both Dali's muse, his creation and a projection of his self image. Interwoven with the magic Ampurdan light and familiar rock forms of his home in Port Lligat, this projected Nuclear mystical image of his muse is also, therefore, a modern homage to the mystical sources of his own creativity.
A play on words, Galatée derives from two separate Greek myths; the story of the unrequited love the one-eyed Cyclops Polyphemus had for the sea nymph or Nereid Galatea and that of the artist Pygmalion who fell in love with his own sculptural creation that came to life in the form of a beautiful woman called Galatea. In presenting his own muse as the mythic Galatea Dali reveals Gala simultaneously as both a beatific object of devotion emerging from the sea like the nymph and, like Pygmalion's Galatea, as his own projected vision of holiness and perfection.
In this respect, Galatée is but one of a series of important paintings Dali made at this time in which sacred and mythological are presented - often through the figure of Gala - as simultaneously both revelatory apparitions and as projections of the artist's mind. The characteristically dualistic Dali was, in the 1950s, maintaining himself to be both a keen Roman Catholic and an agnostic. In paintings such as Leda Atomica (1949), two versions of The Madonna of Port Lligat, Assumpta Corpuscularia Lapislazulina (1952) and Corpus Hypercubus (1954), Dali presents a saintly or divine Gala as an iconic and metaphysical means through which an understanding and awareness of divine spirituality is attained.
The religious fervour that Dali demonstrates in these pictures had recently been reawakened in him by the news of the atomic bomb. The dawning of the Nuclear age prompted in Dali an appreciation of the innate immateriality of matter and an understanding of how, as Heraclitus had once explained, matter existed in a constant and mysterious state of flux and disintegration. This revelation, for Dali, affirmed what he subsequently declared to be 'the spirituality of all matter,' and led to his embracing of an innate mysticism at the heart of existence - a mysticism which in turn began to manifest itself in his paintings through predominantly Roman Catholic imagery.
'The atomic explosion of the 6 August 1945 shook me seismically,' Dali explained, 'thenceforth, the atom was my favourite food for thought. Many of the landscapes painted in this period express the great fear inspired in me by the announcement of that explosion. I applied my paranoiac-critical method to exploring the world. I want to see and understand the forces and hidden laws of things, obviously so as to master them. To penetrate to the heart of things, I know by intuitive genius that I have an exceptional means: mysticism. - that is to say, the profound intuitive knowledge of what is, direct communication with the all, absolute vision by the grace of Truth, by the grace of God... Mine the ecstasy! I cry. The ecstasy of God and Man. Mine the perfection, the beauty that I might gaze into its eyes! Death to academicism, to the bureaucratic rules of art, to decorative plagiarism, to the witless incoherence of African art ! Mine, St Teresa of Avila!...In this state of intense prophesy it became clear to me that means of pictorial expression achieved their greatest perfection and effectiveness in the Renaissance, and that the decadence of modern painting was a consequence of scepticism and lack of faith, the result of mechanistic materialism. By reviving Spanish mysticism, I, Dali shall use my work to demonstrate the unity of the universe by showing the spirituality of all substance.' (Salvador Dali cited in R. Descharnes & G. Neret, Dali 1904-1989, Cologne, 1994, p. 407)
The pictorial language Dali adopted to express these essentially spiritual ideas was largely mythological and religious. Dali's 'Nuclear Mysticism' often involved the paraphrasing of Renaissance masterpieces with Gala stepping into the Madonna role whereby her spiritual presence appeared to expose the innate immateriality of objects which, released from all sense of gravity were usually to be seen levitating around her. These often symbolic objects are also often shown partially disintegrated or manifesting themselves through an exploding geometry of particalised form. Galatée is an ambitious painting that follows a sequence of works depicting angels and Raphaelesque Madonnas with exploding heads and including an earlier painting from 1952 entitled Galatea of the Spheres in which a paranoiac-critical illusion of Gala's features were depicted emerging from a cuboid made up of coloured spheres.
In Galatée Gala's Madonna-like features are again shown in an exploding formation, here, magically levitating in space over the bay of Port Lligat. The sea, as in many of Dali's works from this period, is shown as a solid material surface, its skin opening into a boat-like interior with a dead fish. At the centre of Gala's forehead is an egg, again levitating in space in a manner reminiscent of both Piero della Francesca's Montefeltro Altarpiece and his two paintings of Gala as The Madonna of Port Lligat. The egg was for Dali also a symbol of his twin nature with Gala and of the dualistic nature of his self-identification with her. Gala in the guise of both the Madonna or as Leda is the mother of divine children - in Leda's case this is the twins Castor and Pollux who were born from an egg. Dali considered he and Gala to be like the twins Castor and Pollux in that, as in the myth, each could substitute him or herself for the other. This reflective dualism and substituting of Gala for Dali and Dali for Gala takes place throughout much of Dali's art and his portraits of her. It is often prefaced or accompanied by the image of an egg as for example in his famous painting 'The Metamorphosis of Narcissus in which the egg splits into a flower that Dali described in his poem on the work as giving birth to 'Gala, my Narcissus'.
Galatée appears to be an open acknowledgement of this reflective dualism between Dali and his muse/twin/idol/saviour/self in paint. Incorporating the dematerialising pictorial language of his 'Nuclear mysticism', he paints Gala as his own Pygmalion-like creation, Galatea, invoking not just a sense of the mystical immateriality and transmutability of all matter but that also of his own self. Gala as Galatea is both Dali's muse, his creation and a projection of his self image. Interwoven with the magic Ampurdan light and familiar rock forms of his home in Port Lligat, this projected Nuclear mystical image of his muse is also, therefore, a modern homage to the mystical sources of his own creativity.