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Visions of Dante

Artistic Inspirations

DalÍ Meets Dante (1951-1963)

To understand Dalí’s project to illustrate the Divine Comedy, one must place it in the context of his return to classical tradition and catholicism. Since his exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City in 1941, the extravagant Spaniard was moving away from Surrealism and towards a very idiosyncratic form of neo-classicism. Raphael Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520), who according to Vasari was an avid reader and commentator of Dante, became Dalí’s model. Indeed, references to Raphael abound in Dalí’s work after the 1940s: even Dalí’s portrait of Dante in Paradiso, 1, is directly inspired by Raphael’s depiction of the poet for the Stanze del Vaticano. In November 1949, Dalí met with the Pope, who blessed him and his new mystic endeavors. Soon afterwards, Dalí received an official commission from the Italian National Library, and began to produce watercolors based on Dante’s text.

A hundred and two illustrations were shown to the public in Rome in May 1954, for the first Dalí retrospective ever organized in Italy. The curator of the show was not an art historian, but a member of the cosmopolitan jet set. This only seemed to confirm Dalí’s reputation as a whimsical society painter, someone who could not understand “il Poeta del Popolo.” The dispute reached the Italian Parliament on July 9, 1954. Several politicians claimed that an Italian artist should be chosen for the 1965 celebrations of Dante’s birth. The project was abandoned. Instead, Dalí sold his images to a French art publisher. The multiple block woodcuts that you see on display come from a three-volume deluxe edition of the Divine Comedy published in Paris in 1963.

Was Dalí faithful to the text? From the first image (Inferno, 1) it is clear that Dalí is not a mere illustrator. With a few exceptions, the narcissistic Dalí draws as much from his own obsessions and previous work as from Dante.

Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904–1989
Illustration for Paradiso, 1 from La Divine Comédie, illustrations de Dalí, Paris: Editions d’Art Les Heures Claires, 1963
Woodcut
Cornell University Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections
(1 image)

The great Renaissance painter Raphael Sanzio (1483–1520), an avid reader of Dante, became a hero for Dalí.  Indeed, references to Raphael abound in Dalí’s work after the 1940s. Here, Dalí’s portrait of Dante in profile is directly inspired by Raphael’s depiction of the poet in the pope’s apartments in Rome. A print after Raphael’s fresco design can also be seen in the exhibition.


Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904–1989
Dalí’s Illustration for Inferno, 1 from La Divine Comédie, illustrations de Dalí, Paris: Editions d’Art Les Heures Claires, 1963
Woodcut
10 5/8 x 7 7/8 inches (27 x 20 cm)
Cornell University Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections
(1 image)

The “dark forest” that begins Dante’s journey is reduced here to a few cypress trees. The empty landscape is bisected by a road, and the main character projects a long horizontal shadow. This compositional element of the road tapering toward a vanishing point is common in Dalí’s work, beginning with The First Days of Spring, a 1929 oil and collage on panel now kept in St Petersburg, FL.


Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904–1989
Dalí’s Illustration for Inferno, 30, from La Divine Comédie, illustrations de Dalí, Paris: Editions d’Art Les Heures Claires, 1963
Woodcut
10 5/8 x 7 7/8 inches (27 x 20 cm)
Cornell University Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections
(1 image)

The falsifiers (evil impersonators, false witnesses, money counterfeiters) are portrayed in Hell as cannibals, reversing the sacrament in which Christians ritually consume the body of Christ. One melting face hangs limply and drips over the edge of the platform, like the soft watch in Dalí’s 1931 painting, The Persistence of Memory.


Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904–1989
Dalí’s Illustration for Purgatorio, 1 from La Divine Comédie, illustrations de Dalí, Paris: Editions d’Art Les Heures Claires, 1963
Woodcut
10 7/8 x 7 1/2 inches (27.5 x 19 cm)
Cornell University Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections
(1 image)

Here, we have an example of recycling of Dalí’s previous inventory of symbols. Dalí’s angel is modelled after his 1936 Venus de Milo, the first in a series of “anthropomorphic cabinets” with drawers.


Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904–1989
Dalí’s Illustration for Purgatorio, 12 from La Divine Comédie, illustrations de Dalí, Paris: Editions d’Art Les Heures Claires, 1963
Woodcut
10 1/2 x 7 5/8 inches (26.5 x 19.5 cm)
Cornell University Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections
(1 image)

Dalí’s almost conventional depiction of Arachne, who appears in Purgatorio 12 as an example of foolish pride, resembles the illustration of the same scene by Gustave Doré (ca. 1855.) The story comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Arachne is engaged in a weaving contest with Minerva, the goddess of handicraft. Arachne’s weaving is without fault. Unable to handle her defeat,  transforms her rival into a spider.


Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904–1989
Dalí’s Illustration for Paradiso, 5 from La Divine Comédie, illustrations de Dalí, Paris: Editions d’Art Les Heures Claires, 1963
Woodcut
10 x 8 inches (25.5 x 20.5 cm)
Cornell University Library, Rare and Manuscript Collections
(1 image)

Dante often describes God, not as an old bearded patriarch, but as pure light and overwhelming presence: “I clearly see you nest in your own light, and that you flash it from your eyes, because it sparkles when you smile. But I know not who you are, nor why, worthy soul, you take your rank here from the sphere most veiled from mortals in another's rays,’ I said, addressing myself to the radiance.” (Paradiso, V, 124-32) In line with the metaphysics of Bonaventura da Bagnoreggio (1221-74) and Thomas Aquinas, Dante conceived light as lux (diffusion of creative energy); lumen (flux of life conveyed by transparent means through space); and splendor (reflected by the opaque bodies that it strikes.)

Here, rather than falling short of a full visual translation of something that cannot be truly represented by human creativity, Dalí proposes a suggestive, unfinished image.


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