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Lot Essay
Between 1942 and 1946, the central preoccupation of Dalí's art was with the creation of a number of fantastical designs for the New York stage. This period culminated with Dalí's celebrated collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock for the movie Spellbound in which Dalí created a number of dramatic sets for the dream sequence of this psychoanalytic thriller about the power of the unconscious.
Executed in 1942, Le bateau échoué (The boat has run aground) is a fully worked oil painting that refers to Dalí's stage designs for the ballet Romeo and Juliet. Using the double image of the bow of a ship that has turned to stone to become a crumbling building, the atmosphere of the painting is one of a storm-tossed landscape of impending doom.
In the creation of this enigmatic but sinister atmosphere, Dalí has developed many of the themes and images of Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical paintings. The two opposing military towers, the collonade of arches, elongated afternoon shadows and the clock tower which Dalí has transformed into the figure of a sorrowful woman, are all features common to de Chirico's evocation of melancholy.
In Dalí's hands these elements become dramatically animated metaphors of psychological unrest - a tormented landscape in which love, as exemplified by Romeo and Juliet, has no chance. In the context of the story, the central figure of the sorrowful and physically crumbling woman would seem to be Juliet in despair. Her clock face indicates the agony of the passing of time and the empty cavity of her chest perhaps recalls the famous balcony scene between the two lovers. The sky, indeed the whole world, appears to be disintegrating along with her crumbling edifice. In the dark and desolate landscape with its long mysterious shadows prefiguring Dalí's work for Spellbound, a wild and screaming horse, propped up by Dalinean crutches seems an evocation of madness. As a whole, Le bateau échoué is a highly dramatic and powerful image of the psychic torment of love that has "run aground".
Executed in 1942, Le bateau échoué (The boat has run aground) is a fully worked oil painting that refers to Dalí's stage designs for the ballet Romeo and Juliet. Using the double image of the bow of a ship that has turned to stone to become a crumbling building, the atmosphere of the painting is one of a storm-tossed landscape of impending doom.
In the creation of this enigmatic but sinister atmosphere, Dalí has developed many of the themes and images of Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical paintings. The two opposing military towers, the collonade of arches, elongated afternoon shadows and the clock tower which Dalí has transformed into the figure of a sorrowful woman, are all features common to de Chirico's evocation of melancholy.
In Dalí's hands these elements become dramatically animated metaphors of psychological unrest - a tormented landscape in which love, as exemplified by Romeo and Juliet, has no chance. In the context of the story, the central figure of the sorrowful and physically crumbling woman would seem to be Juliet in despair. Her clock face indicates the agony of the passing of time and the empty cavity of her chest perhaps recalls the famous balcony scene between the two lovers. The sky, indeed the whole world, appears to be disintegrating along with her crumbling edifice. In the dark and desolate landscape with its long mysterious shadows prefiguring Dalí's work for Spellbound, a wild and screaming horse, propped up by Dalinean crutches seems an evocation of madness. As a whole, Le bateau échoué is a highly dramatic and powerful image of the psychic torment of love that has "run aground".