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Lot Essay
The Invisble Lovers is one of a trilogy of paintings inspired by Dali's love of the desert that were commisioned by the American industrialist, William Lightfoot Schultz in 1945 and completed by the artist in 1946.
Cleverly incorporating the theme of two lovers frozen within a landscape, The Invisible Lovers echoes Dali's celebrated theatrical portrayals of Romeo and Juliet in 1942 and Tristan and Isolde in 1944 as well as his perennial and often highly erotic use of the two figures from Millet's Angelus.
Depicting the two "lovers" solely by their footprints and their silhouettes which are outlined against the horizon by rock formations that are reminiscent of the coastal cliffs of his native Cadaques, Dali presents a meticulously crafted desert landscape at twilight that has been infused with a mysterious and romantic sense of pathos. Dali described this painting as follows: "Two lovers are imprisioned in the mystery of limitless space, romantic essence of the desert. Of one of the fossilized footprints of the feminine lover is born the dandelion, echo of the moon, symbol of femininity and purity." (Salvador Dali, exh. cat., M. Knoedler and Co, New York, 1946)
At the forefront of the painting stands a desert flower blooming in the space between the two lovers. A symbol of their union and of the romance of the desert, it too, like the figurative rock formations and the dandelion whose seeds are caught in the wind conveys a sense of temporality and the fleetingness of human existence. Standing almost alone in this desert wilderness it can in many ways be seen as the main subject of the painting.
Cleverly incorporating the theme of two lovers frozen within a landscape, The Invisible Lovers echoes Dali's celebrated theatrical portrayals of Romeo and Juliet in 1942 and Tristan and Isolde in 1944 as well as his perennial and often highly erotic use of the two figures from Millet's Angelus.
Depicting the two "lovers" solely by their footprints and their silhouettes which are outlined against the horizon by rock formations that are reminiscent of the coastal cliffs of his native Cadaques, Dali presents a meticulously crafted desert landscape at twilight that has been infused with a mysterious and romantic sense of pathos. Dali described this painting as follows: "Two lovers are imprisioned in the mystery of limitless space, romantic essence of the desert. Of one of the fossilized footprints of the feminine lover is born the dandelion, echo of the moon, symbol of femininity and purity." (Salvador Dali, exh. cat., M. Knoedler and Co, New York, 1946)
At the forefront of the painting stands a desert flower blooming in the space between the two lovers. A symbol of their union and of the romance of the desert, it too, like the figurative rock formations and the dandelion whose seeds are caught in the wind conveys a sense of temporality and the fleetingness of human existence. Standing almost alone in this desert wilderness it can in many ways be seen as the main subject of the painting.