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Lot Essay
In contrast to the artistic output of Dalí's pre-war period, the 1950s represented Dalí's definitive break with Surrealism and his increasing interest in the abstract world of mysticism, theology and the tangible realm of science. Thoughout his career, one of Dalí's goals was "to paint an image of modern times in the manner of the great old masters he so deeply admired, with improvements of his own." (R. Descharnes and G. Neret, op. cit., p. 434). The present work, painted between 1954 and 1956, typifies his somewhat paradoxical desire to emulate the principles of the Old Masters while pursuing visual experiments, optical games and illusions that become increasingly complex and mathematical in their conception.
Within the work's title, Galetée, there lies a double significance. It is both a clever reference to the name of Dalí's wife, Gala, whose likeness is represented in the painting, and an homage to the Old Masters in its close resemblance to the word Galetea, a mythical sea mermaid that was a popular subject among sixteenth and seventeenth century painters. Just as Galatea rises out of the sea as she is so often represented, so does Dali's bust-length image of Gala hover above an eerie coastal landscape.
In an earlier painting of 1954, similar in subject and format to the present work, entitled Portrait of Gala with Rhinocerotic Symptoms, (Private collection; Descharnes and Néret, no. 1042) Gala appears, suspended over the same landscape, solidly painted with the precision of a portrait. In the present work, Gala's head has become a loosely connected composition of moving elements. Her image is tenuously framed by the ornate collar of a liturgical vestment similar to those depicted in Renaissance paintings. Motifs representing marine life, such as a fish on a ledge and mussels that fall from the sky are scattered throughout the landscape. As Descharnes and Néret point out, "The floating state of the figures and objects in his paintings at this time related not only to the Golden Section and contemporary physics, but also to Dalí's spiritual development. Dalí, dualist as ever in his approach, was now claiming to be both an agnostic and a Roman Catholic" (ibid., p. 431).
It is by no coincidence that the dissolving, fragmented and yet regenerating state of Gala's head reflects Dalí's interest in atomic physics, and the continually changing states of matter. Despite the apparent confusion in the chaotic movement of elements, the work is meticulously and mathematically organized. The yellow blocks and the violet cone-shaped arrows all conform to Renaissance principles of three-point perspective as they rapidly converge toward the vanishing point, past Gala's head and into the horizon line beyond.
Within the work's title, Galetée, there lies a double significance. It is both a clever reference to the name of Dalí's wife, Gala, whose likeness is represented in the painting, and an homage to the Old Masters in its close resemblance to the word Galetea, a mythical sea mermaid that was a popular subject among sixteenth and seventeenth century painters. Just as Galatea rises out of the sea as she is so often represented, so does Dali's bust-length image of Gala hover above an eerie coastal landscape.
In an earlier painting of 1954, similar in subject and format to the present work, entitled Portrait of Gala with Rhinocerotic Symptoms, (Private collection; Descharnes and Néret, no. 1042) Gala appears, suspended over the same landscape, solidly painted with the precision of a portrait. In the present work, Gala's head has become a loosely connected composition of moving elements. Her image is tenuously framed by the ornate collar of a liturgical vestment similar to those depicted in Renaissance paintings. Motifs representing marine life, such as a fish on a ledge and mussels that fall from the sky are scattered throughout the landscape. As Descharnes and Néret point out, "The floating state of the figures and objects in his paintings at this time related not only to the Golden Section and contemporary physics, but also to Dalí's spiritual development. Dalí, dualist as ever in his approach, was now claiming to be both an agnostic and a Roman Catholic" (ibid., p. 431).
It is by no coincidence that the dissolving, fragmented and yet regenerating state of Gala's head reflects Dalí's interest in atomic physics, and the continually changing states of matter. Despite the apparent confusion in the chaotic movement of elements, the work is meticulously and mathematically organized. The yellow blocks and the violet cone-shaped arrows all conform to Renaissance principles of three-point perspective as they rapidly converge toward the vanishing point, past Gala's head and into the horizon line beyond.