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Lot Essay
In the aftermath of the Second World War and throughout the 1950s Dalí's reputation as one of the richest and most famous artists in the world encouraged him to pursue the idea of a gesamtkunstwerk - a total Dalinian work of art that would involve moving images, music and dance. Executed in 1957, Ensorcellement - Les sept arts (Sorcery - The Seven Arts) is an extraordinary work belonging to a series of paintings on the theme of the seven arts, which relate to one of the few completed projects Dalí produced during these years.
In 1944 Dalí was commissioned by the theatrical impresario Billy Rose to produce a series of paintings on the theme of the seven lively arts for the lobby of the Ziegfeld theatre in New York. These were to accompany Rose's new theatrical extravaganza entitled "The Seven Lively Arts" which opened in December 1944. In 1957 a fire in the theatre destroyed all the paintings and Rose commissioned Dalí to paint a number of replacement pictures of which Ensorcellement is one.
The bizarre figure with its elongated anamorphic head extending across the picture plane and supported by a crutch on the back of a jewel-encrusted tortoise is closely related to a striking figure that Dalí had created for another elaborate project, the film Destino of 1947. Following his success designing the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound, Dalí was asked to collaborate with Walt Disney on a prospective sequel to Disney's masterpiece Fantasia. Entitled Destino (Destiny), this film was Dalí's first foray into the world of animation and introduced him to the possibility of creating a total Dalinian universe of imagery, sound and motion. The Destino project never came to fruition but ten years later Disney visited Dalí in Port Lligat and the two men began collaborating on ideas for another project - entitled Don Quixote - which also never materialised.
It seems likely that Disney's visit to Dalí proved the catalyst in reawakening some of the earlier ideas he had had for the film Destino and this in turn may have informed the creation of this striking image which Dalí has used to represent "sorcery". Of the other paintings of the seven arts that Dali produced once more for Billy Rose the subjects include 'dance', 'music' (The Red Orchestra), 'modern Rhapsody', and, strangely, a celestial scene of women being metamorphosed into lobsters and insects!
In 1944 Dalí was commissioned by the theatrical impresario Billy Rose to produce a series of paintings on the theme of the seven lively arts for the lobby of the Ziegfeld theatre in New York. These were to accompany Rose's new theatrical extravaganza entitled "The Seven Lively Arts" which opened in December 1944. In 1957 a fire in the theatre destroyed all the paintings and Rose commissioned Dalí to paint a number of replacement pictures of which Ensorcellement is one.
The bizarre figure with its elongated anamorphic head extending across the picture plane and supported by a crutch on the back of a jewel-encrusted tortoise is closely related to a striking figure that Dalí had created for another elaborate project, the film Destino of 1947. Following his success designing the dream sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's film Spellbound, Dalí was asked to collaborate with Walt Disney on a prospective sequel to Disney's masterpiece Fantasia. Entitled Destino (Destiny), this film was Dalí's first foray into the world of animation and introduced him to the possibility of creating a total Dalinian universe of imagery, sound and motion. The Destino project never came to fruition but ten years later Disney visited Dalí in Port Lligat and the two men began collaborating on ideas for another project - entitled Don Quixote - which also never materialised.
It seems likely that Disney's visit to Dalí proved the catalyst in reawakening some of the earlier ideas he had had for the film Destino and this in turn may have informed the creation of this striking image which Dalí has used to represent "sorcery". Of the other paintings of the seven arts that Dali produced once more for Billy Rose the subjects include 'dance', 'music' (The Red Orchestra), 'modern Rhapsody', and, strangely, a celestial scene of women being metamorphosed into lobsters and insects!