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Lot Essay
Nicolas and Olivier Descharnes have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
The following four works, Printemps, Eté, Automne and Hiver, form a unique series of works of paper executed in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the legendary surrealist artist, Salvador Dalí. Les quatre saisons, as this series is known, is a theme rich in art historical precedents. From Nicholas Poussin to Edouard Vuillard and Cy Twombly, for centuries artists have depicted the annual cycle of seasons, using genre scenes, landscapes, allegorical figures or biblical episodes to characterise and illustrate the different times of the year.
Depicting imaginary landscapes filled with fantastical objects, figures and motifs, Printemps, Eté, Automne and Hiver demonstrate Dalí’s expansive and unique creative vision. Bathed in blue, Printemps presents what appears to be a fantastical Garden of Eden, depicting a proliferation of birds, flowers and butterflies – the latter of which were recurring symbols in Dalí’s work, captivating his imagination with their symbolic associations of fertility and metamorphosis. Glowing with yellow and orange, Eté conjures the hazy warmth of summer, as two ornately adorned women pick the golden heads of corn, reminiscent of Poussin’s L’Eté (1660-64, Musée du Louvre, Paris) which illustrates the biblical tale of Ruth gleaning corn from the field of Boaz. Automne presents a figure cloaked in an ethereal blue surrounded by elegant gold strands and linear branches, while Hiver depicts a panoramic, seemingly snow-covered landscape set under a dark, foreboding sky as an array of figures partake in various activities around a lake below. An explosive proliferation of colour, motifs, signs and symbols, these four paintings exemplify Dalí’s unique pictorial iconography, as an array of phantasmagorical images freely flows from the artist’s unbridled and powerful imagination.
Printemps, Eté, Automne and Hiver also exemplify Dalí’s skilled draftsmanship. Using a combination of gouache, watercolour, pen, ink and, in Eté and Automne, gold paint, in these works, Dalí combines fine lines of ink and pen with clouds of glowing colour, heightening the fantastical and magical effect of the imagery that floods the paper in these four unique works.
The following four works, Printemps, Eté, Automne and Hiver, form a unique series of works of paper executed in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the legendary surrealist artist, Salvador Dalí. Les quatre saisons, as this series is known, is a theme rich in art historical precedents. From Nicholas Poussin to Edouard Vuillard and Cy Twombly, for centuries artists have depicted the annual cycle of seasons, using genre scenes, landscapes, allegorical figures or biblical episodes to characterise and illustrate the different times of the year.
Depicting imaginary landscapes filled with fantastical objects, figures and motifs, Printemps, Eté, Automne and Hiver demonstrate Dalí’s expansive and unique creative vision. Bathed in blue, Printemps presents what appears to be a fantastical Garden of Eden, depicting a proliferation of birds, flowers and butterflies – the latter of which were recurring symbols in Dalí’s work, captivating his imagination with their symbolic associations of fertility and metamorphosis. Glowing with yellow and orange, Eté conjures the hazy warmth of summer, as two ornately adorned women pick the golden heads of corn, reminiscent of Poussin’s L’Eté (1660-64, Musée du Louvre, Paris) which illustrates the biblical tale of Ruth gleaning corn from the field of Boaz. Automne presents a figure cloaked in an ethereal blue surrounded by elegant gold strands and linear branches, while Hiver depicts a panoramic, seemingly snow-covered landscape set under a dark, foreboding sky as an array of figures partake in various activities around a lake below. An explosive proliferation of colour, motifs, signs and symbols, these four paintings exemplify Dalí’s unique pictorial iconography, as an array of phantasmagorical images freely flows from the artist’s unbridled and powerful imagination.
Printemps, Eté, Automne and Hiver also exemplify Dalí’s skilled draftsmanship. Using a combination of gouache, watercolour, pen, ink and, in Eté and Automne, gold paint, in these works, Dalí combines fine lines of ink and pen with clouds of glowing colour, heightening the fantastical and magical effect of the imagery that floods the paper in these four unique works.