拍品專文
Begun in 1926, Dal heavily reworked the lower half of the canvas years later (fig. 1). Although the exact date of the reworking is unknown, Robert Descharnes believes it could have been carried out in either 1934 or 1935. At the time of acquisition, the composition was precisely in its present state.
In a review of a Dal exhibition at Galerie Jacques Boujeau in Paris in 1934, Louis Chrronet commented:
Astounding painting... Not even Dante had greater cosmic imagination than this painter... And nonetheless, once one reaches these shores where whitened bodies lie scattered, slack bodies are crawling with obscene insects, various things are rotting in the stifling heat, a heat so palpable one feels one might touch it with a feverish finger; once one reaches that isle of the dead with its immutably clear weather, its monumental cypresses and its perverse serenity; once one is there, one is enthralled by a strange magic. (quoted in R. Descharnes and G. Nret, op. cit., pp. 213-214)
(fig. 1) Salvador Dal, Rochers du Llan (first version), 1926
In a review of a Dal exhibition at Galerie Jacques Boujeau in Paris in 1934, Louis Chrronet commented:
Astounding painting... Not even Dante had greater cosmic imagination than this painter... And nonetheless, once one reaches these shores where whitened bodies lie scattered, slack bodies are crawling with obscene insects, various things are rotting in the stifling heat, a heat so palpable one feels one might touch it with a feverish finger; once one reaches that isle of the dead with its immutably clear weather, its monumental cypresses and its perverse serenity; once one is there, one is enthralled by a strange magic. (quoted in R. Descharnes and G. Nret, op. cit., pp. 213-214)
(fig. 1) Salvador Dal, Rochers du Llan (first version), 1926