Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904 - 1989).
Design for "Destino", ca.1946.
Gouache on paper.
With certificate of authenticity issued by the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, 22-02-2011.
Oil version reproduced in the catalog of the Dalí Museum in Figueres, cat. no. P 1051.
Measurements: 23,80 x 27,50 cm.

This work is a fascinating piece of great documentary and artistic value, as it gives us a glimpse into the creative process of one of the most unusual collaborations of the 20th century: that of Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney.

The gouache technique allowed Dalí speed and correctness, ideal for the design of concepts and scenography. The composition is theatrical, dreamlike and purely surrealistic.

The dominant element is a large ochre-colored pyramidal wall that crosses the composition. In the universe of "Destiny", this structure often represents the "path of life" or the labyrinthine walls of time through which the female character (Dalia) walks. On the wall is projected a kind of giant hand or glove: when looking at the detail, the fingers transform into three hooded figures or statues in robes (reminiscent of monks or the figures in Millet's Angelus, an obsession of Dalí's).

It is a game of double images (paranoiac-critical method) typically Dalinian. It also takes place in the dark cypresses (classic symbol of death and melancholy), in which Dalí opens holes, inside which we see human figures, suggesting that nature itself is a scenario that can be a prison for the characters.

On the right, integrated into the wall, appears a seated figure, apparently a classical statue or the petrified protagonist. In Destino, the metamorphosis from woman to statue (and vice versa) is constant. At the bottom, we see a brick arch and what looks like the top of a female head emerging from the water, bringing a sense of subterranean depth and mystery.

This work was a working tool for a film. In 1945, Dalí signed a contract with Disney to create an animated short film based on the Mexican ballad "Destino". Dalí worked side by side with Disney artist John Hench at the Burbank, California studios. Together they created hundreds of sketches, paintings and storyboards.

This gouache served to define the atmosphere, lighting and color palette of a specific sequence. Disney needed to understand how to translate Dalí's painterly style into the movement of animation.

The image captures the essence of the plot of "Destiny": the love story between Chronos (Time) and a mortal woman. The image evokes loneliness, the passage of time (the lengthening shadows) and the dreamlike desert landscape, key elements in the final film (which was not completed until 2003).

In short, this piece is an exceptional testimony to Dalí's "American period". It represents the meeting point between avant-garde European surrealism and the Hollywood mass entertainment machine.

Salvador Dalí was one of the leading exponents of the surrealist movement. His work greatly influenced the direction of surrealism during the 1920s and 1930s, being acclaimed as the creator of the paranoiac-critical method, an essential combination of the real and the imaginary. During his early years, Dalí discovered contemporary painting during a family visit to Cadaqués, where he met the family of Ramon Pichot, an artist who regularly traveled to Paris. Following Pichot's advice, Dalí began to study painting with Juan Núñez. In 1922, Dalí stayed at the famous Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid to begin studying Fine Arts at the San Fernando Academy. However, before his final exams in 1926, he was expelled for claiming that there was no one there fit to examine him. That same year Dalí traveled to Paris for the first time. There he met Picasso, and established some formal characteristics that would become distinctive of all his work from then on. During this period, Dalí held regular exhibitions in both Barcelona and Paris, and joined the surrealist group based in the Parisian neighborhood of Montparnasse. The painter landed in America in 1934, thanks to art dealer Julian Levy. As a result of his first individual exhibition in New York, his international projection was definitively consolidated, and since then he has been showing his work and giving lectures all over the world. Most of his production is gathered in the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueras, followed by the collection of the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg (Florida), the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Salvador Dalí Gallery in Pacific Palisades (California), the Espace Dalí in Montmartre (Paris) or the Dalí Universe in London.