Salvador Dalí

SALVADOR DALÍ I DOMÈNECH (Figueras, Girona, 1904 - 1989).
"The swan is not for fistfuls". Series "Les caprices de Goya".
Drypoint engraving, copy 72/200.
Signed and justified by hand. Titled in plate.
Measurements: 23 x 17,5 cm (tread); 44,5 x 31,5 cm.(paper).

This work, belonging to the series "Les caprices de Goya", is part of the ambitious project in which Salvador Dalí reinterprets, between 1973 and 1977, the Caprichos of Francisco de Goya from his own paranoiac-critical universe. Taking "Such and Such" as a starting point, Dalí intervenes in the Goyaesque scene, transforming it through an operation of symbolic metamorphosis, where the gestures, the looks and the original elements are charged with new psychological and dreamlike resonances.

In this print, Dalí maintains the intimate theatricality of the encounter represented by Goya, but introduces a more ambiguous atmosphere, accentuated by color and gestures, which turns the scene into a game of erotic and psychological tensions, faithful to the Dalinian spirit. The title, reinterpreted with irony ("El cisne no está para puñetas"), gives the composition a humorous and absurd nuance, typical of the artist, and underlines its capacity to destabilize the moralizing Goyaesque sense and redirect it towards the logic of desire, metamorphosis and surrealist allusion.

Its value lies both in its status as a direct dialogue with Goya -a master Dalí deeply admired- and in the way the Catalan artist introduces his own symbols, perceptual theories and narrative distortions into the historical matrix. This fusion of tradition and avant-garde makes the series one of the most relevant graphic ensembles of his late production.