Throughout his career, Salvador Dali was the illustrator of more than 100 books. Among the most celebrated of his book illustrations are his portfolios for Comte de Lautréamont's Les Chants de Maldoror (1868-1869 CE) and Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy (1308-1320 CE). Les Chants de Maldoror, or The Songs of Maldoror, was a favorite literary work among the Surrealists, many of whom found beauty in art and literature devoted to the pursuit of the irrational and the macabre. A poetic novel of sorts that unfolds in a non-linear fashion, Les Chants de Maldoror describes the violent and perverse character of a despicable protagonist who has renounced God, humanity, and conventional morality.

Dante's The Divine Comedy is a poetic narrative that takes its readers along with Dante on a journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory is the Roman poet Virgil who, upon reaching Paradise, turns him over to Beatrice, a woman Dante had met in childhood and for whom he felt Platonic love and admiration. With Beatrice and angels taking him through Paradise, Dante ultimately finds God.

In illustrating Les Chants de Maldoror and The Divine Comedy, Dali explores subjects that were significant to him personally and, in both works, he self-identifies with the central characters, Maldoror and Dante. In 1950, Dali became a born-again Catholic and deemed himself an “ex-Surrealist.” Now focused on spirituality and mysticism, Dali viewed The Divine Comedy as a vehicle for experiencing repentance by projecting himself into the narrative in the guise of Dante. By rejecting his past “Maldoror” self, Dali noted in his 1951 work, Mystical Manifesto, that he now lives in “mystical ecstasy," which is “the aesthetic blooming of the maximum of paradisiacal happiness that a human being can have on earth.”

The Museum extends its gratitude to David S. Rubin, Curator, for bringing this exhibition to fruition. His research was pivotal in creating the content for this installation. We also thank Carole Sorell Incorporated and the Park West Foundation for organizing this exhibition and Susan Hardwick for her generous sponsorship.

Tory Schendel Cox

The Virginia G. Schroeder Curator of Art

View the blog written by Tory Schendel Cox for more in-depth information about Dali and the exhibition HERE.

Les Chants de Maldoror: Plate 3, 1934

intaglio print

Collection of the Park West Museum

Here Dali’s wife Gala appears with a lamb chop pierced by a fork on her shoulder. In the distance are the plains of Emporda. Dali’s portrayal of Gala is based on a contemporaneous painting where he depicts her with two lamb chops on her shoulder. In addition to suggesting the mutilation or devouring of flesh, the fork in this instance is considered to be a reference to a peasant’s pitchfork digging into the ground from the Jean-Francois Millet painting The Angelus (1859), which influenced the Chants de Maldoror illustrations as well as several of Dali’s paintings from the same period. The silhouettes of a man and woman seen in the clouds also derive from Millet’s painting.

In the foreground, Dali has inserted a tiny image of a man holding the hand of a young child, presumably the young Dali. A similar scene appears in the lower section of the artist’s 1934 painting Atavistic Vestiges after the Rain.

Les Chants de Maldoror: Plate 8 (Headpiece), 1934

heliogravure print

Collection of the Park West Museum

Loaded with sexual symbolism, this illustration reveals Dali’s equation of sex with violence. In a number of Dali’s paintings, the pen and inkwell are symbols for male and female sex organs, while bandaged breasts reflect the artist’s fear of female sexuality, which he acknowledged in his writings.

Les Chants de Maldoror: Plate 15, 1934

intaglio print

Collection of the Park West Museum

Dali refers to mutilation, decay, and death in this illustration through many of his familiar symbols, including eating utensils that function like weapons, the lamb chop that signifies flesh and bones, and the soft watch, a motif that the artist introduced in his 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory. Initially inspired by the soft shape of Camembert cheese, Dali’s soft watches are usually interpreted as references to impotence as well as to the malleability of space and time.

Les Chants de Maldoror: Plate 22, 1934

intaglio print

Collection of the Park West Museum

Dali based the background imagery in this portrayal of the peasants from The Angelus on two additional art historical sources: another well-known Millet painting of field workers, entitled The Gleaners (1857), and a painting by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier of Napoleon on horseback, entitled The French Campaign (1814). The laborers from The Gleaners are seen here picking up eating utensils, while Napoleon leads his troops to battle. In the foreground, the male peasant’s upper section had morphed into the wheelbarrow from Millet’s The Angelus, while the woman’s has become the sack of potatoes the same wheelbarrow contained. In the center, the tiny father and son figures are completely dwarfed by the large-looming references to labor, war, violence, sexuality, and death.

The Divine Comedy, Inferno: Erinnyes, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

In this relatively literal interpretation of the narrative, a heavenly messenger thwarts the attempts of Erinnyes, one of three Furies who summon Medusa to turn Dante into stone. Dante is spared from this fate by covering his eyes, with the help of Virgil.

The Divine Comedy, Inferno: The Forest of Those Who Committed Suicide, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

Dali returns to literal narrative in this scene, where Dante and Virgil enter a forest where those who have sinned by committing suicide are turned into trees with poisoned leaves.

The Divine Comedy, Inferno: Misers and Squanderers, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

Dali’s depiction of the greedy and reckless sinners includes a figure struggling under the weight of a large boulder, recalling historical representations of the Greek god Atlas holding up the globe.

The Divine Comedy, Inferno: The Ghost Spoken Of, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

In the final canto of the Inferno, Dante comes face to face with Satan. Rather than imagine what Satan might look like (Dante describes him as having three heads), Dali uses an abstract mass accompanied by red flames to suggest the most devilish section of Hell.

The Divine Comedy, Inferno: Giants, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

Here Dali presents a fairly literal interpretation of Dante and Virgil’s entrance into the Ninth (and final) Circle of Hell, where they encounter several giants.

The Divine Comedy, Inferno: The Logician Devil, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

Dali turned once again to his set design for the production of his ballet “Labyrinth” in illustrating the 27th canto, where the soul of a sinner tells Dante and Virgil that a devil, calling himself a logician, took him to Minos, who sentenced him to the 8th chasm of the Eighth Circle of Hell for committing the sin of fraudulent counsel. Dali also uses one of his familiar motifs from Les Chants de Maldoror, a protruding bone which here pierces the sinner’s skull, to suggest the subject’s post-life state. The legs protruding from the soul’s mouth were likely influenced by Francisco Goya’s well-known painting, Saturn Devouring His Son.

The Divine Comedy, Purgatory: Guardian Angels of the Valley, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

This illustration depicts the Valley of the Rulers, where Sordello takes Dante and Virgil to spend the night before they continue on their journey towards Mount Purgatory. Responding specifically to the text, which describes protective angels who are so bright that Dante cannot see their faces, Dali illuminates the scene with radiant rays of light.

The Divine Comedy, Purgatory: A Spirit Interrogating Dante, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

Still in the Second Terrace of Mount Purgatory, Dante and Virgil come across two spirits who question Dante about his identity and where he has come from. Dali presents a fairly ambiguous interpretation of the scene, although the shadow figures may be spirits of a boy and a dog, since the text makes references to the children in a family that has gone bad, and to the Italian river Arno as running through a land of dogs.

The Divine Comedy, Purgatory: Leaving the Level of Anger, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

Dali returns to a setting based on the open plains of Emporda to make it clear that Dante and Virgil have passed through the heavy fog and reached an area where they can see the sky again, although it is just before sunset. At this point in the narrative, Dante fantasizes about three mythological and biblical figures who were wrathful. Dali’s spider may refer to these sinners metaphorically.

The Divine Comedy, Purgatory: The Last Oratories of Virgil, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

As they conclude their journey through the Seventh Terrace of Purgatory, Virgil blesses Dante as he advises him to explore the Earthly Paradise until he meets up with Beatrice, who will guide him through Heaven.

The Divine Comedy, Purgatory: Dante Purified, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

In the final canto of Purgatory, Dante is bathed in a river that causes him to remember his good deeds, and he is ready to enter heaven. To illustrate this divine moment, Dali uses a composition that is related to the Renaissance style paintings he made during the period that he rediscovered and embraced Catholicism. As in his portrayal of his wife Gala as the Virgin Mary in his painting The Madonna of Port Lligat (first version), he has dematerialized the center of the angel’s body to create a window that allows us to view what is beyond. At the time, Dali was also interested in nuclear fission involving the dematerialization of objects.

The Divine Comedy, Paradise: Gloria Patri, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

After Dante meets Adam, who spent a long time in Purgatory before finally entering Heaven, the souls join together and sing “Gloria Patri,” which celebrates the Holy Trinity.

The Divine Comedy, Paradise: Saint John and Hope, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

Dali employs a warm palette and expressionist brushwork to reflect the celebratory tone as Dante meets Saint John, following his conversation with Saint James about the nature of hope.

The Divine Comedy, Paradise: The Sixth Heaven of Jupiter, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

In this illustration Dali once again eschews any specifics from the narrative and instead presents an abstract conceptualization of souls appearing before Dante in the Sixth Sphere of Heaven, which is Jupiter.

The Divine Comedy, Paradise: The Divine Foreknowledge, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

Dante questions his great-great-grandfather about his future and learns that he will be exiled from Florence and will face some difficult times. In the end, however, he will find salvation, which Dali considers to be reunification with the universe. To express this idea, Dali returns to the style of his Raphaelesque Head Exploding, where a divine figure is fragmented like the atomic substructures of the space-time continuum.

The Divine Comedy, Paradise: Dante's Ecstasy, 1960

wood engraving in color on Rives paper after a watercolor

Collection of the Park West Museum

In the Sphere of Mars, Dante encounters the spirit of his great-great-grandfather and is overjoyed at meeting one of his ancestors. Rather than focus on their conversation, Dali uses perspectival lines to establish a connection between the earthly world of Dante (blue sky) and the spiritual domain of his ancestors (yellow light).