coup de foudre
Salvador Dalí, “Gradiva” (1931), oil on copper, 20.6 x 15.5 cm

via Hyperallergic (all images courtesy Sotheby's):
James Mackie, Sotheby’s Senior Director and Head of the Department of 
Impressionist and Modern Art, told Hyperallergic in a phone interview that 
the paintings are “particularly distinguished,” 
in that they were created right after Dalí met poet Paul Éluard and his wife, Gala,
who would leave her husband for the mustachioed Spaniard soon thereafter.
“Gradiva” (1931) portrays the titular character of Wilhelm Jensen’s 1903 novel, 
a story about an archeologist who falls in love with a Roman bas-relief of a woman...
for Dalí, Gradiva represented a real person, namely Gala. 
(He even called her Gradiva as a nickname.)
étude pour Gradiva, 1931. Pen and ink, colored crayon, and pencil on paper, 20 x 15 cm
“Maison pour érotomane” (ca 1932) shows a Catalan landscape, 
with rocks morphing into a horse, cello, and car...
According to Sotheby’s Aleksandra Todorovic, 
the transmogrified figures are a direct allusion 
to the couple in Jean-François Millet “L’Angélus” (1857–59), 
a painting Dalí used as a reference for many of his own works: 
“By transforming the Catalan rocks into anthropomorphic 
and sexually charged images, 
the artist eroticizes the landscape 
that witnessed his first delirious encounters with Gala.”
Salvador Dalí, “Maison pour érotomane” (ca 1932), oil on panel, 14 x 18 cm
Absolutely breathtaking 
to me
 an incredibly vibrant
expression of love and sexual attraction
so in love with these works
I would buy them all
-
I would have to buy them all
they belong together
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in awe
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I know these feelings intimately
they were there from the beginning
they are there now