This small portrait is of Salvador Dalí’s wife Gala, who was his creative muse. Generally it is the face that is important in a portrait, and yet here Dalí paints his subject from behind, over her shoulder. Her protruding forehead and cheekbones, and her sharp chin are only just visible. The gentle undulations from her bare left shoulder to the nape of her neck, the wavy hair, the decorations, stitches, wrinkles and creases of her cap and clothes are all carefully rendered. The artist has labored over every corner of the composition, almost to the point of excess. The term “geodesical” in the title refers to a means of determining the exact position of a point on the earth’s surface. It would seem Dalí has tried to reproduce every point on Gala’s back with the kind of accuracy usually reserved for scientific observation of the earth.
(NAKAMURA Naoaki)
This small portrait is of Salvador Dalí’s wife Gala, who was his creative muse. Generally it is the face that is important in a portrait, and yet here Dalí paints his subject from behind, over her shoulder. Her protruding forehead and cheekbones, and her sharp chin are only just visible. The gentle undulations from her bare left shoulder to the nape of her neck, the wavy hair, the decorations, stitches, wrinkles and creases of her cap and clothes are all carefully rendered. The artist has labored over every corner of the composition, almost to the point of excess. The term “geodesical” in the title refers to a means of determining the exact position of a point on the earth’s surface. It would seem Dalí has tried to reproduce every point on Gala’s back with the kind of accuracy usually reserved for scientific observation of the earth.
(NAKAMURA Naoaki)