Description

Número de catàleg raonat OG:
OG 012
Propietari:
Estat Espanyol
Ens dipositari:
Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí
Fons:
Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres

La Femme visible, Dalí’s first book, was published by Éditions Surréalistes in Paris in December 1930, when the artist was twenty-six years old. Dalí dedicated the work entirely to Gala Diakonova, who actively participated in its creation during a period of profound change, as the artist himself would later explain in The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (1942).(1) The book is in step with the original editorial line of Éditions Surréalistes, a collective project of the Surrealist group launched in 1925. (2) The frontispiece, a heliogravure, is based on a pen and ink drawing by the artist. Both this print and the two phototype drawings – Grupo alegórico and La caza de mariposas – are closely related to the painting The Invisible Man, which Dalí began in 1929 and left unfinished. The frontispiece includes Dalí’s handwritten dedication to Gala, his muse, engraved directly onto the printing plate. In minuscule letters, it quotes lines from his poem ‘The Great Masturbator’: ‘[…] in the cruel ornaments of false gold / that cover her soft and delicate breasts / and imitate / the form of an imperial crown / whose fine leaves of bronzed acanthus / extend / to her pink and beardless cheeks / and continue their hard fibres / until they melt / into the clear alabaster of her nape / for Gala Diacanova Salvador Dalí 1930’. (3) As yet unverified documentation indicates that the frontispiece was printed by Roger Lacourière, (4) while the book itself was printed by the Ducros et Colas printing house in Paris. (5) Each of the first ten copies, printed on pearlescent Japanese paper, includes an original ink drawing by the artist in the margin of one of the pages. The theoretical texts – ‘The Rotting Donkey’, ‘The Sanitary Goat’, ‘Love’ – and the poem ‘The Great Masturbator’ were written during 1930. In ‘The Rotting Donkey’, previously published in the first issue of Le Surréalisme au service de la révolution in July of that year, Dalí expounds his paranoiac-critical theory: ‘I believe that the time is near when, by a process of active paranoid thought, it will be possible (simultaneously with automatism and other passive states) to systematise confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality. Not only will the new simulacra that paranoiac thought can suddenly cause to appear originate in the unconscious, but the force of paranoiac power will be placed at its service’. (7) The book also includes five additional illustrations: a photograph of Gala taken by Man Ray in 1925; an oil painting by Dalí from 1930, (6) Invisible Sleeping Woman, Horse, Lion; and three photographs of buildings. Of these last, two Modernista buildings are still standing: Casa Lleó Morera, on Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona, designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, and Casa Geli Vergés, by the architect Antonio Alcaide, at number 58 Carrer Sant Llàtzer in Figueres. __________ (1) Dalí, S., The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, New York, Dial Press, 1942, p. 250. (2) Sebbag, G., Les Éditions surréalistes : 1926-1968, Paris, Institut Mémoires de l’édition contemporaine, 1993, p. 7. (3) ‘[…] dans les cruels ornements en faux or / qui recoubrent [sic] ses tempes delicates et molles / en imitant/ la forme d'une courone imperialle / dont les fines feuilles d'acante bronzé / se prolongent /jusqu'aux joues roses et imberbes / et continuant ses fibres dures / jusqu’à se fondre / dans l'alabastre claire de sa nuque / pour Gala Diacanova Salvador Dalí 1930.’ (4) Michler, R., L.W. Löpsinger, Catalogue Raisonné of Etchings and Mixed-Media Prints 1924-1980, Munich, Prestel-Verlag, 1994, p. 126. (5) La Femme visible, ‘Épreuves ou tirage non relié d’un texte de Salvador Dali publié aux Éditions surréalistes en 1930’, © Association Atelier André Breton 2005 - 2022. La Femme visible (André Breton) (andrebreton.fr). Last accessed 31.08.2023. (6) ‘L’Âne Pourri’, ‘La Chèvre Sanitaire’, ‘Le Grand Masturbateur’ and ‘L’Amour’, in the order adopted in the book. (7) ‘Je crois qu’est proche le moment où, par un processus de caractère paranoïaque et actif de la pensé, il sera possible (simultanément à l’automatisme et autres états passifs) de systématiser la confusion et de contribuer au discrédit total du monde de la réalité. Les nouveaux simulacres que la pensé paranoïaque peut subitement faire apparaître, non seulement auront leur origine dans l’inconscient, mais aussi la forcé du pouvoir paranoïaque sera mise au Service de celui-ci.

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