Marvelous Encounters: J. V. Foix and Salvador Dalí
 
 

Willard Bohn

Illinois State University




Despite André Breton's efforts to safeguard the movement's purity, the forces unleashed by Surrealism--like the unconscious impulses it sought to liberate--proved to be impossible to contain. For one thing, although various individuals were expelled from the group when they deviated from the official line, they continued to write or to paint in a Surrealist manner. For another thing, Surrealism elicited widespread interest outside France as artists and writers in other countries began to explore its possibilities. Nor were the original Surrealists dismayed by this development since it was accompanied by increased recognition and prestige. Indeed, they took advantage of every opportunity to attract new adherents to their cause. As early as 1922, for instance, Breton delivered a lecture to an avid audience in Barcelona in which he expounded Surrealist doctrine. And three years later, Aragon extolled the virtues of Surrealism in a lecture in Madrid, which was equally influential. (1) From its inception, it seems, Surrealism was conceived as an international movement that would revolutionize literature, art, and life in general.

A prominent member of the Barcelona avant-garde, which included such luminaries as Joan Miró and Salvador Dalí, J. V. Foix was an exceptionally fine poet. In this capacity, he helped to forge not only the modern Catalan idiom but the Catalan response to French Surrealism. Unfortunately, the fact that he wrote almost exclusively in Catalan has prevented his work from receiving the recognition it deserves. And yet, Josep Miquel Sobrer observes, Foix "produced a poetry that is the verbal equivalent of the great visual innovations of his contemporaries." (2) While this describes his oeuvre in general, it is especially true of three compositions that were later incorporated into KRTU (1932) devoted to Dalí, Miró, and Artur Carbonell respectively. (3) "Foix's work on painting goes beyond critical evaluation and interpretation," Sobrer adds, "for it is at once a poetic creation and a document of the creative act itself." (4) Among other things, as I have shown elsewhere, it is characterized by multiplication, metamorphosis, and obsessive motifs that reflect the poet's persistent quest for the marvelous. (5)

Entitled "Presentació de Salvador Dalí," the first composition was published in L'Amic de les Arts on January 31, 1927. Since Dalí had illustrated his "Conte de Nadal" ("A Christmas Story") the previous month, Foix was undoubtedly eager to reciprocate. The fact that the Galeries Dalmau had invited the artist to exhibit a number of his latest works provided the perfect occasion. Although Foix may have hoped to generate a little publicity for the show, which ran from December 31, 1926, to January 14, 1927, the exhibition ended before the text appeared in print. Accompanied by several reproductions, it did not seek to describe Dalí's works so much as to convey some of the impressions they engendered in the viewer. The best way to celebrate the artist's compelling vision, Foix decided, was to translate his achievements into poetry. Utilizing a technique he had perfected previously, he devised a fantastic narrative and embroidered it with a series of bizarre details.

No fa gaires dies que a la cantonada de casa un hàbil adolescent amb una senalla carregada de llibres me n'oferia, en veu baixa, bells exemplars originals: herbaris amb làmines cromo-litografiades, prolegòmens de biologia, formularis naturistes, i, també, cartes celestes, atlas de geogrfia històrica amb els processos de formació i desaparició misterioses del continent atlàntic. Portava també, reproduïdes, les més singulars imatges recollides a les andanes de les avingudes subterrànies del pre-somni. Disposat a refusar-ne l'ofterta, em sorprengué la seva desaparició sobtada, tot deixant-me entre mans una invitació a l'obertura de l'exposició Dalí a les Galeries Dalmau, i un catàleg en blanc.

(Not many days ago, at an intersection near my home, a clever adolescent carrying a bag full of books offered me, lowering his voice, some beautiful original editions: herbariums with colored lithographs, introductory texts in biology, collections of formulas describing natural phenomena as well as celestial charts and atlases of historical geography describing the mysterious processes of the Atlantic continent's formation and disappearance. He also possessed reproductions of the most peculiar images gathered on the sidewalks or the subterranean avenues of pre-sleep. About to reject his offer, I was surprised by his sudden disappearance, after leaving an invitation in my hands to the opening of the Dalí exhibition at the Galeries Dalmau and a blank catalogue.)

While the events recounted in the first paragraph are somewhat unusual, they are not beyond the realm of possibility. Leaving (or perhaps returning) home one day, Foix encounters a young man who is trying to sell a collection of books. However, the fact that he lowers his voice when he approaches the poet suggests that he is involved in some kind of shady transaction. Our initial suspicions are intensified, moreover, by the discovery that the volumes all seem to be first editions. How would a callow adolescent ever acquire such precious works, one wonders, except by stealing them? And why else would he be peddling them on a street-corner? Regardless of their provenance, the volumes themselves reflect a specialized taste that is also remarkably eclectic. According to Foix each one examines a major branch of scientific inquiry, including botany, biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, and geography. Rather unexpectedly, some of the works are devoted to the lost continent of Atlantis, whose emergence and disappearance they purport to describe. Equally unexpectedly, but reflecting the broader Surrealist theme, the pedlar has illustrations of various dreams for sale as well. Like the phrase "Il y a un homme coupé en deux par la fenêtre" ("There is a man cut in half by the window"), celebrated by Breton in the First Manifesto, they contain images generated by the unconscious during the period immediately preceding sleep. (6) Like many Surrealist writers who cultivated the image of the labyrinth, Foix compares the unconscious itself to an underground city.

Before the poet can reply, however, the young man thrusts a catalogue and an invitation to the Dalí show into his hands and immediately disappears. Even more puzzling than the pedlar's sudden dematerialization is the fact that the catalogue is blank. Intrigued by the strange encounter, Foix decides to visit the Dalmau Gallery himself the following evening.

De sis a set de la tarda, en aquests dies d'hivern, pels carrers de la ciutat i per les grans porteries senyorials, les bruixes estenen llurs amples mocadors virolats i, abans de lliurar-se a la farandola per les placetes de surburbi, s'escorren invisibles entre els vianants amb un greu soroll de picarols, respirs profunds, besades furtives, i escampen a llur pas aquell baf característic de pomes al caliu. Passeig de Gràcia amunt, en aquella hora, en dirigir-me divendres passat a can Dalmau, no vaig precisar que l'adolescent del dia abans tenia una rara semblança amb el pintor Dalí, que era ell indubtablement, camuflada només la corbata i allargades enginyosament les celles.

(From six to seven in the evening these winter days, on the city streets and by the mansions' elegant gates, the witches spread their large, gaudy scarves and, before abandoning themselves to the lively dancing in the suburban squares, flow invisibly among the crowd with the low sound of bells, heavy sighs, and furtive kisses, leaving behind the unmistakable odor of baked apples. Heading up the Passeig de Gràcia at that hour last Friday, on my way to Dalmau's, I did not realize the adolescent from the day before bore an amazing likeness to the painter Dalí, whom he undoubtedly had been only with his necktie camouflaged and his eyebrows cleverly lengthened.)

Like Barcelona in winter, according to the narrator, the poem acquires a supernatural aura at this point that pervades the entire work. As if it happened all the time, a number of witches appear, disappear, and reappear once again before joining in the dancing that presumably marks a public occasion. Flourishing their colorful scarves like gypsies, they pass through the crowd of spectators undetected. Except for a whiff of baked apple, no trace remains of their invisible passage. As night falls, a church bell sounds in the distance, and young lovers embrace in the shadows. Foix does not pause to observe any of this, however, but takes a suburban train from Sarrià, where he lived, to the center of town. (7) Making his way to the Passeig de Gràcia, he follows the broad boulevard to the Plaça de Catalunya, where it ends. From there it is a short walk to the Carrer Portaferrissa, leading from the Ramblas to the Cathedral. At the time, Foix recounts, he had no idea that it was Dalí who had tried to sell him the books the previous day. Arriving at Dalmau's gallery, which was situated at number 18, he encounters an unexpected obstacle. Però en pretendre entrar a les Galeries, em vaig acovardir en adonar-me que hi havia de porter el del Cercle Eqüestre. M'en tornava descoratjat, quan s'aturà davant meu mateix l'auto de les col.legiales, que cada capvespre desapareix pel carrer de la Diputació entre núvols de llustrina i d'encens, deixant un rastre de carmí lluminos. Baixaven del cotxe de dues en dues, plegaven curosament llurs grans ales postisses i es nuaven estretament als llavis llampla llagada de llurs corbates. Darrere de tot, la més petita, per retrobar el camí, deixava anar boletes de càmfora. Com si s'endinsessin en una selva verge, desaparegueren cautelosament a la penombra de l'entrada.

(But as I was about to enter the Gallery, I was dismayed to discover that the doorman was the same one as at the Equestrian Association. Discouraged, I turned to leave, when the schoolgirls' automobile halted right before me, the one that disappears down the Carrer de la Diputació every evening amid clouds of glossy silk fabric and incense, leaving a luminous crimson trail. They got out of the car two by two, carefully folded their large artificial wings, and tied their bowties' broad bow tightly over their lips. Finally the smallest girl began dropping mothballs so as to find her way back. As if they were entering a virgin forest, they cautiously disappeared into the doorway's darkness.)

As C. B. Morris notes, Foix intensifies the atmosphere of mystery and malaise in his works "by his inextricable blend of reality---which he presents as abnormal--and fantasy--which he authenticates by his use of adonar-se ["to perceive"], by his cool, almost detached, narration." (8) Despite his unremarkable demeanor, for example, the doorman seems to possess the eerie ability to be in two places at once. In addition, for reasons that are never made clear, his presence fills the poet with dread. By contrast, despite their bizarre appearance, the schoolgirls fail to elicit the slightest astonishment. Since they pass by every evening, Foix has apparently grown accustomed to seeing them. Dressed in fancy silks and emitting clouds of perfume, they streak past the University of Barcelona night after night in a crimson blur. On the night in question, the girls have decided to visit the Dalmau Gallery. Parodying a device in Hansel and Gretel, the youngest one marks their trail with mothballs (instead of bread crumbs) as they advance into the fearful darkness. Whereas the doorman possesses a certain demonic quality, the fact that the girls are wearing wings testifies to their angelic nature. Foix was undoubtedly prompted to introduce them by one of the catalogue's two epigraphs, by Jean Cocteau: "Nous abritons un ange que nous choquons sans cesse; nous devons être gardiens de cet ange" ("We are inhabited by an angel whom we continually shock; we should be this angel's guardians").

"By contradicting himself so often in his prose poems," Morris declares, "Foix sought to record his anxious search for exactitude by choosing at random from what he called the 'beautiful concrete' one object to supersede another." As he is about to retrace his steps, the poet suddenly perceives that the sinister doorman has vanished and that he is free to enter the gallery after all.

Aleshores vaig constatar que el porter del Cercle Eqüestre havia estat substituït per un gnom barballarg que em feia amables senyals, e el vaig seguier. Pel llarg passadís sentíem les nostres passes com si es perdessin per les vastes sales del pis de dalt. A banda i banda del corredor, unes llargues vitrines on adés hi havia llibres i més llibres, mostraven exemplars raríssims d'ocells dissecats.
--¿I doncs, senyor Dalmau, tanmateix aneu reformant vostres Galeries?
En entrar a la sala d'exposicions, En Dalí amoixava un ocellàs multicolor que reposava damunt la seva espatlla esquerra.
--¿Superrealisme?
--No, no.
--¿Cubisme?
--No, tampoc: pintura, pintura, si us plau.

(Then I noticed that the doorman from the Equestrian Association had been replaced by a long-bearded gnome who was making friendly gestures in my direction, and I followed him. We heard our footsteps echoing down the long corridor as if they were lost in the vast rooms above us. On both sides of the hallway, there were long glass cases containing more and more books and displaying stuffed specimens of extremely rare birds.
--And so, Mr. Dalmau, are you still renovating, your Gallery?
At the entrance to the exhibition hall, Dalí was stroking a large multicolored bird perched on his left shoulder.
-- Surrealism?
-- No, no.
-- Cubism?
-- Not that either: painting, painting, if you please.)

To Foix's immense relief, the "gnom barballarg" who suddenly appears treats him in a friendly manner. Recalling one of the Seven Dwarfs, he turns out to be the gallery's proprietor, who affected broad-brimmed hats and a long, triangular beard. Exchanging small talk with the latter, Foix follows him down the hallway, marveling at the rare birds in the display cases. Although Dalmau offered a wide assortment of things for sale, however, his interest was essentially limited to art objects (including antiques). (9) At no time in his career did he ever deal in stuffed animals, and yet, according to Foix, his gallery resembled a museum of natural history. This discrepancy, which threatens to undermine the text's authority, encourages us to seek a rhetorical solution. Upon reflection, one realizes that the birds are actually metaphors for Dalí's paintings, which are just as rare, just as beautiful. That the cases also contain rare books prompts us to reconsider the first paragraph as well. Like the birds, the books and illustrations that the pedlar (who is really Dalí) tries to sell Foix are metaphors for the artist's pictures, which are not only equally rare but equally valuable. On the one hand, they imply, Dalí's art is the product of a scientific mind that dispassionately analyzes a given subject in detail. On the other hand, it is characterized by a deep-seated eclecticism reflecting his endless curiosity.

Entering the exhibition room, Foix encounters Dalí himself who, like Long John Silver, has a large, flashy parrot on his shoulder. Translated into metaphorical terms, this seems to indicate that he is standing before a large painting. In response to the poet's questions, he insists that he belongs to no particular school, that he is simply interested in painting. At this stage of his career, as this dialogue reveals, Dalí was still undecided. Not until six months later, encouraged by Miró and García Lorca, did he begin to paint in a Surrealist mode. Foix's remarks refer not to Dalí's mature works, therefore, with their melting watches and flaming giraffes, but to his earlier, less spectacular efforts. By this time he had experimented with some half dozen styles, none of which turned out to be entirely satisfactory. A rapid survey reveals that these included pointillism, Purism, primitivism, Marc Chagall's visionary cubism, and Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical art.

However, the artists to whom Dalí responded the most intensely were the 19th century realist painters and, paradoxically, Cubist painters such as Picasso and Braque. Reflecting his interest in Cubist aesthetics, the catalogue contained a second epilogue by the latter artist: "Le peintre pense en formes et cadences" ("The painter thinks by means of shapes and rhythms"). Balancing this statement, the list of works concluded with a quotation by Ingres: "Si l'on consulte l'expérience, on trouvera que c'est en se rendant familières les inventions des autres qu'on apprend, dans l'art, à inventer soi-même, comme on s'habitue à penser en lisant les idées d'autrui" ("Expérience teaches us, in Art, that we learn to be creative by familiarizing ourselves with other creations, just as one learns to think by reading other people's ideas"). Interestingly, half the works at the Dalmau Gallery adhered to the realistic model, while the remaining half illustrated various Cubist principles. (10) The former included a hauntingly beautiful painting entitled Panera del pa (Basket of Bread) which, as Dawn Ades points out, seems to have been inspired by the 17th century artist Francisco de Zurbarán. (11)

The following section describes the exhibition in more detail. Or rather, since Foix makes no attempt to be objective, it evokes the vivid impressions that Dalí's paintings made on him. Taking his visitor by the arm, the artist accompanies him as he examines each one of the thirty works in turn.

I em mostra els finestrals del palau meravellós que havia bastit a can Dalmau. Vaig tenir consciència exacta de trobar-me als moments precisos de la naixença d'un pintor. L'aula de vivisecció mostrava, descarnats, il.limitats paisatges fisiològics: belles arbredes sagnants ombrejaven els breus estanys on els peixos pugnen del matí al vespre per deseixir-se de llurs ombres. I en el fons de les pupil.les del pintor, de l'arlequí i de la maniquí, estels negres fugaços en un cel d'argent. Pensava romandre-hi, quan del fons de cada tel sortiren, en tocar les set, els famosos fantasmes.

(And he showed me the windows of the marvelous palace he had constructed in Dalmau's gallery. I was conscious of witnessing the precise moments of the birth of a painter. The vivisection classroom displayed bare, limitless physiological landscapes: beautiful bleeding woods cast their shade upon the brief ponds whose fish struggle from dawn to dusk to rid themselves of their shadows. And in the depths of the painter's, the harlequin's and the mannequin's pupils, black shooting stars appeared against a silver sky. I was contemplating remaining there when, from the depths of each canvas as the clock struck seven, the famous phantoms emerged).

Struck by the richness of Dali's vision, which was immediately discernible, Foix chose to compare the exhibition to an opulent palace. What interested him was not the palace so much as its marvelous windows, which serve as a metaphor for the pictures adorning Dalmau's walls. This metaphor was taken from Le Surréalisme et la peinture, which was serialized in La Révolution Surréaliste several years before it appeared in book form. "Il m'est impossible," Breton wrote in 1925, "de considérer un tableau autrement que comme une fenêtre dont mon premier souci est de savoir sur quoi elle donne" ("It is impossible for me to envision a painting otherwise than as a window, my first concern being to know what it looks out on"). (12) While Foix's text embodies a similar approach to art, inviting us to view the paintings as windows opening onto a surreal landscape, the poet focuses initially on Dalí's technical achievement. Unexpectedly, Foix confides, he feels as if he were present during a miraculous birth. Since Dalí had not yet developed his Surrealist manner, it is difficult to know how to interpret this remark. Most likely it refers to the artist's experiments with an exacerbated, highly stylized cubism during 1926 and early 1927.

Abandoning his obstetrical metaphor in the next line, Foix compares the gallery not to a delivery room, or even a hospital, but to a physiology classroom. In keeping with this new metaphor, he compares Dalí's paintings to posters depicting various biological features in abundant--and gory--detail. The choice of this particular setting, which emphasizes Cubism's analytical bias, may have been suggested by Apollinaire's observation in Les Peintres cubistes: "Un Picasso étudie un objet comme un chirurgien dissèque un cadavre" ("Picasso analyzes an object like a surgeon dissecting a cadaver"). (13) That the posters illustrate the dissection of living animals (vivisection) makes them all the more shocking. At the same time, they provide glimpses of an eerie landscape surrounding the palace whose sanguinary shapes are cloaked in menacing shadows. Although the trees are drenched in blood and the fish leap frantically into the air, Foix confides, the scene possesses a certain beauty. In addition, the classroom contains a harlequin and a mannequin whose pupils, like those of the artist, mirror the night sky. Rather than "windows of the soul," as eyes have traditionally been considered, these serve as cosmic windows, suggesting that they are privy to the secrets of the universe. Unexpectedly, since black and white (or silver) are reversed, the latter appears to be captured by a photographic negative. As Ades notes, the passage echoes Breton's preface to the catalogue of the first exhibition of Surrealist painting, held in Paris in 1925, in which the titles of various works are woven together to form a fantastic narrative. (14) Foix, she explains, "incorporates into his text the 'harlequin' and the 'tailor's dummy,' both titles of works exhibited." While the second painting was not listed in the catalogue, a reproduction appeared in L'Amic de les Arts the following month in a review of the exhibition by Sebastià Gasch. (15) Besides the mannequin and the harlequin, moreover, the show included several Paisatges (Landscapes) and a color drawing entitled Peixos (Fish).

Foix's visit to Dalí's exhibition concludes with a second supernatural occurrence which, like the witches evoked at the beginning, establishes a parallel between the Surrealist vision and various forms of occult experience. Precisely at the stroke of seven, phantoms emerge from each of the paintings and drape the scene in diaphanous veils. Why this miraculous apparition occurs at seven o'clock instead of, say, midnight, is as puzzling as the apparition itself. Perhaps Dalmau used to close the gallery at this hour, leaving the paintings free to commune among themselves. Or perhaps he used to turn on the lights, bathing the gallery in a luminous glow. Whatever the explanation, one suspects the ghostly visitors were inspired by Giorgio de Chirico's paintings, in which phantoms play a significant role. (16) We know in any case that Foix greatly admired the Italian painter, who influenced him on numerous occasions. Interestingly, the last line seems to echo a similar line from an article Breton had published about de Chirico six months earlier: "Quand il fut de l'autre côté du pont les fantômes vinrent à sa rencontre" ("When he reached the other side of the bridge the phantoms came to meet him"). (17) As Foix remarks in the next paragraph, Dalmau's phantoms cloak the gallery in an otherworldly splendor.

És un bell espectacle: subtils, us cobreixen amb llurs vels i us encomanen llur immaterialitat. Si molts de barcelonins ho sabessin, l'espectacle dels fantasmes que omplen cada capvespre les sales de can Dalmau, seria per a ells l'obertura a l'"altre" mon.

(It is a beautiful spectacle: they cover you with their subtle veils and bestow their immateriality upon you. If many Barcelona residents knew of it, the spectacle of the phantoms invading Dalmau's rooms every evening would provide them with an opening into the "other" world.)

His curiosity satisfied, Foix leaves the gallery at last and decides to head for home. Retracing his earlier steps, he walks along the Avinguda Portal de l'Angel (whose name recalls the angelic schoolgirls) until he reaches the Plaça de Catalunya. Crossing this large public square, he prepares to head up the Passeig de Gràcia which, unexpectedly, is completely deserted. En abandonar les Galeries, el Passeig de Gràcia, desert, sense arbres, sense fanals, era una immensa avinguda alineada per centenars de Shell, amb la testa lluminosa reflectida dolçament damunt l'asfalt. Una voluntat superior a la meva féu que, per comptes d'anar-me'n camí de casa pel carrer de Provença, em refugiés al Service Station del carer d'Aragó.

(Upon leaving the gallery, I discovered the Passeig de Gràcia was deserted, with no trees, with no streetlights, an immense avenue lined with hundreds of Shell gasoline pumps, their luminous heads softly reflected by the asphalt. A will superior to my own forced me, instead of returning home along the Carrer de Provença, to take refuge in the Service Station in the Carrer d'Aragó.)

For some reason the avenue is devoid of any human traces. Although it can scarcely be very late, there are no people on the sidewalk and no cars in the street. For that matter, there are no longer any trees or streetlights, which seem to have been uprooted-by some mysterious force. Or rather, the streetlights have been transformed into (old-fashioned) gasoline pumps whose "heads" are illuminated. Emblazoned with the Shell Oil Company logo, the familiar yellow icons recede into the distance in two parallel lines. This is not a reassuring sight, nevertheless, but one that is profoundly disturbing. In a similar vein, Breton would confide in Nadja the following year that he could never view a blinking advertisement for Mazda light-bulbs without a feeling of trepidation. (18) The presence of so many signs, stretching as far as the eye can see, creates an eerie atmosphere like that which Foix professed to detect in Dalí's paintings. This impression is reinforced by the verbe alinear, which means both "to line" and "to alienate." Providing one last glimpse of the Surrealist marvelous, the mysterious emblems disorient not only the avenue but the spectator as well. Confronted with an alienated (and alienating) cityscape, Foix stops three blocks before the cross-street he would normally take home and seeks refuge in a service station. If at one level one is tempted to conclude that he needs to use the restroom, this interpretation is inconsistent with the rest of the text. At the level of the Surrealist narrative, the irresistible impulse to which he suddenly succumbs is clearly that of stark terror.
 
 

Notes

(1). André Breton, "Caractères de l'évolution moderne et ce qui en participe," presented at the Ateneu de Barcelona on November 17, 1922. Louis Aragon, "Fragments d'une conférence" delivered at the Residencia de Estudiantes, Madrid, on April 18, 1925. Together with subsequent lectures by members of the Paris group in Spain, these are reprinted in C. B. Morris, Surrealism and Spain, 1920-1936 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 214-27 and 228-31 respectively.

(2). Josep Miquel Sobrer, Catalonia, A Self-Portrait (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 203.

(3). J. V. Foix, Obra poètica, ed. J. VallcorbaPlana (Barcelona: Quaderns Crema, 1983), pp. 83-93.

(4). Sobrer, Catalonia, A Self-Portrait, p. 203

(5). Willard Bohn, "Mirroring Miró: J. V. Foix and the Surrealist Adventure" in The Surrealist Adventure in Spain, ed. C. Brian Morris (Ottawa: Dovehouse, 1990), pp. 40-61.

(6). André Breton, Manifeste du surréalisme in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Maguerite Bonnet et al. (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1988), Vol. I, pp. 324-25.

(7). In "Presentació de Joan Miró" Foix takes the train in the opposite direction. See Note no. 5.

(8). Morris, Surrealism and Spain, 1920-1936, p. 54.

(9). Dalmau's activities are chronicled in Las vanguardias en Cataluña 1906-1939 (Barcelona: Fundació Caixa de Catalunya, 1992), pp. 150-175 and in Miró-Dalmau-Gasch: l'aventura per l'art modern, 1918-1937, ed. Pilar Parcerisas and Montse Badia (Barcelona: Centre d'Art Santa Mònica, 1993), pp. 49-75. See Also Enric Jardí, Els moviments d'avantguarda a Barcelona (Barcelona: Cotal, 1983).

(10). Many of the paintings and drawings are reproduced in Dalí joven (1918-1930) (Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 1994). See also Daniel Abadie et al., eds Salvador Dalí retrospective 1920-1980 (Paris: Musée National d'Art Moderne, 1980), 2nd ed., pp. 40-47.

(11). Dawn Ades, Dalí (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982),,pp. 32-33.

(12). André Breton, "Le Surréalisme et la peinture," La Révolution Surréaliste, Vol. I, No. 4 (July 15, 1925), p. 27. Repr. in André Breton, Le Surréalisme et la peinture, 2nd rev. ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), p. 217.

(13). Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres en prose complètes, ed. Pierre Caizergues and Michel Décaudin (Paris: Gallimard/Pléiade, 1991), Vol. II, p. 10.

(14). Ades, Dalí, p. 34. The preface itself, which Breton co-authored with Robert Desnos, is reprinted in his Oeuvres complètes, Vol. I, pp. 915-16.

(15). Sebastià Gasch, "Salvador Dalí," L'Amic de les Arts, No. 11 (February 28, 1927), p. 16.

(16). See Willard Bohn, "Giorgio de Chirico and the Paradigmatic Method," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. CVI, Nos. 1398-99 (July-August 1985), pp. 35-41 and "Giorgio de Chirico and the Solitude of the Sign," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Vol. CXVII, No. 1467 (April 1991), pp. 169-87.

(17). André Breton, "Le Surréalisme et la peinture (suite)," La Révolution Surréaliste, Vol. II, No. 7 (June 15, 1926), p. 4. Repr. in Le Surréalisme et la peinture, p. 17. This phrase, which was taken from the F. W. Murnau film Nosferatu, seems to have haunted Breton for a number of years. See Les Vases communicants (1932) (Paris: Gallimard, 1955), P. 50, where he describes the mixture of joy and terror that it evoked in him.

(18). Breton, Oeuvres complètes, Vol. I, p. 727. See the photograph on p. 734.