Les chants de Maldoror
Artist: Salvador Dali (Spanish, 1904-1989)
Publisher: Albert Skira (Paris, 1934)
Printer: etchings: Roger Lacourière, Paris; text: Philippe Gonin, Paris
Author: Comte de Lautréamont (Isidore Ducasse) (French, 1847-1870)
Date: 1934
Dimensions:
Book: H: 13 3/4 in. (350 mm); W: 10 1/4 in. (260 mm); Depth: 2 1/8 in. (54 mm).
Page (untrimmed): H: 13 1/16 (332 mm); W: 9 15/16 in. (252 mm).
Element: H: 13 3/4 in. (349 mm); W: 10 9/16 in. (268 mm); Depth: 1 5/16 in. (34 mm).
Sheet (untrimmed): H: 13 in. (330 mm); W: 9 13/16 in. (250 mm).
Image: H: 11 3/4 in. (298 mm); W: 7 1/4 in. (184 mm).
Medium: Original prints: 42 etchings, some with drypoint and/or engraving, plus an additional suite of 44
Text: letterpress (typeface: Garamond)
Paper: Arches cream wove, watermarked
Classification: Books
Credit Line: Gift of Molly and Walter Bareiss
Object number: 1984.367A-SS
Label Text:A prototype of Surrealist literature, LES CHANTS DE MALODOR, a macabre and hallucinatory narrative prose poem, was first published in 1868-69. This was Dali's first major work of original book illustration.
Les Chants de Maldoror by the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont, a macabre and hallucinatory prose-poem of violence, cruelty, and perversion first published in 1869, was a text much revered by the Surrealists. Salvador Dalí, for his commissioned etchings, recycled motifs from his paintings and drawings – soft watches, decaying flesh, eroticized bodies, knives, bones, crutches, pedestals – and exploited his deep knowledge of Freudian symbols to create vivid visions of putrefaction, cannibalism, death, castration, and fetishized sex.
Les Chants de Maldoror by the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont, a macabre and hallucinatory prose-poem of violence, cruelty, and perversion first published in 1869, was a text much revered by the Surrealists. Salvador Dalí, for his commissioned etchings, recycled motifs from his paintings and drawings – soft watches, decaying flesh, eroticized bodies, knives, bones, crutches, pedestals – and exploited his deep knowledge of Freudian symbols to create vivid visions of putrefaction, cannibalism, death, castration, and fetishized sex.
Not on view
In Collection(s)