Natura morta (Still Life)

Salvador Dalí’s first encounter with Cubism came in 1922, during his time as a student in Madrid, through reading the magazine L’Esprit Nouveau. During the five or so years he made Cubist works, the artist experimented with different styles, influences and techniques that had materialised during the movement’s fifteen-year existence, although his approach would share more connections with the postulates of Purism, the most recent version of Cubism. Yet in Natura morta (Still Life) his main stylistic point of reference would be, as Dalí himself acknowledged, the curvilinear and organic Cubism of Picasso’s most recent work: “Opposite the dry guitar object, I’ve painted a soft, viscous guitar, like fish. This painting, directly influenced by Picasso, is the clear foreshadowing of my soft watches […]”. The theme of the painting has been linked to Federico García Lorca, a fellow resident of Dalí’s at the Student Residence in Madrid. The night, the moon and the guitar are references to the poet’s work, while the bust on the table could even be one of his portraits.



Raúl Martínez Arranz