Pierrot tocant la guitarra (Pintura cubista) (Pierrot Playing the Guitar [Cubist Painting])

The period of Dalí’s career that covered the 1920s contained one particularly interesting year, both for the painter and for the development of his work. That year was 1925, which marked the beginning of what Rafael Santos Torroella has called the período lorquiano (Lorca period), because of the huge influence that Federico García Lorca was having over Salvador Dalí. The exchange of ideas between the two resulted in a number of works, including Pierrot tocant la guitarra (Pintura cubista) (Pierrot Playing the Guitar [Cubist Painting]), from 1925. The painting draws together at least four elements from different sources: the structure in planes taken from Cubism, the volumes taken from Metaphysical painting, the love of the line, typical of Federico’s pictorial works and a fourth factor that Dalí was to fully develop in major paintings that same year: the Classical legacy, recuperated by movements such as the New Objectivity and Valori Plastici. In Pierrot tocant la guitarra (Pintura cubista), this last element is particularly noticeable in motifs like the open window onto the sea.

Paloma Esteban Leal