Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

Painted in 1945, Salvador Dalí’s The Flight, The Temptation, The Love, The Broken Wings is one of a small group of dreamlike marine allegories that the artist created during the 1940s, which fuse barren landscapes, classical motifs and dancing nudes into wondrous fantasy scenes. Set against the same vast empty Ampurdan plains and Catalan coastline of his homeland which had characterised his Surreal landscapes of the 1930s, the composition centres on a frieze-like sequence of otherworldly characters engaged in frenetic interactions with one another. As with The Broken Bridge and the Dream, now in the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, Florida, The Flight, The Temptation, The Love, The Broken Wings appears to paraphrase the whimsical follies and allegories that populated the elaborate interiors of Italian Renaissance palaces, while simultaneously prompting comparisons to the elaborate set design of contemporary ballets. This composition was first owned by the Marquis de Cuevas, one of the twelve forward-thinking members of the Zodiac group of benefactors formed in 1932, who each sponsored Dalí for one month of the year and received a work by the artist in return for their support, produced during the month of their sponsorship.