Dali Salvador Hand Signed Woodblock Canto 15 "The Seducers"

Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the greatest surrrealist painters of our time. Below is a description of this art work.

In 1957, the Italian government commissioned Dali to create a complete set of illustrations for Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the author’s birth. Dali began the arduous task of selecting imagery and creating a watercolor painting for each of the 100 cantos of the poem. Shortly after Dali started the project, the Italian government withdrew its commission. Italian citizens had been outraged that a Spanish artist had been selected for this undertaking, instead of inviting an Italian artist to honor one of Italy’s greatest authors. However, it was very fitting that one of the leading artists in the Surrealist movement would be chosen to interpret the bizarre punishments of Inferno and Purgatorio and the fantastical images of Paradiso that Dante created – drawing inspiration from classical and biblical imagery, as well as his own imagination. Interestingly, the Italian government did not select an Italian artist to complete this tribute in Dali’s place. Fortunately, Dali did not abandon his suite of watercolor illustrations, and he finished them nine years later – with complete confidence that someone would want to take on the colossal task of hand carving plates, printing the illustrations, and publishing them. The watercolors were published as wood engravings by Jean Estrade of Les Heures Claures. While similar to woodblock prints, wood engravings allow the printer to create finer, more detailed line work because the image is carved on a piece of wood that has been cut across the grain instead of parallel to the grain. Because the image is created on the end grain of the wood, it is less soft and more prints can be pulled from each block before the block begins to wear away, ultimately changing the original image. For wood engravings, separate blocks are created for each color of ink used in the image.…