Salvador Dalí

Spectres belongs to a group of paintings Dalí executed in 1934 on the theme of spectral apparitions or ghosts. From a dark, nocturnal setting, two figures emerge: one standing, holding a mirror, the other seated, supported by a crutch. On closer inspection, however, these figures lose their human characteristics, and are transformed into ghostly, fantastic beings, products of the artist’s nightmarish vision. The seated figure is metamorphosed into a still-life, its exaggeratedly extended leg serving as a table, on the end of which are placed a glass and bottle of wine, while its head is replaced by a vase of flowers.

These elongated figures originated in Dalí’s The Enigma of William Tell of 1933, and appeared in several canvases of 1934, most notably in the figure of the Dutch seventeenth century painter Johannes Vermeer (fig. 1). In the present work, however, the historical or mythical characters are replaced by two mysterious figures whose identity remains completely impenetrable to the viewer. The enigma of their identities and their relationship creates the principal tension of the composition, further emphasised by the neutral quality of the setting, which does not offer any further clues about the scene we are witnessing.

In 1934, the year it was painted, Spectres was acquired by one of the member of the celebrated Zodiac group. Zodiac consisted of twelve collectors who supported Dalí at this time, agreeing to pay him a certain sum in exchange for either one large painting, or a small painting and two drawings. The twelve members of the group, all representing the elite of the Parisian collecting world of the 1930s, drew lots to decide a particular month in a year when each one of them would make a donation.

Fig. 1, Salvador Dalí, Le Spectre de Vermeer de Delft pouvant être utilisé comme table, 1934, oil on panel, The Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida