Salvador Dalí, barely twenty years old, in The Girl in the Window, takes our gaze beyond the window, and sublimating the contrast between the exterior nature and the stripped decoration of the room, slightly caressed by the sea breeze, generates a great depth of space that refers to traditional compositional criteria.
The girl at the window
It depicts the artist's sister, Ana María, seventeen years old, leaning on a window, with her back turned, in a vacation home that the family visited in the coastal town of Cadaqués. It was painted in oil in 1925 and is hanging in the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid. It is one of the largest and most beautiful paintings that Dalí has ever painted of his sister. Before that, there were only small format works that represented his sister or his cousin.
In the early period, Dalí was influenced by the work of other artists. Some parallels can be drawn between The Girl at the Window by Salvador Dalí and The Woman at the Window by Friedrich Caspar David in terms of compositional solutions. The girl's carefully painted, attention-grabbing hair reminds of the Dutchman Jan Vermeer, whose work Dalí admired and more than once used his image and images of some of his paintings in his works.
Dalí's younger sister, Ana María, was a favorite and volunteer nanny in the 1920s, especially in the months leading up to her first solo show, at Barcelona's Galeries Dalmau. It is therefore not surprising that his paintings of her reflect her experiments with various figurative styles.
Indeed, in most of his figure paintings at this time, despite the obvious contrast to Cubist and Purist works, there is an interest in surface pattern and abstract rhythm that stems from his avant-garde experiments. He is also exploring a wide range of earlier and contemporary figurative painting, including the Italian artists of the Novecento.
The Picture: The Girl at the Window
At first glance, this painting The Girl at the Window does not seem like a Dalí painting. The figurative approach has a sense of classical realism and a style of American realist Andrew Wyeth expressed with monochrome colors. In The Girl at the Window, with its stark contrasts and her solitary figure, everything plays on American realism. The focal point of the image is on the woman's back, not on what she is looking at. Her clothing is minimal and chaste. Simple, not boastful and relaxed.
Dalí always painted his sister in this window, from which a wide view of the bay could be seen, and often they were just simple studies of hair and a bare shoulder. His sister Ana María and his cousin Montserrat were Dalí's favorite models at the time and also the most accessible to him. The way he normally portrays them, i.e. from behind, gives a glimpse of his desires and reveals his dislikes. This gives a more accurate idea of the troubled relationships that have existed between brother and sister for a long time.
The view is directed through the central window open to nature and shows the bay next to the house with a sailboat in the distance, as well as the shore on the other side. A slightly choppy sea, a sailboat, a strip of land on the horizon and a not perfectly clear sky whose color might make you think of the first light of morning. The dark interior of the room contrasts with the light blue exterior. There are hardly any clouds in the sky.
The painting portrays the young woman, Dalí's sister, absorbed in her thoughts contemplating the panorama that opens before her eyes. The towel placed on the windowsill looks like it was just used. The girl stands in a leaning position at the window, which can only be seen in the position of her legs, but not her upper body, and she leans against the frame. From this, she developed the inner security and poise of the person depicted.
The colors are staggered from below, pointing out the window, which is reflected in the various shades of blue on the clothing. Dalí has also kept everything that indicates the view of nature and therefore freedom in blue. The entire image is determined by vertical and horizontal lines and thus appears to be highly symmetrical and not interrupted by the figure from behind. This shows a very structured approach by the artist and also that he wants to point to something specific, namely the window and thus the depicted nature.
Excellent attention to detail: the curtains, the transparencies, the perfect alternation of light and shadow, the harmony of the shapes, the sinuousness and sensuality of the girl who could have been portrayed from behind, to divert the observer's attention on the whole of the work and the details.
It is interesting to note a detail. Reflected in the glass of the window, it is possible to observe not only the skillful brushstroke of the blue of the sea, which may seem obvious, but also details that are beyond what is visible, such as the presence of some houses, can be captured. What else does the girl see that escapes the viewer from the inside? Dalí left in this painting a subtle and enveloping sensuality in the female figure, which is not immediately detected at first sight.
It is a painting that instills tranquility, silence, reflection, but also a bit of mystery and melancholy, perhaps also because of the hidden vision of the girl's face. The young woman could be hijacked by happy thoughts and then smile serenely, but her mind could also navigate between sad thoughts and her cheeks be full of copious tears. Everything refers to the fantasy, imagination and state of mind of those who stop to observe.
Anna Maria, her sister
Ana María Dalí was born in 1908 and grew up with Dalí in her parents' house. Later, in 1950, she published a book entitled “Salvador Dalí seen by his sister”, describing her brother and her relationship with him from her point of view. Here she demonstrates, among other things, that she sometimes felt abandoned by Dalí, since her parents, especially her mother, pampered and encouraged Dalí, which she attributes to the fact that Dalí not only incarnated himself in the eyes of the parents, but also his brother, who died nine months before his birth.
Otherwise, he portrayed the family as perfect and Dalí as a normal child, until he decided to join the surrealists and came to know and love the “gala drug addicts”. In his youth, his relationship with his sister was completely different. He felt a deep affection for her, which grew stronger despite some outbursts of violence towards her. For example, she and her father accompanied him to the entrance exam for the Special School of Painting in Madrid, and he traveled with her and her aunt to Paris and Brussels for the first time.
The firmness and closeness of their bond is reflected in the fact that Dalí painted her as the only female model in his early works, and when he began to portray other members of the family, she was his main subject, except for landscapes. . This suddenly changed when Gala entered her life. From that moment on, her sister definitely did not play any positive role in her life.
Ana María's book portrays a vision of Dalí very different from the one he had carefully constructed in his autobiographies, this led to the collapse of their relationship. Dalí's sister's book was perceived negatively, harshly. She dared to affirm that surrealism ruined his life, that it was evil that destroyed his family. Many believe that she was prejudiced, that she was jealous of her brother's relationship with Gala.
Dalí got angry and continued the retribution. As revenge it is said that he painted another version of this Figure in a Window in 1954 and called it Young Virgin Autosodomized by the Horns of her Own Chastity. The painting is the complete opposite of The Girl at the Window, which is seen as chaste, gentle and peaceful. This painting "looks" like an explicit Dalí painting. This particular painting was previously in the collection of The Playboy Mansion and was sold in 2003 for £1,35 million.
Salvador Dalí, Brief Biography
Salvador Dalí (Spain, May 11, 1904-January 23, 1989) was a great exponent of surrealism. Dalí spent his childhood in the Spanish cities of Figueres and Cadaqués. His work is influenced by the old Renaissance masters like Raphael. His artistic talent is recognized and encouraged since he was a child. At the age of 10 he received lessons from the Impressionist Ramón Pichot. In 1921 his mother died, which greatly affected the young man. He writes: "I had to gain fame to avenge the pain that the death of my mother, whom I adored, meant to me."
Dalí begins his art studies at the Royal Academy of Arts in Madrid. In 1924 he was excluded from the academy for his politically rebellious statements, unable to complete his studies with an exam. But that doesn't bother him, because he thinks the teachers aren't competent enough to assess his work.
Dalí explores and experiments with various artistic styles, such as cubism, impressionism and realism. In March 1928, together with Sebastián Gasch and Luis Montaña, he signed the Manifest Groc, El Manifesto Amarillo, which was a harsh attack on the cultural current of «noucentisme» that prevailed at that time.
Perhaps the most important event in Dalí's life is the meeting of a Gala woman. Gala, who was previously married to Paul Eluard, is frankly adored by Dalí. They got married in 1934 and soon she becomes his manager. For him, she is the model for many of his paintings: Assumpta Corpuscularia Lapislazulina or The Last Supper. Gala takes care of his career and becomes a stabilizing factor for him. Dalí says that his wife Gala saved him from madness and showed him how to love life.
In 1948, Dalí returned to Europe with Gala. There he deals with science, religion and history. During this classical period, Dalí integrated motifs into his paintings, which he collected from popular science magazines. He was very interested in the great classical masters such as Rafael, Velásquez or the French painter Ingres. Dalí comments on his change of style with the words: "To remain a surrealist forever is like painting eyes and noses all your life." Towards the end of his life, Dalí spends most of his time in the tower of one of his museums (Figueres) where he died.
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