Dali Planet #104: Such a loser
The Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels has in its collection Dali’s 1946 painting “The Temptation of St Anthony” (detail here), a stunning work that was nevertheless among the losing entries in an art competition.
Loew-Lewin Productions wanted a painting of the temptation of St Anthony the Great, known as “the Father of All Monks”, for its planned movie “The Private Affairs of Bel Ami”, starring a very young Angela Lansbury alongside George Sanders. (It was Sanders’ third movie about artists with director Alan Lewin, the others being 1942’s “The Moon and Sixpence” and “The Picture Of Dorian Gray” two years later — all three films are in black and white except for one scene each in which a painting is shown in full colour.)
Eleven top artists were invited to try for the colour shot, and a jury that included Marcel Duchamp picked the piece submitted by Dali’s former co-surrealist Max Ernst. All the entries were later shown together here in Brussels. For his effort, Ernst is immortalised in the film credits on the International Movie Data Base as “Art Department”.
Dali’s version of “The Temptation” has been called the point in his creative life when he decided to be an intermediate between heaven and earth. The elephants on spindly legs describe levitation. The temptation itself is in the power of the rearing horse, the Fountain of Desire on its back, ridden by a naked woman, Bernini’s obelisk, the phallic tower and, in the distant clouds, El Escorial, signifying spiritual and temporal order.
