Dalí: Gradiva

Gradiva rediscovers the anthropomorphic ruins (retrospective Fantasy) of 1931-32, a key work in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum’s 20th-century collection. Dalí based his painting on the heroine of a novel by Wilhelm Jensen, Gradiva (published in Germany in 1903) which the Surrealists used as a source of inspiration, particularly through Sigmund Freud’s 1907 interpretation of the book entitled Delirium and Dreams in Jensen’s “Gradiva”.