Paradise 28: La marche vers Dieu, (First state)

Salvador Dali’s visual journey through Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy spans 101 watercolor drawings, transformed into prints through wood engraving. Initiated in the 1950s for an Italian edition that was later completed in France, these illustrations reflect Dante’s odyssey from Inferno to Paradise. The woodblocks, totaling 3,500 carvings, were condensed to 100 blocks for the French edition. This edition was of 4,765 in French. Dali’s suite captures the extremes of grotesque and sublime imagery, each illustration requiring around 35 separate blocks. This collection stands as one of Dali’s most significant and notable works. Each volume includes a title page, table of contents, and justification page, encased in a slipcase. The woodblocks correspond to the Cantos, each about eight pages long, with sheet dimensions of approximately 13″ x 10 1/3″ and an image size of 7 1/4″ x 9 1/2″. Dali’s interpretation of the Divine Comedy resonates as a visual masterpiece, aligning with the timeless depth of Dante’s literary legacy