This
painting is particularly interesting, at least to me, because it contains a
mistake in
Dali's
draftsmanship: the young woman's left foot has been drawn impossibly close to the base of the wall.
This is not earthshaking of course; despite his massive ego and paranoia Dali was not actually infallible, and he did this painting early in his career.
It does really bring home to me, though, that underneath the layers of pigment and the intricate, painstaking conceptualization and soul-searching that go into any serious painting, there remains the necessity of being able to draw a straight line, and the correct handling of perspective and lighting. Often lost in the shadow of his hallucinations and unrelenting showmanship, Dali's draftsmanship is among the finest and most effective of any modern artist, and this painting gives us a glimpse of a rare lapse in that incendiary technique.