Remarks about PROMETHEUS Bulletin NR. 100, October 2005:
B. John Zavrel DANTE, DALÍ and the Divine Comedy

This issue of the Bulletin appeared a few days after its author received my e-mail on A matter of Honor, pointing his attention to copyright claims now explained by my Internet page www.dante-2000.de/plagiat.htm. Until today, there has been no other answer to my e-mail.
Paragraph 5 of the bulletin's text mentions this catalogue and this publication as though the text were the introduction to some exhibition catalogue including reproductions. The publication, however, is not referenced in the bulletin. From the mention of a centenary exhibition of EKS in 2004 where some order of images 'be used' one may derive that the bulletin originated early 2004.
There is much misleading information in the bulletin. I'll mention the most striking items by giving their correct versions:

(In general) — The word woodcut should in most cases be replaced by print.

(First caption) — The second illustration of Dante's poetry: Dante views the hill of hope [Dante's Italian: colle giunto, in the Italian book edition: monte dilettoso]. His first aim is a hill in the early sunlight of God's grace. Yet he cannot approach it straightforward. – The upper half only of Dalí's illustration is shown.

(Par. 2) — Hofmannsthal. (Par. 3) — ...Portinari she was... .

(Par. 5) — The publishing company was LES HEURES CLAIRES, the late Jean Estrade one of its directors.
— Many, even superficial, readers of Dante clearly see that all motifs closely correspond with the poem's verses, two thirds of them being placed remotely in the book editions. Dalí refused the responsibility for this placement in his Unspeakable Confessions (1973). Professor Everling in 1999 was the first to carefully read Dante with the intention to re-establish the correspondence between the text and Dalí's images.

(Par. 6) — An image of Lea!
— [Forêt's 1976 statement ignores Dalí's refusal of responsibility.]

(Par. 7) — ...from a body of 102 works, one of which was a design for the book envelope. One illustration was reproduced in the larger, original format of the watercolor. It shows Dante among the three ecclesiastic virtues and became known first as The Servants and later, more appropriately, as The Dance.
— The so called Encounter between Dante and Beatrice was included in the book edition. [Every serious reader of the Commedia would know that such embracing of Dante and Beatrice is not described in it; another Dalí illustration reflects more closely what Dante wrote. The origin of a print in the original size of the watercolor would be doubtful. To my knowledge it also is not among later prints of original size by LES HEURES CLAIRES.]

(Par. 8) — The watercolors, each 42 by 30 centimeters with very narrow margins, ... served as masters for... .
— ...the new medium of engraved Bakelite.
— According to a descriptive page in the book, approximately... ....dated 1963, and... .
— The books with French text of the Divine... ... were mostly sold by... . One or more watercolors were added to individual copies of this edition.

(Second caption) — At the outset to his frightening journey, Dante is encouraged by his memories of Beatrice's beauty. In this ... to be seen. He composed a quotation from Raphael's Parnasso (Stanza della Segnatura, Vaticano, Rome) with the style of Botticelli's silver pencil.

(Par. 9) — Some of the 100 prints were also decomposed into a suite of partial prints showing the progress when consecutively printing the individual colors of the multicolor graphics.

(Par. 10) — But in 1954 the commission was canceled.

(Par. 11) — 102 of the pictures were created from 1950 to 1952 and exhibited in Italy and USA during 1954/55.
— The work on ... began 1959 – after a similar technique had been applied to the Tricorne illustrations. ... took four years.

(Par. 12) — Before editing the colored prints there was an attempt to reproduce Dalí's watercolors in book size as etchings in monochrome, dark-blue print. These etchings (usually called coppers but probably executed on zinc plates!) could only be used for a very limited edition of about 300 copies.

(Par. 13) — ... for the German gallery Orangerie Reinz. These signed prints have the following signatures:

(Par. 14) — It means "proof to be approved by the artist".

(Third caption) no comment

(Par. 17) — ... took place over more than a decade.

(Par. 18) — Dalí created thirty-six watercolors for the Inferno and the Purgatorio and twenty-nine for the Paradiso (see also www.meaus.com/dante-dali-paradiso.htm or its partial copy in www.dante-2000.de/plagiat.htm).
— One of these 29, 'The Dance', was printed in the watercolor's original size.

(Comment on Par. 6) [It is not much of a revelation that Dalí did not read the original Italian text of the Commedia: He probably didn't even read modern Italian. His later claim in the Unspeakable Confessions that he never read the Commedia at all or only grasped the poetry and its message as a whole is clearly contradicted by the many textual details reflected precisely in his illustrations.
Forêt in 1976, of course, wanted to defend his prestige as an editor. With his quoted attitude, he would have been better advised already in 1960 not to associate any of the illustrations with a particular text quotation! Italian editors in 1964 used other associations (viz. /quagmire.pdf in www.dante-2000.de).
However, it remains a mystery why a self-proclaimed International Committee of the Europäische Kulturstiftung in 2004 still denies Dalí's knowledge of classical literature and insists on the fiction that Dalí's illustrations permit a quod-libet interpretation according to the viewers own ignorance.
You find more details of Dalí's surprisingly profound understanding of Dante's surrealism in my English and German books offered by www.dante-2000.de! Brackets [...] in the text above indicate my additional remarks.
Wolfgang Everling, Hamburg, October 2005
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