The Flowering of Inspiration 1978

Salvador Dalí made this watercolour called ‘The Flowering of Inspiration’ sometime in his career. I love how he's using watercolour to create this figure, but it's like the figure itself is transforming, blooming into something else. You can almost imagine Dalí's hand moving across the paper, letting the water and pigment blend in unpredictable ways. I’m drawn to the way the chest and the neck are just softly rendered, melting almost, into the background. There’s this great little detail of colour around the neckline. Is it a collar, or is it a painted necklace? The flowers erupting from the head, that’s pure Dalí, taking something natural and twisting it into the surreal. The paint handling is loose, giving each petal its own character. It's like he's not just painting flowers, but the very idea of them, the way they burst with colour and life. This feels like a close relative to the work of René Magritte, who also played with these kinds of surreal substitutions, but Dalí brings a florid intensity all his own. For me, art is all about this ongoing conversation, taking what’s been said and adding your own strange, beautiful twist.