![Salvador Dalí - Paysage avec Femme [1934]](http://c1.staticflickr.com/1/437/32266856682_a8d3716c26_b.jpg)
This painting is endowed with the same idiosyncratic iconography which defined the artist’s finest works, including the disintegrating figures, the pole, the cavernous rock formation, the lone tower and the biomorphic sack, all rendered with pristine draftsmanship and luminous brushwork. In the tradition of Vermeer and Van Eyck, Dalí likely used a magnifying glass while composing this picture in order to render the minute details. In the background is a possible study for Dalí’s 1935 major oil, The Horseman of Death. As explained by Robert Descharnes, “the disintegration of the horseman interprets the repeated interest Dalí has always shown in illustrating the mathematical function of entropy which fascinated him.” Entropy would become a major motif of his art.
[Sotheby’s, New York - Oil on panel, 24 x 18.8 cm]
