Dali In London

Four years ago, Salvador Dali renounced his old Freudian nightmares, and hit the sawdust trail toward what he calls "true artistic classicism." One of his first big efforts in this direction was his Port Lligat Madonna (TIME, April 17, 1950), but in shifting from the subconscious to the serene, he tripped over a clutter of surrealist paraphernalia and fell flat.

Last week, in his first London show in 15 years, Dali tried again with a crucifixion entitled Christ of St. John of the Cross. In his latest painting, Dali had cleared away most of the surrealist bric-a-brac, and contented himself with a spectacular downward view of Christ on the cross, suspended in dizzy midair above a placid seacoast.

But London failed to find much true artistic classicism. Instead, without the usual nightmarish litter to distract them, critics and gallerygoers were spotting some old Dali shortcomings more clearly than ever. The London Times dismissed Dali's recent work as "trivial and irreverent . . . singularly banal." In the Daily Express, Critic Osbert Lancaster applied the most devastating label of all: Victorian. In his "laborious accuracy and painstaking attention to detail," said Lancaster, Dali reminded him of some "minor academician" of Victoria's Royal Academy.

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