Paradise 7 Dante”s New Doubt (Le nouveau doute de Dante)

Description of Art: As plate 7 in Dalí’s La Divine Comédie (Paradise series), Le Nouveau Doute de Dante visualizes a moment of spiritual hesitation within Dante’s celestial ascent. Dalí uses crisp wood-engraving technique to render ghostly forms and ethereal architecture: swirling clouds, allegorical figures, and geometric light changes hover at the margins of clarity. The contrast between opaque lines and open negative space mirrors Dante’s tension between doubt and faith.

Here, Dalí transforms medieval cosmology into modern visual metaphor: the “new doubt” suggests that even in paradise, the soul confronts existential liminality. The woodcut medium reinforces its textural austerity, lending the plate clarity, restraint, and meditative depth.