The 7 Spectral Perils of Dorothea Tanning

I like a picture series, and this is one I hadn’t encountered before. Dorothea Tanning’s Les 7 périls spectraux (1950) is a portfolio of seven lithograph prints with accompanying text, “Pourquoi Rester Muets?”, by André Pieyre de Mandiargues. Of the series, the artist had this to say: My first lithograph adventure has become a book. An album with seven perils in it. Because to the seven deadly sins I preferred the seven spectral perils, life being more perilous than sinful. What we don’t have—or I’ve been unable to find—is a list of perils to go with their respective prints. I’d guess, therefore, that with the perils being replacements for sins there’s a correspondence with the traditional prescriptive list, although this still leaves us to guess which is which. The print that shows a sunflower framed by a knife and fork may be allied to gluttony or it may refer to something entirely different, sunflowers being a recurrent, often enigmatic, feature of Tanning’s paintings. First Peril.…