Salvador dali 1950
Oil on canvas
275.3 × 209.8 cm
Modern and Contemporary Art
FUKUOKA ART MUSEUM
Collection number : 3-A-405
The surrealist movement ,focusing on the creativity of the human unconscious, flourished in the 1920s in Paris, France.
Dali took part in the movement and used his marvelous powers of rendering, honed since childhood, to produce paintings relating to the sexual complexes concealed within his own unconscious.
However, he distanced himself from surrealism after world war 2, taking an interest in Catholicism and advocating a revival of classical European painting.
Shocked by the atomic bombing of Japan , he felt a deepening apprehension about advanced science, especially nuclear physics.
This work is of great importance in that it shows Dali's change in interst described above.
He sought to fuse religion and science in his painting . While quoting traditional Christian iconography such as the Madonna and Child, all solid objects in the painting are floating , and the alter construct also alludes to nuclear structures.
Dali replace the Madonna in the center with an image of his own beloved wife Gala.
"Port Lligat" in the title is the port town where Dali and Gala lived after the war, close to Dali's hometown of Figueres.
The theme is obviously classical , but is it correct to call this a religious painting?
Although it may be seen as blasphemous, Dali may have wanted to insist that Gala was the one to be worshipped, not God, in an era ruled bt the horror of nuclear weapons that surpass God in power.