The Maximum Speed of Raphael’s Madonna

This painting is an oil on canvas portrait that measures 81x66 centimetres and it can be seen in the National Museum Reina Sofía, in Madrid. The title of the work is “The Maximum Speed of Raphael’s Madonna”, and it was painted by Salvador Dali in 1954. We can barely see a woman’s face depicted out of strange shapes, spheres of different colours and horns, which are also employed to shape the landscape and the rocks and cliffs in the bottom part of the painting. Her head is crowned by an aureole or a golden halo. She has no body, Dali just painted her like the busts or heads very usual in the art of sculpture. Instead, the low part of the work depicts a rounded fence made out of crosses, spheres and straight lines. It appears to have a door or an entrance in the left and right parts. In any case, the head is floating in the air and it takes up the majority of the painting.

This one could be described as a blue painting, due to the different tones of this colour which we may appreciate both in the clear sky and the immense sea. Some of the spheres are also depicted in several tones of yellow, green and brown. The framing of the scene is quite simple and the only remarkable element that might draw the viewer’s attention is the cliff and rocks which we are familiar with because of dozens of Dali’s paintings, for Cadaqués and Cap de Creus appear very often in the usual landscape of his works. 

The light appears to be coming from the left part of the painting because the colours are brighter in that side. The horizon is also clearly represented separating the sea and the sky with an almost white light. 

This time, the woman’s face is not that of Gala, Dali’s wife and muse, as we may have expected, but the face of a Raphael’s Madonna, as we can tell from the title of the painting. The Renaissance master was greatly admired by Dali, but the Spanish painter combined the classicism and mysticism of the Madonna’s portrait with the modern atomic theory. This is why this painting has been described as “Nuclear mysticism”. The face appears to take shape out of several particles and elements, which represent the discontinuity of matter, the physical theory that claims that all that exist is just material particles moving and floating through and infinite void.

This should come as no surprise knowing the peculiarity and eccentricity of Dali’s work and personality, but it is indeed a curious mixture of very deep religious believes (the virginity of Maria, her sudden apparition, the ideas of immortality and divinity) with recent and ground-breaking scientific discoveries regarding the composition of matter in the universe and the complex laws that rule everything in it.

Another interesting and also recurring element in Dali’s art, is the depiction of rhino’s horns. Of course, the choice of this particular item is far from being accidental, since the author was almost obsessed with the mathematical structure of nature and with the importance of introducing geometrical proportions into his paintings. This horn is an example of the Golden Section, a figure that can be formed following Fibonacci’s sequence. This famous mathematical proportion was supposed to be the main ingredient of beauty and order and can be found in lots of artworks, with the Athenian Parthenon being maybe the most famous one.

This astonishing painting was created the same year as another similar one (Dali Nude, in Contemplation Before the Five Regular Bodies), where we can found again a woman’s face formed out of spherical particles and rhino’s horns. Once again, we can appreciate an inspiring combination of a materialistic scientific theory along with mystical, religious and supernatural figures and events. 

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening

This oil on wood painting that measures 51 x 40,5 centimetres was entitled “Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening” and it is exhibited in the Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. Salvador Dali painted it in the United States in 1944 and it is one of his most famous works. What we can see is a laying naked woman which appears to be sleeping surrounded by a strange scene. There is a big open pomegranate from which a fish emerges. The centre of the scene is occupied by two impressive and fierce Bengal tigers, which also emerge from the fish’s mouth. One of them seems to be wielding a shotgun or a bayonet aiming at the woman and almost touching one of her arms.

In the background there is an elephant, whose legs are extremely thin and long, walking over the sea not too far away from a small island. Between its legs the moon can be seen. The right and bottom part of the painting is composed of different kinds of grey, brown and orange rocks. If one looks at the painting very carefully it is also possible to see a tiny shape of a snail and the name of Gala and Salvador Dalí engraved on the pediment stone.

The work is entitled after the small bee flying around a pomegranate, which is believed to be causing this exotic and strange dream.

Blue is unarguably the main colour of this painting, because of the sea and the sky although, strangely, the horizon is almost completely white. There is a beautiful contrast between these warm and clear colours and the bright yellow and orange that prevail in the animal and fruit figures. Once again, all of them, and the landscape as well, are depicted in a highly realistic way, even though every object seems to be floating and not making any kind of contact with anything (not even the couple of water drops).

It is not easy to tell where the light is coming from, but it is possible to appreciate a dim shadow underneath the woman, which could suggest the idea of noon. However, the most visible shadow is the one projected by both pomegranates, especially the small one, that clearly show that the light is coming from the right part of the painting.

The title of the work gives us a clear hint in order to interpret it: the women is the scene is dreaming this bizarre scene because of the sound of bee flying around a pomegranate. And he is about to wake up, probably scared of the bayonet or even because of the feeling of a shot or a cut.

Obviously, the painting is inspired in the Freudian psychoanalytic movement, which conceded great important to our dreams so as to know our own feeling, believes and obscure desires. Throughout the Western cultural tradition, especially since Ancient Greek culture, consciousness and rational thinking have been believed to be the rulers of our behaviour. But from the 19^th Century on, the animal, instinctive and irrational parts of ourselves were given more and more credit as the most important guidance of human conduct.

In a later interview, Dalí suggested that, when we are sleeping, hearing a bee buzzing could trigger a whole narrative story and provoke the feeling of a sting which would awaken us. Bearing that in mind, he decided to depict this Gala’s nightmare as an example of that deep part of our mind that is sub consciousness. Dreams reveal fears and desires very often repressed by our consciousness as a result of our moral values. The author himself used to define his own work as “oneiric photography painted by hand”.

The elephant carrying an obelisk is a distorted version of a very famous sculpture by Italian artist Bernini, which is located in Rome. It became an iconic symbol in Dalí’s art. Since Freudian psychology is the main inspiration the obelisk can be seen as a phallic symbol, in the same way the pomegranate represents female sexuality.

Of course, art and painting are much more appropriate in order to represent this hidden part of ourselves, since abstract concepts cannot express such a chaotic and indescribable reality. Symbols, images and metaphors are the only tool we can use so as to help those fear, obsessions and hidden feeling emerge from the basement of our intricate minds.

This specific masterpiece, as well as surrealism and Freudian psychology, poses a great number of questions about our common believes about human nature. Rational thinking and scientific knowledge are just the tip of the iceberg, since human mind is much more complex than we are willing to admit.

The author is offering a complex mixture combining mythological and religious symbols, his admiration for the Italian Renaissance painters, the scientific and psychological theories of his time, and his very personal view of surrealism. 

Atomic Leda

This is a painting called Atomic Leda, by Spanish artist Salvador Dalí. It is an oil on canvas painting which measures 61 by 46 centimetres. It was painted in 1949 and can be seen at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueras.

All the figures and objects are depicted in a realistic way, especially the woman and the swan in the centre of the scene. She is supposed to be Leda, a character from Greek mythology, although we easily recognize the face and body of Gala, Dalí’s Russian wife and muse.

These characters are presented on a sea landscape surrounded by different objects: the woman appears to be seated on a pedestal and surrounded by several small objects, such as a book, an egg, a carpenter’s square and water drops.

The main colours are blue and a mixture of different tones of green and yellow in the ground but most noticeable in a strange sky.

In 1947 and 1948 the author showed the sketches of this masterpiece, so that the public could understand the artistic and mathematical techniques he used to employ.

The painting presents an astonishing balance among the different figures, which are actually floating in the air.

As it was mentioned, everything is represented in a realistic way and with a great attention to small details. The light appears to be coming from the right side of the scene as we can guess from the shadows at the bottom. Precisely, that is the part of the painting where we can see several straight lines as opposed to the middle part, which is mostly blue because of the sea in the background. In both sides of the top part we can see rocks and cliffs, very common in Dali’s works, who usually set his scenes in those kind of places.

The title of the work gives us the first hint to try to understand its meaning. One of the most evident influences in Dali’s Works is Greek and Roman mythology, and this painting is a perfect example of it. Leda was the wife of the King of Sparta. She was either seduced or raped, depending on the version of the story, by Zeus, the King of Olympic Gods, disguised as a swan.  This union resulted in two eggs, from which Helen (the famous wife of Menelaus and lover of Paris) and Clytemnestra, and Castor and Pollux were born. We can even see a broken egg at the bottom. Dali was always interested in Greek mythology and he often compared his relationship with Gala to the incestuous and immoral behavior of the Gods.

The other part of the title leads us to a completely different field: the atomic theory. The artist was fascinated by the amazing discoveries in Physics during the first half of the century. Contrary to our natural belief, the matter that our universe is made of is not as solid and compact as it appears to be. The scientific idea expressed in the painting with great artistry is that nothing is really touching, since contact is nothing else but the electric repulsion of the electrons in the outside part of the atom. That is the reason why, in the painting, everything is floating: the drops of water, Leda, the pedestal, even the sea in over the sand.

And not only was he interested in Physics but in Mathematics as well, which is important in order to understand the composition of “Atomic Leda”. As we can see in the sketches, Leda was painted inside a pentagon, following the golden proportion. Matila Ghyka was a friend of Dali’s who taught him how to calculate this so called “divine proportion” so as to provide a perfect harmony to the framework.

In my opinion, this is one the greatest paintings of Surrealism. Dali uses realistic techniques in order to present a completely unreal scene. It is strange mixture of detailed depiction of characters and object with a symbolism related to our deepest dreams and obscure sexual desires. It also combines classical mythology with modern scientific theories. But these apparently bizarre mixtures result in an interesting idea: the world and reality is not as it appears to be and our common sense and normal consciousness do not grasp the most important elements of our behaviour and the nature of things. On the one hand, we are moved by sexual and hidden desires, not by our rational calculations about what is good or bad. On the other hand, we know that the seeming solid matter and the stable universe is nothing else but an infinite number of invisible particles attracted and separated by electrical forces. Furthermore, I think that the painting succeeds in achieving the aim that the author seems to intend: creating a distortion in the way we understand the world and ourselves. A truly thought-provoking masterpiece.