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.