Sunday Dalí: Cannibal Nostalgia (image instantanée), 1932. Oil on canvas, 18⅝ x 18⅝.

As opposed to Dalí’s obsessive fantasies and dream imagery, this painting is a snapshot — one frame — of Dalí’s mind. In 1933 Dalí prefaced an exhibit at the Levy Gallery with the following:

SNAP-SHOT PHOTOGRAPHS IN COLOr of subconscious images, Surrealist, extravagant, paranoiac hypnagogical, extra-pictorial, phenomenal, super-abundant, super-sensitive, etc… of CONCRETE IRRATIONALITY…¹

The ink and pen are symbolic of fatherhood. Dalí’s father was a bureaucrat and the first appearance of a pen in Dalí’s work was embedded in the head of “an average bureaucrat”, which is a reoccurring character in Dalí’s works at the time. However, the pen, which it’s obvious phallic implications, takes on a slightly more general meaning in Cannibal Nostalgia. The eggs are symbolic of fertility which is played out in the left-most egg, its yolk pierced by the phallic pen.