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Sunday Dalí: Nature Morte Vivante (Living Still Life), oil on canvas, 1956, on loan to the Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida. This is one of Dalí’s masterworks. Dalí was obsessed with nuclear physics and DNA, which were still a mostly undiscovered realm of science at the time. The double-helix shape is found in the pole on the left with the sphere on top representing the Earth. The sphere is reflected by the cauliflower on the right. The waves of the sea are not flowing, as in nature, but neatly aligned like a genome. The hand is holding a rhinoceros horn - another of Dalí’s fascinations and it’s shape is also found in the cloud over the ocean. The central knife divides the painting into four sections. The top left shows liquids in motion, yet the pear and the figs are motionless. (Dalí’s detail on the water bottle is stunning.) The top right shows the fruit in “nuclear motion.” The cauliflower in the lower right quadrant is also a representation of a naturally occurring spiral. Finally, the colored “sticks” in the lower left quadrant are, according to Dalí, the bits of matter that were left over from when he painted this work. I have made some changes to the site. Finally, I figured out how to display larger images. I hope everything still works the way you want it. The Tags are no longer shown, however relevant when searching the site. I will be making some more minor changes in the near future. Let me know if anything is totally broken. Thanks. -ed.

Sunday Dalí: Nature Morte Vivante (Living Still Life), oil on canvas, 1956, on loan to the Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida.

This is one of Dalí’s masterworks. Dalí was obsessed with nuclear physics and DNA, which were still a mostly undiscovered realm of science at the time. The double-helix shape is found in the pole on the left with the sphere on top representing the Earth. The sphere is reflected by the cauliflower on the right. The waves of the sea are not flowing, as in nature, but neatly aligned like a genome. The hand is holding a rhinoceros horn - another of Dalí’s fascinations and it’s shape is also found in the cloud over the ocean.

The central knife divides the painting into four sections. The top left shows liquids in motion, yet the pear and the figs are motionless. (Dalí’s detail on the water bottle is stunning.) The top right shows the fruit in “nuclear motion.” The cauliflower in the lower right quadrant is also a representation of a naturally occurring spiral. Finally, the colored “sticks” in the lower left quadrant are, according to Dalí, the bits of matter that were left over from when he painted this work.

I have made some changes to the site. Finally, I figured out how to display larger images. I hope everything still works the way you want it. The Tags are no longer shown, however relevant when searching the site. I will be making some more minor changes in the near future. Let me know if anything is totally broken. Thanks. -ed.