Sunday Dalí: Meditative Rose, 1958, oil on canvas, 36 x 28 cm, from the Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Grant Collection, New York City.

Roses appear in numerous Dalí works. For Dalí roses were a female sexual symbol. Dalí painted several works depicting women with their heads made of flowers. The Invisible Man and Bleeding Roses both depict women with bouquets of roses where their wombs should be.

In The Rose, there is a tiny drop of water on one of the petals of the flower which creates an optical illusion a third dimension. This effect is called trompe l’oeil. Dalí often used it to highlight a small detail of a painting. Tricks of the eye were a prevalent in surrealist art.

Beneath the rose stands a couple with their heads bowed. This is a reference to Millet’s Angelus which was one of Dalí’s favorite paintings and one which he frequently referred to in his own works.

The above is (mostly) what was intended to accompany this post before Tumblr obliterated it. I apologize that I did not have the wits to reconstruct the original text before posting it, but, you know, drinking. I appreciate your patience. From now on, all of my posts will be backed up in a text file, saved to a cloud, and placed in a lockbox under the rear bumper of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s car.