Crucifixion (Hypercubic Body) : Salvador Dali

When you think of prolific abstract artists of the past two centuries, a lot of names spring to mind. Escher with his never ending staircases and waterfalls of intrinsic mathematical beauty is one of the best known, but his fame is like a drop in the bucket compared to this artist, Salvador Dali. When you think of Salvador Dali you think instantly of crazy handlebar mustaches and melting clocks. It's not your fault, it's the typical image of him. Dali however has a lot more to offer, and here is Salvador Dali's painting, Crucifixion (Hypercubic Body).

Artist

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech, 1st Marquis of Pubol to give him his full title was a Spanish painter, photographer and sculptor who was known for his use of surrealism. Dali had many followers including the current king of Spain and has garnered much respect and devotion for the abstract manner in which he has managed to portray these micro-worlds within the paintings. He was born on May the 11th 1904 and he died on January the 23rd, 1989 aged 84.

The Painting

This is a fascinating painting with obvious reference to Christianity and Catholicism as we see the figure of the giant crucified on a cubic crucifix. Why is it Christ? We could delve into the many answers of that question but the truth is that real crucifixes were shaped like T's in brackets so that the wooden poles could be re-used. The person was simply nailed to a straight brace behind his back which would then be hoisted and affixed to said pole much like the pieces of some ungodly jigsaw puzzle, thus defeating the cross shape we have envisioned currently. There was no headrest, the crucifix wasn't designed to be comfortable.

The picture has allot of blank space as do most of Dali's paintings but as we can see here the horizon is filled with murky twists of faded green's and sepia browns which give a shifting appearance of smoke and industry. For one who paints so reverently with most of his works revolving around clear or patched clouds of blue sky Dali's deliberately gone for a gothe approach to the darkness behind, and while this could be to counteract the brightness of the cube itself it seems to me that this is by nature a much darker work reflecting personal values and beliefs of which the artist had to express through canvas. Unusually, the distant background features shapes in the distant horizon which, being semi familiar with a few pieces of Dali's work is something I knew he generally veered away from, a large expanse of water rolling past to lad to green field and finally to the chessboard floor. That in itself is extremely interesting as far from following the path you'd expect it to take we see that directly beneath the crucifix the squares have all turned black as if in shadow but no shadow of the man is cast upon it, just upon the yellow cubic crucifix.

The foreground characters are fantastic and seem in stark contrast to the semi futuristic feel. We have either Jesus which I doubt or a representative of a Jesus like figure being held by an invisible barrier of those block like pins to each of the four corners casting only his arms in shadow behind him as his head contorts away to hide his face, a clever image that many artists used and still use as it allows the viewer to make up their own mind and opinion of who the subject within is. Below we have a female figure or what I assume is a female figure draped in robes and staring up at the figure suspended upon the air, smaller than he upon some kind of black hexagonal shape. The two people within are greatly misplaced and would look more at home in a period painting than this abstract nightmare of illusion.

In terms of symbolism as I've said it's very obviously a work toward religion but what you might ask is the point? To me, and this may well be a topic of debate, it represents the death of god at the hands of Science. It was Nietzsche who wrote :

Quote

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

—Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann

And this appears to me to be representative of that vein, if not directly linked. With that chessboard before the water to clean ourselves as the sacred game of our invention, the clouded sky's and the general feel of the picture itself it strikes me hard as a picture with parallels to that particular text.