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Artwork · 1949 · Mythological painting

Leda Atomica

Salvador Dali
1949 · Oil on Canvas
Teatro-Museo Dali, Figueres
★ 5.6 editorial score

Gala, Dali's wife, poses as Leda with the swan, but nothing quite touches - the figure, the bird, a pedestal, a book, and the sea are all suspended a hair's breadth apart, held in a precise mathematical order. Dali composed Leda Atomica according to geometric proportion and the new physics of the atom, in which matter is mostly space and nothing truly meets. Now in his Theatre-Museum in Figueres, it fuses classical myth, his adoration of Gala, and his 'nuclear mysticism' - the ancient story of divine union recast for the atomic age in floating, weightless balance.

Movement
Surrealism

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Other media onSubject·Birds
Quote · 1977

“There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.”

Colleen McCullough