Monday, October 08, 2007

Dali's Last Supper

Yesterday I was able to spend some time with a painting I like a lot: Salvador Dali's Last Supper, painted in 1955. It's tucked away in an elevator bank of the National Gallery of Art. It's a huge painting, and I mostly had it to myself.

I haven't found a good online reproduction, so here is a blurry one. If you scroll down here, there's a pretty good close up of the central figure of Dali's Jesus.

It's religious and spooky, in a Pythagorean way, and it's a radically different take on the legend, especially as compared to Leonardo's.

I can't swear as to what the giant golden dodecahedron is doing, but the Wikipedia entry says this particular 3-d shape was "a symbol of the universe" to the ancient Greeks.

Leonardo's composition seethes.
Dali's serenely breathes.

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