Meditation on the Harp, 1932/34

This painting was produced by Dali after his dream of Jean-François Millet's painting The Angelus (1857-1859), a black figure before the couple has a swollen foot a symbol of the etymology of the name Oedipus. (http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/millet/angelus.jpg.html ) (http://www.neartexpress.com/artist/Jean_Francois_Millet.html )

Other Dali examples:

Dali's Laocoon

More Greek Mythology drawings from Dali can be found in the book Dante: La Divina Comedie Editions d'art les heures claires, Paris (German website)

From his Mythologies (1960-1964):

Argus , Pegasus , Icarus, Medusa , Venus , Hypnos , Narciss , Judgment of Paris, Oedipus and the Sphinx , Zeus , Theseus and the Minotaurus , Athena, Leda and the Swan, Kronos, Poseidon (red) and (blue) version, Galaxy,

Dali, Destino, 1946 an image inspired from Zeus Otricoli , The destiny of Dali's Destino

ARE DALÍ'S ILLUSTRATIONS OF DANTE'S COMEDY REFLECTIVE OF THE POEM'S CONTEXTS?

Examples: Antaeus

On Geryon's Back

Geryon was a triple-bodied winged giant who owned a herd of red cattle guarded by the two-headed hound Orthrus. Hercules 10th labor was to get the animals after killing Geryon

Head of Athene, 1914
Metamorphosis of Narcissus 1934 or 1937
Bacchanale, 1939
Family of Marsupial Centaurs, 1940

The Judgment of Paris, 1950

A Fate of the Parthenon, 1960
Medusa's Head, 1962
The Judgment of Paris, 1963

Hercules Lifts the Skin of the Sea and Stops Venus for an Instant from Waking Love, 1963

Winged Victory, 1970

The Face 1972
Apparition of Venus, 1970

Hercules and Gravida, 1973

Hermes, 1981 (His flight produces a "shockwave")

Jason Carrying the Golden Fleece, 1981
Hysterical Venus de Milo, 1982/83

Sketch of Athena

Pierre Peyrolle , Le Festin d'Alexandre: See for more details : Alexander The Great fraternity and Salvador Dali (with Dali and others and Alexander the Great in front)

Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1936 (and a related sculpture, there is another one in bronze)

DALI QUOTATIONS

• The only difference between the immortal Greece and contemporary times is Sigmund Freud, who discovered that the human body, purely platonic at the Greece epoch, nowadays is full of secret drawers that only the psychoanalysis is capable to open. ( http://wgonz.addr.com/Tour/cajones.htm )
• The world will admire me. Perhaps I'll be despised and misunderstood, but I'll be a great genius, I'm certain of it. (when he was 16 years old)
• There has grown up a mythology in recent times that geniuses are just the extreme points on a continuum of intelligence. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are a superious race apart.
• Every morning when I wake up I experience an exquisite joy—the joy of being Salvador Dalí—and I ask myself in rapture, ‘What wonderful things this Salvador Dalí is going to accomplish today?’
• The difference between me and a madman is the fact that I am not mad.
• The only difference between the Surrealists and me is that I am a Surrealist.
• ...my good friend Carlos Ribas studied the civilisation of Apollonian Greece and Dionysian Greece all his life without once realising the critical difference between them...Salvador Dali, Diary of a Genius

REFERENCES

Soby, James Thrall. Salvador Dali. Museum of Modern Art: Arno Press: New York 1968.
Platzner, Gloria and Harris, Stephen L. Classical Mythology: Images and Insights

A Virtual Museum Dedicated to Contemporary Classicism

http://www.daliphoto.com/

Dali on Stamps

Images of Dali

Produce your own Variation of Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening

Portrait of Salvador Dali and Man Ray, Paris, Photo by Carl Van Vechten

Part 1