December13

Three Sphinxes Of Bikini, Salvador Dali

By: hroman

I want, for a moment, to direct you to the following painting that I enjoy very much (you can click for a slightly larger view):

THE THREE SPHINXES OF BIKINI, by Salvador Dali (1947)

The Three Sphinxes Of Bikini, Salvador Dali

A little bit of background might be useful before the description.

Between the years of 1946 and 1958 (AFTER world war two), the United States conducted 23 nuclear tests at the Micronesian atoll, Bikini. The tests caused the radioactive contamination of the entire system of islands. The (roughly) two hundred Micronesians who inhabited the islands were relocated by the US before the tests, and eventually brought back in 1968. The US lost a lawsuit to the Micronesians in the amount of $100 million when it was discovered, ten years later in 1978, that the levels of radioactivity were still dangerously high.

These experimental explosions on the atoll of Bikini inspired Dali to paint the Three Sphinxes. Dali himself was a surrealist painter. If you look at the point of view of “expressionism,” then paintings in general are supposed to emphasize the expression of inner experience rather than a solely “photographic” portrayal of reality. It is subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in the artist. In surrealism, it goes one step further: it’s the unconscious that is emphasized, and paintings express the workings of the mind by using symbolic imagery and interesting juxtaposition of subject matter.

When looking at the painting, the imagery itself is very striking. There are three subjects: a human head, a tree, and the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. It’s not cookie-cutter clear what Dali is feeling, but the double-imagery of the human head and the tree suggest a strong and unconscious relationship between humanity, nature, and destruction. The similarity in form among the human, tree, and nuclear test is a phenomenally creative image, giving you a glimpse into the mind of Salvador Dali. As a work of political importance, I don’t know of a single work of art that amalgamates the perspective in as creative a fashion as the sphinx image.

As an addendum, here is a video of a nuclear test that took place in 1954.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7278951069225366106&hl=en-CA]

(image source: fotos.org)

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