The Three Sphinxes Of Bikini, Salvador Dali

THE THREE SPHINXES OF BIKINI, by Salvador Dali (1947)1

Between the years of 1946 and 1958 (after World War II), 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 of Bikini.

Dali was a Surrealist painter. From the point of view of Expressionism, paintings in general are supposed to emphasize the expression of inner experience instead of providing a more-or-less photographic portrayal of reality. The artist is concerned with the subjective emotions and responses that scenes, objects and/or events arouse. In Surrealism, it goes one step further: it’s the unconscious that is emphasized. 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 figures: a human head, a tree, and a third figure in the distance that could be a human head but looks eerily like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. In fact, all three figures share the same uncanny configuration of the mushroom cloud. The juxtaposed similarity suggests a strong and unconscious relationship between humanity, nature, and destruction.

When I look at the painting, I can’t help but imagine that the human head is Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb,” looking through the tree (nature) and straight into the heart of the explosion.

The joint work of the team of scientists he led in the Manhattan Project culminated in the first man-made nuclear explosion in 1945. While witnessing that explosion, Oppenheimer was both filled with AWE

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one

and simultaneously filled with DREAD

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or another

Now I am become Death
The Destroyer of Worlds

1. I originally wrote this brief thought on Dali’s painting on my old WordPress blog back in December 2006. For posterity, I wanted to republish it here [↩]