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Leda Atomica.

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Larger Image	Larger image may be viewed by UofL faculty, staff, and students only (log-in required using ULink username/password) at: http://echo.louisville.edu/login?url=http://vrc-web.louisville.edu/Jpegs/2440/2447-27.jpg
Title	Leda Atomica.
Creator	Dali, Salvador (Spanish painter and printmaker, 1904-1989)
Date	1949
Cultural Context	Spanish European Western European
Style/Period	Surrealist Modern (styles and periods) Modernist
Theme	Paintings (visual works) Oil paintings (visual works) Avant-garde Fantasy Mythology (literary genre) Myths (literary documents) Folklore Folk tales Legends (folk tales) Symbols Symbolism (artistic concept) Imagery Metaphysics Atoms Mathematics Physics Space (composition concept) Figurative art Figures (representations) Front views Three-quarter views Oblique views Portraits Women Wives Spouses Nudes (representations) Nudity Hairstyles Gesture Sitting Birds Animals Wings (animal components) Feather (material) Cliffs Beaches Coastlines Seas Bodies of water Measuring devices (instruments) Pedestals Egg Books Shadows
Subject	Paintings Oil paintings Fantasy Symbols Myths Legends Mathematics Physics Atoms Portraits Women Spouses Nudes Breasts Hairstyles Sitting Gestures Floating Flying Birds Swans Animals Cliffs Beaches Coastlines Seas Bodies of water Weights & measures Pedestals Eggs Books Shadows
Description	"Gala-Leda rendered 'in accordance with the modern "nothing touches" theory of intra-atomic physica' (Dali)." (Caption); Dali himself was only too happy to admit his debt to Gala. In the early 1930s he had begun to sign his paintings 'Gala-Salvador Dali', as if they were one person, and by the 1940s this practice had become habitual; in the Secret Life the debt was made explicit again and again; by 1944 he had painted and drawn her dozens of times; the next step had come with the invention of 'Clédalism' in Hidden Faces. […] If we knock off the initial 'C' of 'Clédalism' we find ourselves looking at the word 'lédalism', in which 'léda' and 'Dali' overlap. As he toyed initially with 'clé' ('key') and 'Dali', it seems that the painter suddenly perceived this further significance, perhaps feeling that it was another instance of Surrealist 'objective chance'. In Greek mythology Leda, the daughter of Thestios, the king of Aetolia, was married to the king of Sparta, Tyndareus. Seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan, she bore the twins Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri ('sons of Zeus'), and perhaps also the beautiful Helen (later of Troy). Since Gala's real name was Helen, it was an easy jump to the conclusion that Dali and she were twin souls, and divine at that […]. But Dali went further and also identified Gala with Leda herself, since, for him, as well as soul-mate, she was a substitute for his dead mother. It is in this latter guise that she is mythified in Leda Atomica […]. Dali commented then: 'As far as I know - and I believe I do know - in Leda Atomica the sea is for the first time represented as not touching the earth; that is, one could easily put one's arm between the sea and the shore without getting wet. Therein resides, I believe, the imaginative quality which has determined the treatment of one of the most mysterious and eternal of those myths in which the 'human and the divine' have crystallized through animality. […] Instead of the confusion of feathers and flesh to which we have been accustomed by the traditional iconography on this subject, with its insistence on the entanglement of the swan's neck and the arms of Leda, Dali shows us the hierarchized libidinous emotion, suspended and as though hanging in mid-air, in accordance with the modern "nothing touches" theory of intra-atomic physics. […] Leda does not touch the swan; Leda does not touch the pedestal; the pedestal does not touch the base; the base does not touch the sea; the sea does not touch the shore. Herein resides, I believe, the separation of the elements earth and water, which is at the root of the creative mystery of animality.' […] Leda Atomica, finished in 1949, 'exalted Gala,' Dali said later, 'as goddess of my meta-physics'. That Dali put a huge amount of thought and work into the painting is borne out not just by the unfinished study exhibited at Bignou's, but by the detailed sketches done in collaboration with the Romanian mathematician Prince Matila Ghika, in which the painting's proportions and layout are plotted with extreme precision. But while it may be conceded that the finished work exalts Gala as goddess of Dali's metaphysics, the impression of 'suspended space' is not satisfactorily achieved in Dali's handling of the sea, which looks as if it is stuck to the earth by glue rather than levitating just above it. The swan, copied from a stuffed specimen, looks more like the model than the real thing. Dali's failure to render Gala's face is also striking. In the study the resemblance is minimal; in the finished painting only approximate. Dali was never to match again the marvel of Galarina, and when he tried to embellish Gala's appearance, to smooth out the lines in her visage, to make her look younger than she was and, above all, pleasant, the result was invariably unsatisfactory." (Excerpt, pp. 495-496)
People Pictured	Dalí, Gala Leda (Greek mythology)
Material	Oil on canvas Oil paint (pigmented coating) Paint Canvas
Measurements	61.1 x 45.3 cm
Technique	Oil painting (technique) Painting (image-making)
Work Type	Paintings Oil paintings
Source	Gibson, Ian. The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali. New York; London: W.W. Norton, 1998. (Color plate XXXV)
Rights	Photograph reproduced in Gibson courtesy: Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres.
Digital Publisher	University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format	image/jpeg
Digital File Name	VRC 2447-27.jpg
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