The context of the work

Nuclear Mysticism

During the 1930s, Dalí was one of the greatest exponents of Surrealism, having become involved with the movement in 1929. Freudian theories and the then recent far-reaching discoveries in the physical sciences formed the basis of the new artistic movement, but after the Second World War the attitude towards technological advances of most Surrealists changed radically. Unlike Breton, Dalí extolled the virtues of nuclear physics because they opened the doors to an unknown and mysterious world and to a new dimension between reality and matter.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, Dalí and Gala left Europe for the United States, where they lived for eight years before returning to Portlligat in the summer of 1948. This was a time of sweeping change and great uncertainty in which the historic events of the mid-20th century shook the European mentality. As for Dalí, at the end of the 1940s he was engaged in a radical reformulation of his thinking, his interests ranging from Freud and nuclear physics to the Italian Renaissance. In many of his paintings from the 1940s, his ruminations on the structure of the atom and the disintegration and discontinuity of matter are an integral part of his vocabulary. At the same time, he gradually incorporated religious elements, such as the Madonna and Child and the crucifixion of Christ. 

However, we should not interpret the painter’s renewed interest in spirituality and mysticism as in any way a reaction against his previous stage. His deep understanding of the Spanish mystical poets (Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross) and the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, together with an intense interest in scientific discoveries, especially in atomic energy and nuclear physics, led him to make the following declaration: “The paroxitic crisis of Dalinian mysticism is based primarily upon the progress of the special sciences of our times, especially upon the quantum physics”^[3]. Or again: “I intend to take advantage of the classicism of the Renaissance to give an eternal formula to the new ideas, which can be divided into two groups. Iconography of the subconscious, which is what I have shown the world until today, and painting as a concept of universal cosmogony. Today physics has turned everything on its head and a painter must know this. The painter cannot be a donkey. It was Paccioli [sic] who taught Pierre de la Francesca [sic] all the secrets of physics and geometry”^[4].

So began the stage that the artist called “nuclear mysticism” and which he affirmed in the lectures “Why I was sacrilegious, why I am a mystic”(1950)^[5] and “Picasso and I” (1951)^[6] and in his Mystical Manifesto (1951)^[7].

The Mystical Manifesto

The text is accompanied by illustrations in which Dalí brings together his interest in religious subjects and in science and recovers the postulates of quantum mechanics, and especially everything relating to the disintegration of matter. Of particular note are two etchings with a representation of Christ on the cross in the manner of the painting The Christ.

The Manifesto begins with a declaration: “The two most subversive things that can happen to an ex-Surrealist in 1951 are, first, to become a mystic; and second, to know how to draw. These two forms of vigor have just happened to me together and at the same time”. Nuclear physics defines mystical ecstasy, which, for Dalí, is ““super-cheerful”, explosive, disintegrated, supersonic, undulatory and corpuscular, and ultra-gelatinous, for it is the aesthetic blooming of the maximum of paradisiacal happiness that a human being can have on earth”^[8].

This text is a complete statement of principles. The artist justifies the appearance of religious themes in his work, the use of the golden ratio and his turning towards the Italian Renaissance, prompted by his desire to become a classic-a classic with a will to transcendence who uses scientific terms such as wave-corpuscle duality or the integration or disintegration of matter, and incorporates them into his new artistic discourse.

Dalí also expresses his desire to become a classic and a “saviour” of modern painting,^[9] a mystic who will, from now on, concern himself with religious themes, and this is why he declares that his new kingdom is the soul and that he sees in religion and the love of God the only hope for humanity. Dalí’s engagement with one of the key themes of Christianity-the crucifixion of Christ, the saviour of humanity-was inspired by John of the Cross, as the consummation of a moment of transformation and culmination of this longing. In his conviction that religion and physics were the vital issues (at that time), he declared that he paints “in constant explosion. In nuclear bombing from the scientific point of view it is possible to approach the real mystery of life”^[10], and thus brought his Surrealist period to an end.

Dalí and His Models

Any consideration of the models and references, in matters of technique and style, that led Salvador Dalí to paint The Christ, will inevitably look to Spanish painters such as Alonso Cano, Francisco de Goya, Francisco de Zurbarán and, above all, Diego Velázquez. Velázquez, the greatest exponent of Spanish Baroque painting, was a constant in the work of the Surrealist artist. Dalí himself tells us that, as a child, “when night fell, I could not cross my parents’ bedroom because of the portrait of this dead brother and the reproduction of Christ by Velázquez which hung there”^[11]. It is very likely that Dalí subsequently contemplated the Velázquez painting at length on his visits to the Museo del Prado, during his four years as a student in Madrid.

Following on from the example afforded by Velázquez, Dalí set out to create a work that would be totally different from those of his contemporaries, giving us a dignified, serene Christ, whose face and wounds are not shown, and present him from a unique perspective.

The figure of Christ depicted by several of the painters mentioned above and in most representations in the history of art has one constant: that of a Christ whose suffering is shown; a Christ whose face and crown of thorns and the nails in his hands and feet are shown. The purpose of such a depiction is to move us as viewers.

“It is because I went through cubism and surrealism without forsaking classicism that my Christ does not resemble other Christs-at the same time I believe that it is the least expressionist of all those that have been painted in modern times but the newest-it is a Christ as beautiful as the God that he is”^[12].

To embody his idea, the artist looked for a model that would represent the pinnacle of Apollonian beauty. Thanks to his friendship and professional relationship with Jack Warner, head of the famous Warner Brothers film studios, Dalí came into contact with the man who was to be the model for Christ: the Californian gymnast and action film stuntman Russ Saunders, who had worked on such major productions as The Three Musketeers (1948) and Singing in the Rain (1952).

We know that, in addition to drawing from life, the painter often used photographs, which provided him with a tool for the execution of his works. Thanks to a set of unpublished negatives with the stamp of Weiman & Lester, conserved in the archives of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, we know how the painter and his model worked together to give form to the artist’s idea. These negatives also make it clear that another model was involved in addition to Saunders.