"Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)" gold edition bronze relief sculpture by Salvador Dali.
It is the golden relief sculptural version of the original 1954 oil-on-canvas painting by Dali. A nontraditional, surrealist portrayal of the Crucifixion, it depicts Christ on a polyhedron net of a tesseract (hypercube). It is one of his best-known paintings from the later period of his career.
During the 1940s and 1950s Dalí's interest in traditional surrealism diminished and he became fascinated with nuclear science, feeling that "thenceforth, the atom was [his] favorite food for thought". The atomic bombing at the end of World War II left a lasting impression; his 1951 essay "Mystical Manifesto" introduced an art theory he called "nuclear mysticism" that combined his interests in Catholicism, mathematics, science, and Catalan culture in an effort to reestablish classical values and techniques, which he extensively utilized in Corpus Hypercubus.
That same year, to promote nuclear mysticism and explain the "return to spiritual classicism movement" in modern art, he traveled throughout the United States giving lectures. Before painting Corpus Hypercubus, Dalí announced his intention to portray an exploding Christ using both classical painting techniques along with the motif of the cube, and he declared that "this painting will be the great metaphysical work of (his) summer". Juan de Herrera's Treatise on Cubic Forms was particularly influential to Dalí.
Corpus Hypercubus takes the traditional biblical scene of Christ's Crucifixion and almost completely reinvents it. The union of Christ and the tesseract reflects Dalí's opinion that the seemingly separate and incompatible concepts of science and religion can in fact coexist. Upon completing Corpus Hypercubus, Dalí described his work as "metaphysical, transcendent cubism".
While he did attempt to distance himself from the Surrealist movement after his development of nuclear mysticism, in Corpus Hypercubus Dalí incorporates dreamlike features consistent with his earlier work, such as the levitating Christ and the giant chessboard below. Jesus' face is turned away from the viewer, making it completely obscured. The crown of thorns is missing from Christ's head as are the nails from his hands and feet, leaving his body completely devoid of the wounds often closely associated with the Crucifixion
(Sources - "Prayer in a Fourth Dimension" (PDF). Baylor University. Wikipedia, "Salvador Dali: painting the fourth dimension". Philip Coppens, Retrieved 2016-10-28, "Dali, Salvador Library Humboldt State University". 1953-03-27. Retrieved 2016-10-28.
There are three markings on the painting include the limited edition number (219/499). See pictures attached.
The piece is framed in a distressed white gesso frame.
Size: 25" high x 23" wide x 3" deep
