Salvador Dali's The Sacrament Of The Last Supper

Sigida 1Anna SigidaDean FeldmanHumanities 1101-Introduction to Humanities23 April 2016The Symbolism in Salvador Dali’s The Sacrament of the Last Supper.Surrealists are the artists who attempted to channel the unconscious as a way to unlockthe power of imagination. These artists saw rationalism and realism as beneath them, more of aburden which repressed the creative power with taboos. One of the greatest artists of thesurrealist movement was Salvador Dali. He used his ideas to destroy any doctrine and principlewhich relied on reason, virtue, faith, religion, social acceptance, harmony and ideal beauty. Bybreaking barriers between reality, sub-consciousness and dreams, Dali created art that isunmistakable and thought-provoking for his audience.
One ofthe harshest critics, Professor Paul Tillich, had this to say about Dali’s image of Jesus: “Asentimental but very good athlete on an American baseball team. The technique is a beautifyingnaturalism of the worst kind. I am horrified by it! Simply junk!”(Novak) It is not surprising thatscholars misunderstood Dali’s depiction of such a sacred theme as the Last Supper. “[Thepainting’s] sentimentality bordering on kitsch caused disgust in some religious quarters”(Shanes). For example, the scene of the Last Supper was so dogmatic and almost untouchable, itprompted Roman Inquisition in the sixteenth century to start an official inquiry into possibleheresy of the artist Veronese because of his “inappropriate treatment of the subject matter “ in hiswork which he had to rename and title Feast in the House Levi (Sayre 322). Dali did notattempt to create a scandal or controversy with his painting, instead his interpretation of the LastSupper gives the audience more than the Renaissance, Counter-Reformation and the Baroqueartists did. Many symbols used by the artist create a story and a code that goes beyond the eventsof the Last Supper.For this painting Dali chooses a rather simple setting. The architecture is almosttransparent, so is Jesus himself. Christ is sitting at the stone table in front of the pentagonwindow that reveals the view of the sea with the mountains on the horizon (Novak). Thislandscape is very characteristic for Dali’s art and could be seen in several of his works. It isknown to be the view from his window, a memory of his childhood- the connection to hisCatholic roots. Without any doubt, Jesus is the central figure of this composition. Dali usesseveral triangles to draw viewer’s attention- the convention used by many artists for centuriesbefore him; but he