Crucifixion, 1954 by Salvador Dali

When disembarking from the steamship America in Le Havre on March 27, 1953, on his return from New York, Dali announced to the reporters gathered around him that he was going to paint a picture which he himself termed as sensational: an exploding Christ, nuclear and hypercubic. He said that iw would be the first picture painted with a classical technique and an academic formula but actually composed of cubic elements. To a reporter who asked him why he wanted to depict Christ exploding, he replied:

I don't know yet. First I have ideas, I explain them later. This picture will be the great metaphysical work of my summer."

It was at the end of spring in 1953 in Port Lligat that Dali began this work, but it is dated 1954, the year in which it was finished and then exhibited in the month of December at the Carstais Gallery in New York. The painting may be regarded as one of the most significant of his religious oil in the classical style, along with Christ of Saint John of the Cross.