The Meditative Rose Painting by Salvador Dali

Meditative Rose
Salvador Dali
Date: 1958
Style: Surrealism
Period: Classic Period (1941-1989)
Genre: flower painting

In Meditative Rose, Dali uses a common image in some of his earlier paintings to be the dominant, almost overpowering object in this one. To Dali, the rose symbolized as dealing with female sex, sexual organs and menstruation. Also, red is used as a color of passion and can also be association with death. I do believe though, that this within this particular painting, Dali had the idea of using it to symbolize the couples love below. All roses are a symbol of love and the color of red just intensifies that meaning. The contrast of the red against the blue sky really signifies the intense passion of the couples relationship. And I would guess that the realistic drop of water on the petal symbolizes the reality of the the intesity of the relationship. Possibly this painting was to show Dali's love for Gala.

In “Meditative Rose,” Dali chose to put the stunning flower – a classic symbol of beauty and romantic desire – at the center of his canvas, floating like an angel above two lovers dwarfed by the massive flower, and whose love is symbolized by the rose, along with the fiery passion of its deep crimson hues.

Rose Meditative is something of an enigma coming from a painter whose works are primarily the stuff of dream and nightmare. Absent are the stretched forms and crutches signifying the paranoiac method. Instead we have a pretty picture. Here Dali seems to be showing off his painting skills at a time when many famous artists (including Dali himself) were painting in a much more abstract manner. Perhaps he was preparing himself for the Homage to Surrealism Exhibition which his friend Andre Breton had asked the artist as well as Joan Miro to exhibit in and represent Spain.

The painting itself is reminiscent of a natural Om symbol hanging against the sky above a desolate landscape. This work was completed the same year that Dali published his "Nuclear Mysticism" manifesto titled "Anti-Matter". Commenting on this newfound belief in science, DNA, and nuclear physics the artist had this to say, "In the Surrealist period I wanted to create the iconography of the interior world and the world of the marvelous, of my father Freud. Today the exterior world and that of physics, has transcended the one of psychology. My father today is Dr. Heisenberg. It is uncertain how this piece fits into either the paranoiac method or the nuclear mysticism practices.

The following quote sums this particular style of Dali's, "The surrealists saw in Dali the promise of a breakthrough of the surrealist dilemma. Many of the surrealists had broken away from the movement, feeling that direct political action had to come before any mental revolutions. Dali put forth his "Paranoic-Critical method" as an alternative to having to politically conquer the world. He felt that his own vision could be imposed on and color the world to his liking so that it became unnecessary to change it objectively." from the New York Times obituary, January 24, 1989 issue.