Dali's Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus): Surrealism and Four-Dimensional Geometry

In 1954 Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali (Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Dalí de Púbol) completed Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus), a nontraditional surrealist painting of the Crucifixion of Jesus, depicting Christ on the "polyhedron net of a tesseract (hypercube)."

"Dalí utilized his theory of "nuclear mysticism," a fusion of Catholicism, mathematics, and science, to create this unusual interpretation of Christ’s crucifixion. Levitating before a hypercube—a geometric, multidimensional form—Christ’s body is healthy, athletic, and bears no signs of torture; the crown of thorns and nails are missing. The artist’s wife, Gala, poses as a devotional figure, witnessing Christ’s spiritual triumph over corporeal harm. Several dreamlike elements from Dali’s earlier Surrealist work feature in this painting: a levitating figure, vast barren landscape, and chessboard" (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/488880).

In the painting Dali replaced the traditional cross with a Tesseract, a four-dimensional hypercube.

Dali's painting is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it is on view in Gallery 901.