I really dig this The Swallow’s Tail painting by Salvador Dali. It’s a part of his Series on Catastrophes. This series was inspired by the mathematical theory by Rene Thom, called the Catastrophe Theory and this was actually his last painting.

I’m no mathematician, so borrowing heavily from Wikkepedia, the Catastrophe Theory basically states that in four dimensional phenomena, there are seven possible equilibrium surfaces, and therefore seven possible discontinuities, or “elementary catastrophes”: fold, cusp, swallowtail, butterfly, hyperbolic umbilic, elliptic umbilic, and parabolic umbilic.^[1] 

Thom’s model is presented alongside the elegant curves of a cello and the instrument’s f-holes, which, especially as they lack the small pointed side-cuts of a traditional f-hole, equally connote the mathematical symbol for an integral in calculus: ∫.”^[2

Fortunately you don’t have to understand all of that to be able to appreciate this piece. [and when you do, it’s just gravy]. It reminds me a little of string theory in our elegant universe.

I can look at it on an entirely different level and just appreciate the beauty of my own series of catastrophes.

#art, #artist, #arthistory, #catastrophetheory, #dali, #mathart, #surrealism