3D "Dali's Crucifixion" by Paul Micarelli

Recently, I've been uploading my 3D Art into a Picasa album:

3D Art by Paul Micarelli

Since it's Good Friday, I thought it would be appropriate to present a rendering based on a painting by the surrealist master, Salvador Dalí. I've had the pleasure of seeing an exhibit with many of Dalí's work & he is definitely one of my favorite artists.

Several years ago, I made the scene in the 3D Vue software & gave a print of it to my sister for a Christmas gift.

It is Dalí's hyper-dimensional portrayal of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ:

"Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus)"

(click to enlarge)

From 3D Art by Paul Micarelli

Here is the original Dali painting:

Although the subject of the painting is obviously a stylized portrayal of the Crucifixion, there are also elements of Dali's sense of "Nuclear Mysticism".

The Cross itself is a 3-D representation of the theoretical 4-Dimensional object, known as a Hypercube, or Tesseract.

The arrangement of 8 cubes forming The Cross in Dali's painting is an unfolded Hypercube- similar to how an unfolded cube becomes 6 flat squares (which were previously the cube's faces).

By integrating the concept of hypercube geometry into the composition, Dali is equating the eventual Ascension with the idea of transcending this 3D reality, into the "higher" dimensions that are theorized to exist.

In fact, when I made the rendering of Dali's painting, I also made this simple visual explanation of how certain forms are just "shadows" of progressively higher-dimensional forms:

 (click to enlarge) 

• The 0-dimensional point is a shadow of a line.

• The 1-dimensional line is a shadow of a square.

• The 2-dimensional square is a shadow of a cube.

• The 3-dimensional sides of a cube are the shadow of an (unfolded) hypercube.

If you look at the checkered floor in the painting-

Onto the dark squares beneath the Christ figure, Dali has projected the cross shadow (which is 2 dimensions 'lower' than the 4D Hypercube). This detail further emphasizes the theme of expanding into extra-dimensional space.

This painting is brilliant & seeing it in person inspired me to make this 3D homage.  It's been sitting on my computer, so I decided to finally share & comment on it.