Focus on The Sacrament of the Last Supper and analyze the Background.
The Sacrament of the Last Supper was completed during Dalí's post-World War II period, which is characterized by his increased interest in science, optical illusion and religion. During this time he became a devout Roman Catholic and simultaneously was astonished by the "atomic age". Dalí himself labelled this era in his work "Nuclear Mysticism". He sought to combine traditional Christian iconography with images of disintegration. This is especially apparent in his piece The Madonna of Port Lligat, which was completed six years earlier.
The painting was not commissioned. After purchasing the Crucifixion and then giving it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, collector and banker Chester Dale told Dalí he "had to do one more religious picture". Dale believed that this picture was "too important to keep for a few" and so donated it to the National Gallery. In a paragraph in the National Gallery's curatorial file but missing from all published accounts, Dalí wrote of this picture:The first Holy Communion on Earth is conceived as a sacred rite of the greatest happiness for humanity. This rite is expressed with plastic means and not with literary ones. My ambition was to incorporate to Zurbarán's mystical realism the experimental creativeness of modern painting in my desire to make it classic.
Roman Catholic Zurbarán The Madonna of Port Lligat Chester Dale Christian Mysticism Metropolitan Museum of Art atomic age