A feature article examines Salvador Dalí's controversial religious painting "Christ of Saint John of the Cross" (1951), which was physically attacked by vandals on two separate occasions—once with a rock in 1961 and later with an air rifle. The painting, part of Dalí's "Nuclear Mysticism" phase, depicts a floating, unblemished Christ from an aerial perspective, based on a drawing by the mystic St. John of the Cross and modeled by a Hollywood stunt double.
The article explores why this ostensibly devotional work provokes such violent reactions, arguing that Dalí's attempt to merge atomic theory with Catholic dogma results in a frustratingly arid and metaphysical vision that renounces the tangible suffering and humanity central to traditional Crucifixion iconography. Despite Dalí's orthodox intentions, the painting's clinical perfection and the artist's own paradoxical identity as a 'Catholic without faith' imbue it with an implicit irreverence that continues to unsettle viewers.