Art

Salvador Dali and Galatea

Someone asked me recently about a Salvador Dali masterpiece “Galatea of the Spheres”. They were wondering who or what is Galatea?

Galatea is both a nymph in Greek myth and Dali’s Wife.

Gala’s name was Helena Diakanoff Devulina and she is depicted in many of Dali’s works.

Galatea (“she who is milk-white”) was the name of a figure in Greek mythology.
Galatea was a Nereid sea nymph who was yearned for by the Sicilian Cyclops Polyphemus. She, however, loved a Sicilian youth named Acis, whom the giant Polyphemus killed with a boulder in a jealous rage. Distraught, Galatea turned his blood into the River Acis in Sicily.

Almost no one ever knows what Dali means, but if you would have asked him he ould have told you. And you may not have been any better informed than before…