The Phenomenon of Ecstasy, photomontage by Salvador Dali (1933)“…The image originally followed a text by Dali on the apparently irrational component of art nouveau architecture, parts of which alluded to sculptural details of girls and angels in rhapsodic abandon on the buildings of Antoni Gaudi. ‘Continuous erotic ecstasy,’ wrote the artist, leads to ‘contractions and attitudes without precedence in the history of statuary.’ He continued in a sub-section also entitled ‘Phénomène de l’extase’ that, ‘The repugnant can be transformed into the beautiful,’ through such ecstasy. The transformation of the perception of art, architecture and most other forms of modern life was thus dependent upon the continuous excitation of such ecstasy…”
— Robert James Belton, The Beribboned Bomb: The Image of Woman in Male Surrealist Art, p. 249.
