THE APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER By Salvador Dali

Surrealist artist Dali is well known for his pictures of melting clocks, burning giraffes, and other such dream like pictures.  However, this artist was also influenced at a young age by Greek History and art.  Perhaps it was the close proximity to Greece that he lived; Dali was born and raised in Spain.  Others have postulated that at a young age, his father read Greek mythology to him.  In fact, many scholars attribute this contact with Greek mythology to serve as an influence in Dali's surrealistic work.  Like the stories of beautiful goddesses, unlikely events, and other-worldly features, Dali creates mystical worlds through his art that the modern world defines as "dreamlike." 

One critic of Dali's work has made specific claims about Dali's painting The Apotheosis of Homer.   Platzner hypothesizes that Dali "reduces Homer to a broken bit of statuary, a relic, while the solid temple of the muse itself melts"... The "ethereal horse," which may be Pegasus, casting off riders attempting to reach the stars again signals myth's cessation as a legitimate method of contemplating humanity's existence and signals the changing state of not only art, but also thought and reasoning as well (Platzner :http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Arts/Dali.htm).