After the atomic bombs were dropped on August 6th and 9th of 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dalí took his work in a new direction based on the principle that the modern age had to be assimilated into art if art was to be truly contemporary.
Salvador Dalí was a man of many interests and one of them was the world of science. In his library were hundreds of books about various aspects of science (physics, quantum mechanics, the origins of life, evolution, mathematics,etc), with notes and observations on the margins. There were also many scientific journals, which he would read to stay updated of developments in science and to which he was subscribed until his death.
Towards the end of his life he was highly interested in the work developed by Stephen Hawking, A History of Time, and in the catastrophe theory of the mathematician René Thom, with whom he was great friends.
Dali's artwork after 1945 is a historical tour of the scientific events of the 21st century, or at least of those that struck him most. Influences include the the atomic bomb, physics, quantum mechanics, the origins of life, evolution, mathematics, geometry, time travel, catastrophe theory and more!
