The Madonna of Port Lligat is the name of two paintings by Salvador Dalí. The first was created in 1949, measuring 49 x 37.5 centimetres (19.3 x 14.8 in), and is housed in the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Dali submitted it to Pope Pius XII for approval, which was granted. Dalí created a second painting in 1950 with the same title and same themes, with various poses and details changed, measuring 144 x 96 centimetres (57.7 x 37.8 in); As of 2008, the 1950 Madonna is exhibited at the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan.
The paintings depict a seated Madonna (posed by Dalí's wife, Gala) with the infant Christ on her lap. Both figures have rectangular holes cut into their torsos, suggestive of their transcendent status. In the 1950 version Christ has bread at the center of his figure. They are posed in a landscape, with a view of Port Lligat, Catalonia seashore in the background, with surrealist details, including nails, fish, seashells, and an egg. The 1949 Madonna has a sea urchin; the 1950 Madonna has a rhinoceros and figures of angels, also posed by Gala.
A poem and book based on The Virgin of Port Lligat by Fray Angelico Chavez, was selected as one of the best books of 1959 by the Catholic Library Association
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Famous quotes containing the words madonna and/or port:
“In our minds lives the madonna imagethe all-embracing, all- giving tranquil mother of a Raphael painting, one child at her breast, another at her feet; a woman fulfilled, one who asks nothing more than to nurture and nourish. This creature of fantasy, this myth, is the modelthe unattainable ideal against which women measure, not only their performance, but their feelings about being mothers.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“Through the port comes the moon-shine astray!
It tips the guards cutlass and silvers this nook;
But twill die in the dawning of Billys last day.
A jewel-block theyll make of me to-morrow,
Pendant pearl from the yard-arm-end
Like the ear-drop I gave to Bristol Molly
O, tis me, not the sentence theyll suspend.”
—Herman Melville (18191891)