The Enigma of Hitler contributed to Dalí's expulsion from the Surrealist movement. Since the early Thirties Hitler had fascinated Dalí, mainly because of the shape of his back. In 1934, he had to be stopped from painting a swastika armband on the figure of a wet nurse (the nurse is seen in this painting at the edge of the sea). The Surrealists saw Dalí's obsession with Hitler as evidence of his dubious moral and political beliefs, however, Dalí had long stated that he was apolitical, viewing wars and dictators alike as inevitable parts of human nature. Dalí explained The Enigma of Hitler was an interpretation of several dreams he had about Hitler - one had shown Neville Chamberlain's umbrella turning into a bat - a symbol from his childhood that filled him with fear.
    The telephone was an image Dalí used often, such as in the 1938 painting, The Mountain Lake. In The Enigma of Hitler the mouthpiece has mutated into threatening lobster claws, symbolic of the danger of these times with the onset of war. The phone hangs from a mutilated olive branch, signifying the death of hope.

    This large painting was begun shortly after Dalí and Gala had left Mlle Chanel's residence on the Cote d'Azur. They were then settled in the hotel at Font-Romeu in the Pyrenees. Dalí has told me [Robert Descharnes] that, one evening, when he was taking a walk along the coast road, he caught sight of a silhouette which exactly resembled that of General Gamelin, commander in chief of the French armies. A few days later, the hotel closed its doors and was broke out. After a few weeks spent in Paris, Dalí and Gala left to live in Arcachon. The painter has stressed the fact that the light and colors in the landscapes of this period are due in large part to this region along the Atlantic where the couple spent a few months before the German invasion. By contrast, the figure in this painting is the result as much of Dalí's being fed up with the Surrealists as of his regrets as not being able to return to Port Lligat because of the Civil War, which was not yet over. The reclining man is inspired by all the fishermen of Port Lligat, particularly by one named Ramon de Hermosa, whose motto was: "There are years when you don't feel like doing anything at all"; he had been in this state since childhood, and his immeasurable laziness had earned him much prestige among the fishermen of Cadaqués. Dalí related that Gala had asked Ramon to pump water each evening at the well near the house to fill the washtub; she noticed at the end of the second day that there was not a drop of water in the tub, although she could hear the rhythmic noise of the pump. Dalí and Gala then discovered Ramon stretched out at the foot of an olive tree in the act of cleverly imitating the grinding sound of the pump by striking two pieces of iron against each other, having taken beforehand the precaution of making the sound of his instrument perfect by suspending the two pieces of metal from two strings tied on the branches so as to expend the least effort. All the ancestral Mediterranean wisdom contained in the figures painted in this canvas shows that at bottom Dalí was never profoundly influenced or completely assimilated by the Parisian Surrealist group.
    By placing this painting in juxtaposition with a passage from The Secret Life one may better understand its meaning. "After the tense, agitated conversations in Paris, swarming with double meanings, maliciousness, and diplomacy, the stories of Ramon achieved a serenity of soul and a height of boring anecdotism which was incomparable.
    "The accounts of the fishermen of Port Lligat were the same, perfectly Homeric, and of a substantial reality for my brain weary of 'wit' and of affected manners. Gala and I spent entire months without any other company than that of Lydia, her two sons, the maid, Ramon de Hermosa, and about ten fishermen who kept their boats at Port Lligat."

    Another work which stands on the edge between Dalí's periods of Surrealism and Classicism. This painting is also very important for several other reasons, namely that it was the very first work to be purchased by Mr. and Mrs. A. Reynolds Morse, the renowned collectors of Dalí's art who founded the Salvador Dalí Museum, in St. Petersburg, Florida. When the Morses saw the painting at auction, they decided to purchase it, and felt that they had gotten quite a bargain. However, when they went to purchase the painting, they found that Dalí refused to sell the work without the original frame along with it. Apparently, Mr. Morse had only purchased the work itself, and actually had to pay more for the frame than for the painting! This anecdote is a good example of the way Dalí had matured, with Gala's help, into a shrewd businessman who was keenly aware of his value.
    However, rather than being sour about the experience, which would have been understandable, the Morses instead started buying more and more works, and eventually became lifelong traveling companions and friends of the Dalí's. It was their efforts that gathered together nearly 100 oil paintings, hundreds of watercolors and drawings, and a vast archival library that now comprise the museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.
    Each of the objects in the work itself is done in stunning detail. The scene is set upon an apocalyptic plain, and one immediately seems to get a feeling of dread or misgiving. Because Dalí intended this work to be an examination of the horrors of World War II that had now begun in earnest, Dalí fills the scene with allegorical references to that event.
    In the upper left hand corner of the painting stands a cannon, propped up by a crutch which here symbolizes death and war. Out of the mouth of the cannon spill two distinct objects, the lower being a 'soft' or somewhat fluid biplane, and the other a white horse, galloping at a mad pace, its muscles and facial contortions suggesting power, speed and control.
    The horse may symbolize one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and the events of 1940 in Europe could have certainly appeared Apocalyptical, especially to one as sensitive as Dalí. The soft airplane, and another nearby object, the winged victory figure, are symbolic of "victory born of a broken wing" as Dalí described it. Salvador felt that the use of air power would be the decisive element of the war, the very key to victory itself. History has shown that this is at least partially true.
    Nearer the center of the painting is another soft figure, what Dalí calls a 'soft self-portrait', an image from other works long since past. Its decaying body is drooped over a dead tree, it has two inkwells propped on it, and it's holding a violin. The ink wells are symbolic of the signing of treaties, although Dalí also occasionally used them to express sexuality as well. There are ants quickly devouring the soft head, and though we have not seen very many Dalínian ants to this point, they are another common symbol for Dalí. In general they represent decay and decomposition, as it is they (and many other insects as Dalí might point out) who eventually devour everything in the ground, and return it to its chemical components. For this reason Dalí often included ants as symbols of death, decay, and purification, all of which he was obsessed with.
    In the lower left hand corner, a cupid figure looks on the scene, holding its face in one hand, and reaching out the other towards the destruction he sees before him. This agonized cupid almost seems to verbalize its horror in overlooking the terrible scene being played out before it. Remember that Dada, and eventually Surrealism were born out of the rebellion against the mindless destruction of World War I. In reality, none of the issues that caused that war were ever rectified, and this led to World War II, which shocked and outraged Dalí and many others, prompting these sorts of works that seem to say "Dear God not again!"
    However, in the midst of such pain and terror, there is always hope, and this is symbolized by the daddy longlegs spider resting in almost the exact center of the painting, near the ants on the soft self portrait. The daddy longlegs, when seen in the evening, is a French symbol for hope. Thus, Dalí is offering us solace, even in the middle of such terrible devastation. This dualistic nature of his is slowly starting to shift more and more towards the positive, and towards themes and subjects that are more in the conscious realm of things. This predates his entering his Classical period in 1941, but shows the same tendencies nonetheless.

    The work "Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages)" was completed in 1940, near the time when Dalí and Gala fled from France in anticipation of the coming Nazi invasion. It was during this time that Dalí was being primed by Gala to move away from his surrealistic roots and towards more common and traditional themes. Although this painting is officially considered a Surreal work, it is an excellent example of the transformation that the artist was undergoing at the time. The painting currently hangs in the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, and is a valuable member of that collection.
    The work utilizes Dalí's now mature double imagery techniques to transform elements from the Catalan coastline into three separate and distinct faces that represent the three so called 'ages' of man. To the far right, a brick wall extends towards the center of the painting, and in what would appear to be a hole, a small cliff with trees emerges. On the face of the cliff is superimposed the image of a bowed, cloaked figure, whose head and clothing blend together with the cliff itself to create the double image of an elderly, mustached gentleman.
    The center face, that of the adolescent, if formed from the combination of the towering cliffs in the background and the figures of both Lucia (Dalí's nursemaid) and Dalí himself, both with their backs to us. The cliffs both have an eye superimposed on them, and Lucia's clothing is creased in such a way that these elements combine to form the face of a young man, perhaps in his twenties.
    To the far right, the final face, that of the infant, is also formed from the combination of both scenery and a figure in the scenery. The cliffs to the far right form the edge of the face, while the figure of the netmender, sitting with her back towards us, helps to form up the nose, mouth and teeth of the smiling infant. The net itself looks like some sort of bib or collar. A second netmender figure is seen further to the right, and farther down the beach.
    All together, these faces create an ambitious double image painting that makes extensive use of elements from Dalí's past that were important to him. In many ways, he himself may have been trying to directly express how these elements had a profound effect on him, and were central to his being. Most important among these are the direct references to the Catalan coastline, which was the subject of many Dalínian paintings throughout his career. Also important is the presence of Lucia, who nursed Dalí back to health as a child, and to whom he had a deep sentimental attachment.
    In general, the author feels that Dalí's use of these three allegorical faces is in itself a double meaning. On the surface, he may be discussing the inevitable effects of time on the human individual, but it is his choice of using the double imagery technique that is particularly telling. As World War II increased in intensity, Dalí must have certainly been disgusted with the bureaucracies and governments that had caused the conflict. As a Surrealist, Dalí had long ago turned away from such institutions, and is herein commenting on the double talk, double meaning, and inherent shortcomings of such a system.

    The concept of a still life placed in front of an architectural structure through which one glimpses a fragment of the landscape is one that Dalí has made use of frequently to show to advantage the bust of Voltaire by the sculptor Houdon, which disappears to give place to a group of people. This work was done in the United States at Arcachon in 1940, in which we find again the compotier of The Endless Enigma and Gala, who "by her patient love protected me from the ironic world crawling with slaves." Dalí means by this that he attributes to Gala's gaze the magic power of annihilating the image of Voltaire in order to protect him from any vestige of the skeptical French philosophy of the eighteen century and its consequences. Scientific American magazine in the December 1971 issue used a detail from the Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire to demonstrate the physical structure of the perception system of sight in which the optical neurons reverse the images. While painting this picture, Dalí related in Dalí de Gala: "I kept reciting without ever stopping the poem of Joan Salvat Papasseit, 'Love and War, the Salt of the Earth.'" Salvat Papasseit was a Catalonian anarchist whom Dalí greatly admired. In Barcelona he was accused of having become an extreme rightist because the only thing he did was to apologize for the war at a time when everybody else had become pacifists.
    This work exemplifies the caliber of paintings that Dalí was creating during this period. It is a perfect example of an instantaneous paranoiac-critical transformation. Dalí had long been experimenting with the idea of double imagery, and this work so perfectly exemplifies it that it was used by the cover of Scientific American in 1971 to illustrate the concept.
    This work lets us experience Dalí's paranoiac-critical transformations in a unique and personal way. Any change in head position, or time itself, is expressed as a switch between the shifting images of the Dutch traders or the bust of French philosopher Voltaire.
    The shirtless slave girl in the foreground is surmised to be Gala herself, overseeing the transaction. The faces, collars, and midriffs of the two Dutch merchants become the eyes, nose, and chin of the bust of Voltaire. Although the brain is unable to focus on both images simultaneously, they are blended together perfectly, and in such a way as to suggest a more subtle level of interaction.
    The landscape of Catalonia makes another appearance here, and parts of it are made into a more subtle double image on the left side of the painting. Notice the gently downward sloping hill, nearest the building on the right, and how it also becomes a pear sitting in a fruit dish propped up on the table at which Gala is sitting. This is particularly interesting, since like many other double images, it incorporates parts of both background and foreground. Additionally, a plum sitting to the left of the pear also becomes the buttocks of one of the men who is standing there watching the scene.

    This beautiful still life, depicting three slices of bread, a few crumbs, and a chess pawn, is a remarkable example of the way in which Dalí succeeds in adding an epic dimension to the most ordinary of everyday things. This picture was painted in Arcachon in the spring of 1940. Dalí has said about the "intervention, from an anecdotal point of view," of Marcel Duchamp in this oil: "Gala and I used to play chess every afternoon, at the same time that I was in the process of painting the slices of bread. I was trying to make the surface on which the rough crumbs of bread were placed very smooth. Often there were things scattered about on the floor for instance, the pawns. One day, instead of putting them all back in the box, one of them remained placed in the middle of the model of my still life. Afterwards we had to find another chess set in order to continue our games, because I was using this one and would not allow anyone to remove it." Pictures of bread occupy an important place in Dalí's work, not only in painting but also in objects, such as Retrospective Bust of a Woman. He himself has explained the presence of bread in his works when writing about one of his paintings of 1945, Basket of Bread, in the catalogue of an exhibition at the Bignou Gallery in New York: "My aim was to retrieve the lost technique of the painters of the past, to succeed in depicting the immobility of the pre-explosive object. Bread has always been one of the oldest subjects of fetishism and obsession in my work, the first and the one to which I have remained the most faithful. I painted the same subject nineteen years ago, The Basket of Bread. By making a very careful comparison of the two pictures, everyone can study all the history of painting right there, from the linear charm of primitivism to stereoscopic hyper-aestheticism."

    "The two most energetic motors that make the artistic and superfine brain of Salvador Dalí function are, first, libido, or the sexual instinct, and, second, the anguish of death," affirms the painter; "not a single minute of my like passes without the sublime Catholic, apostolic, and Roman specter of death accompanying me even in the least important of my most subtle and capricious fantasies."
    This painting was done in California at the end of the year 1940; the horrible face of war, its eyes filled with infinite death, was much more a reminiscence of the Spanish Civil Was than of the Second World War, which, at the time, had not yet provided a cortege of frightful images capable of impressing Dalí. He himself wrote in The Secret Life: "I was entering a period of rigor and asceticism which was going to dominate my style, my thoughts, and my tormented life. Spain in fire would light up this drama of the renaissance of aesthetics. Spain would serve as a holocaust to that post-war Europe tortured by ideological dramas, by moral and artistic anxieties... At one fell swoop, from the middle of the Spanish cadaver, springs up, half-devoured by vermin and ideological worms, the Iberian penis in erection, huge like a cathedral filled with the white dynamite of hatred. Bury and Unbury! Disinter and Inter! In order to unbury again! Such was the charnel desire of the Civil War in that impatient Spain. One would see how she was capable of suffering; of making others suffer, of burying and unburying, of killing and resurrecting. It was necessary to scratch the earth to exhume tradition and to profane everything in order to be dazzled anew by all the treasures that the land was hiding in its entrails." The horror of this picture is further increased by the brown tonalities which dominate its atmosphere. On the anecdotal sire, Dalí has stressed that it was the only work where one could see the true imprint of his hand on the canvas (at the lower right).

    The concept of a still life placed in front of an architectural structure through which one glimpses a fragment of the landscape is one that Dalí has made use of frequently to show to advantage the bust of Voltaire by the sculptor Houdon, which disappears to give place to a group of people. This work was done in the United States subsequently to another picture, called Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire, painted at Arcachon in 1940, in which we find again the compotier of The Endless Enigma and Gala, who "by her patient love protected me from the ironic world crawling with slaves."Dalí means by this that he attributes to Gala's gaze, the magic power of annihilating the image of Voltaire in order to protect him from any vestige of the sceptical French philosophy of the eighteenth century and its consequences. Dalí's double image of the Bust of Voltaire by Houdon has been used many times in various works and publications to illustrate the time-space concept. Dalí did a gouache of this figure as a picture puzzle. Scientific American magazine in the December 1971 issue used a detail from the vSlave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire to demonstrate the physical structure of the perception system of sight in which the optical neurons reverse the images. While painting this picture Dalí related in Dalí de Gala: "I kept reciting without ever stopping the poem of Joan Salvat Papasseit, 'Love and War, the Salt of the Earth.'" Salvat Papasseit was a Catalonian anarchist whom Dalí greatlv admired. In Barcelona he was accused of having become 'an extreme rightist because the only thing he did was to apologize for the war at a time when everybody else had become pacifists.