Happy Pi Day from the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida

Happy Pi Day

March 14 is Pi Day

I cannot think of a better place to celebrate Pi Day than in the mathematical garden at The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg in Florida.

It is a surrealistic treat to go to Florida for some sun, sand and beach weather and stumble upon a mathematical garden in the fabulous Dali Museum.

Here is the link to The Dali Museum: http://thedali.org/

The Dali Museum is one of the top tourist attractions in St. Petersburg.

The address for The Dali Museum is easy to remember:

One Dali Boulevard

I am in the middle of Pi in the mathematical garden

Pi Day is March 14 because 3, 1 and 4 are the first three digits in Pi: 3.14

π is the Greek letter that represents Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

You can celebrate Pi by baking a Pie

Pillsbury has a recipe for Triple Berry Pi

On Pi Day, watch for pizza specials for $3.14

Massachusetts Institute of Technology emails its application decisions to prospective students on Pi Day. (I think this is a bit cruel for those who are waiting for a Pi delivery that never comes).

Here is more information on Pi from the mathematical garden

Why is there a mathematical garden at the Dali Museum?

First, a bit of background.

Salvador Dali was a flamboyant exhibitionist, a self-declared genius, the darling of the Surrealism movement.

With his wild eyes and extravagant mustache, Dali became one of the richest and most recognizable artists of the 20th century.

Dali described his trademark mustache as his antennae to the arts.

Picture yourself with Dali’s mustache

Portrait of My Dead Brother

Dali was born in Spain in 1904, exactly nine months after the death of his infant brother. He was named after his dead brother. When he was five, his parents took him to his brother’s grave and told him that he was his brother’s reincarnation.

Dali spent his whole life proving that he was not his dead brother. Dali said:

All the eccentricities which I commit, all the incoherent displays, are the tragic fixity of my life.

 

I wish to prove to myself that I am not the dead brother, but the living one.

As a young artist in the 1920’s, Dali was determined to shock the world. He was drawn to the Surrealist movement in Paris with an ethos of unleashing the imagination of the unconscious mind, unencumbered by morality or rationality.

The Dali cult was born. Surrealist theme parties became all the rage in Paris and New York. Dali made the cover of Time magazine in 1936. Sigmund Freud was Dali’s mentor. The art critic, Sanford Schwartz, said that Dali found a way to put Freud on canvas.

The New York Times art critic, John Russell, wrote:

When Dali hallucinated, the whole world hallucinated with him.

With his wild antics, many questioned Dali’s sanity. Dali replied:

The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad!

In his autobiography, Diary of a Genius, Dali wrote:

Oh Salvador, now you know the truth; that if you act the genius, you will be one!

My overwhelming impression after visiting the Dali Museum is that Dali was a genius.

Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory is one of Dali most famous paintings

The destructive power of the atomic bomb in 1945 shocked Dali out of his introspective psyche world.

The explosion of the atom bomb sent a seismic shock through me. Since then, the atom has been central to my thinking

Dali found a new passion to show the spirituality of matter and the unity of the universe. He turned to religion, science and mathematics for inspiration on how to express his conversion to mysticism through his work.

Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory is Dali’s way of painting atoms. Every object in the painting is fragmented into suspended atoms that do not touch each other.

Dali declared:

I am now the First Painter of the Atomic Age

This is a close-up of Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory

Can you  picture yourself on this park bench, suspended in Dali’s atomic world of time and space?

Here I am, suspended in Dali’s world of time and space

It was a surprise treat to see Dali’s exquisite Exploding Raphaelesque Head

This painting is on loan from the Scottish National Gallery.

This is a small, precise painting done in the style of a Raphael Madonna. A nuclear explosion has blown Madonna’s head into atomic fragments. The interior of her skull is in the shape of the interior of the Pantheon in Rome. The atomic fragments are shaped like the horns of a rhinoceros. The disseminated particles have reorganized themselves into a logarithmic spiral. Dali believed that the curve of the rhino horn was a perfect logarithmic spiral and therefore the ultimate in perfection.

A logarithmic spiral is the natural growth curve of plants, seashells and horns. These spirals can be divided into squares and rectangles in the golden ratio of the Golden Rectangle. The golden symmetry in the growth of curves is very pleasing to the eye and brain.

When you are finished in the museum, follow the growth curve out the back door to the centre of the mathematical garden.

I am standing in the middle of the Golden Rectangle in the mathematical garden

This is a closer look at the Golden Rectangle in the mathematical garden

Here is more information on the Golden Rectangle in the mathematical garden

This is the Dali lookalike docent who gave a wonderful tour inside the museum

In the background is a large Dali painting, Homage to Crick and Watson.

Homage to Crick and Watson is a tribute to Francis Crick and James D. Watson, who determined the double helicalstructure of DNA in 1953.

You can see the double helix on the left side of the painting.

Before you leave The Dali Museum, make a wish at the wish tree

The wish tree looks like it has grown in the style of a melting watch. It is propped up with supports.

This is the sign under the Dali Wish Tree

My grandchildren can learn math from this Dali souvenir T-shirt