In Voluptas Mors

“In Voluptas Mors” (“Voluptuous Death”), is probably one of the most complex portraits I have ever seen alongside Halsman’s “Dali Atomicus” which took 28 attempts! “In Voluptas Mors” is again a carefully considered and planned out portrait of the surrealistic Spanish artist Salvador Dalí, made in collaboration with photographer Philippe Halsman (1951). The image depicts Dalí posing beside a giant ‘skull’, a tableau vivant (or “living picture”) comprising of seven nude female models in beautiful mind blogging poses. As you can imagine it took a considerable amount of time to create this wonderful photograph. It took all in all Halsman and Dali three hours to arrange the models according to Dalí’s precise sketch.