Rhinocerotic Figure Of Phidias's Illisos, 1954 By Salvador Dali Editorial Image

This comes from what Dali described as his 'almost divine and chaste rhinoceros-horn period', when he claimed that the curve of the beast's horn was the only perfect logarithmic spiral and consequently the ultimate in formal perfection. With characteristic Daliesque logic - or critical paranoia - this insight came to him while he was copying a canvas that had obsessed him for decades: the cool, lovely, light-filled portrait of The Lacemaker by Vermeer.